Oculus just announced that they would be ending their own accounts system. The Facebook-owned VR company said that they will be integrating Facebook accounts with their devices from now on. Since it is compulsory to have an account fro using Oculus devices, users will now have to make a Facebook account.
They made the announcement via their blog. They explained that this would be a three-stage process. Starting in October 2020, people with non-activated oculus devices ( New or Previously bought) will need a Facebook account to sign in. The people who are already using these devices will have to merge their existing accounts with Facebook ones before January 2023. Also, all of the new Oculus devices will only have Facebook account support from the start.
Oculus says that they will work to make the third party purchased software available for users even after the migration. That entirely depends on these software developers then could opt-out if they don’t like this shift. Also, October 2020 account merging is not available, and you can use both Oculus and Facebook accounts. However, beware that the content purchased from one account will not be available on the other.
The company says they took this step to ensure community security as well as introduce new features. The Facebook integration will bring new multiplayer and social features to the headsets. Facebook integration will also offer better support with “Horizon.” Horizon is an upcoming Social VR application from Facebook which copies the concept of existing apps like RecRoom or VR Chat with the addition of a Facebook account.
The Internet Speaks:
This change was a long time coming after the acquisition of Oculus by Facebook back in 2014. At that time, however, the founder and CEO of Oculus Palmer Luckey said that users would never have to use Facebook accounts fro using Oculus devices.
What’s more interesting is his reaction to this statement from the company. Luckey tried to defend his past speech by saying, “I want to make clear that those promises were approved by Facebook at that moment and on an ongoing basis, and I really believed it would continue to be the case for a variety of reasons.”
This sheer ignorance was disturbing for a lot of people because of the time of purchase. They were ensured that they would not have to do that. A user on twitter went even as far as asking for a refund after this statement.
Can I get a refund on all my Oculus purchases since when I bought them you said I wouldn't have to do this?
Serious question I will keep asking until answered.
I don't want to have to link my FB profile to my VR profile.
— Jon (@JonVirtual) August 18, 2020
The backlash on this decision does not end here. This announcement fired up a lot of discussions about alternative companies and what they have to offer in terms of quality, pricing, and performance. Some of the main competitors in question now are HTC Vive as well as VR headsets from companies such as Microsoft and Valve.
Oh, we're up.
— HTC VIVE (@htcvive) August 18, 2020
The VR community obviously did not react well to this announcement. Facebook has a weird sense of showing their ownership of everything they own. Take the Whatsapp and Instagram startup screens, for instance. This, however, crosses the line for a lot of people and well be seeing a lot of problems for Oculus in the future. A lot of people online have started recommending other companies to VR newcomers.