[Verge] You’ll need a Facebook account to use future Oculus headsets

[truncated_pachyderm]

Just permanently deleted my Facebook account last week. Not re-opening it for this. I want hardware, not a platform.

Can you setup and use a Rift / Rift S without logging into an Oculus account, and then just purchase games on Steam? Obviously I'm grandfathered in for the time being.

 

[Ploid 6.0]

Thank goodness it's not the only VR headset on the market, and never will be. Screw that.

 

[ManNR]

Just here to echo the sentiment "Fuck This" and "Fuck Facebook".

 

[collige]

I really wish they weren't so far beyond everyone else (and most likely made way worse with the advancements coming with Quest 2). I borderline hate my Index. There's a certain face type (I think it's sunken eyes/pronounced forehead) that makes the glare/reflections absolutely gross with the Index. Like who designed this shit, gross. If Gabe had my face, I think he would have fired the bozos who designed this system. And it's not an uncommon issue. The subreddit had a ton of upvotes on this issue when Index first released. Now the horde protects the Index's reputation by downvoting any criticism and bringing out the lazy ass excuse of "adjust it right". But any levels of high contrast has my outer fresnal lenses looking like a kaleidoscope rotating around inside. And if white is the dominant color in a high contrast scene, it's a painful flash into the center of the eyeballs. This ignores how it was only bought for seated VR and corded/roomscale VR just results in my HMD collecting dust. Wireless is not optional for me in 2020. It's mandatory IMO.

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Holy shit I thought I was the only person having this issue. Would you mind linking to the Reddit threads where people talk about it?

 

[ViciousToaster]

Yeah, this is gross. I suspect Zuck has high hopes for Facebook Horizon.

Guess I'll just enjoy my Quest for the next couple of years and not bother with Oculus ever again.

 

[shodgson8]

I have a Quest, zero regrets about getting it as it enabled me to played Half Life Alyx which has cemented itself as pretty much my favourite game however I will not be buying another Oculus product with this news. I deliberately use an Oculus account and simply haven't had a Facebook one in years.

In the medium term I will probably have a look at selling the Quest, I assume it would still be worth a few hundred.

 

[Nacho]

Cool cool, so my oculus store purchases will be locked away in a few years unless a create a facebook account which I deleted recently?

 

[Legacy]

RIP Oculus, it's like they don't want people to support the product

 

[1-D_FE]

Holy shit I thought I was the only person having this issue. Would you mind linking to the Reddit threads where people talk about it?

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I'll try and find it. I initially found a thread (with a ton of upvotes) when I was google searching to see if anyone had every RMA'd a headset and had the issue go away. That thread was filled with lots of upvotes and it seemed the consensus was it wasn't something that could be fixed for that individual.

I've also seen people make these complaints in sim racing theads (where the subject of night racing on the Index was brought up).

Out of curiosity, are your eyes kind of sunken? I have the lenses as close to my face as the adjustment goes. But I've found that if I really crank up the dial, and compress the cushion against my face so they can get even closer, it's seems to lesson the issue. It's not a solution, however, because it needs to be so tight, that'll I'll start getting a headache after 2 minutes.

 

[Ganondolf]

I thought you already needed one for the quest.

 

[Observable]

Judging by most reactions in the Apple vs Epic lawsuit, most here won't have any problem with this as Facebook is supposed to be fully in their right as its their device. In fact, they should make it a walled garden for a safe environment, only allowing their own store.

 

[MrFox]

Maybe the board started asking questions:

Pointy-Haired Boss #1: "Why did we acquire them in the first place if it was completely unrelated to our core business?"

Pointy-Haired Boss #2: "uh... sir... it requires a facebook account now, so technically it's an adjacent market"

*clap*clap*clap*clap*

 

[Deleted member 15737]

I was looking for the quest, but its hard to find. I hate Facebook. Im conflicted now.

Is there something in the pipeline from someone else that competes with what the quest offers?

 

[Haint]

For those of you who may not be familiar with Facebook and think this is no big deal cause you can just make a burner account with your Era handle or "John Doe". Think again, you can not. Facebook frequently and systematically locks such accounts, which will in turn forfeit your 100's of 1000's of dollars in Oculus store purchases. This has already happened to people on Oculus Reddits.They require you to upload a drivers license matching the profile name to unlock it, so good luck "John Doe".

 

[RetroDLC]

I'll just register a new disposable email and create a barebones account with maximum privacy settings that I only log in once for setup with.

 

[HylianSeven]

I'm glad I have a Vive.

 

[collige]

I'll try and find it. I initially found a thread (with a ton of upvotes) when I was google searching to see if anyone had every RMA'd a headset and had the issue go away. That thread was filled with lots of upvotes and it seemed the consensus was it wasn't something that could be fixed for that individual.

I've also seen people make these complaints in sim racing theads (where the subject of night racing on the Index was brought up).

Out of curiosity, are your eyes kind of sunken? I have the lenses as close to my face as the adjustment goes. But I've found that if I really crank up the dial, and compress the cushion against my face so they can get even closer, it's seems to lesson the issue. It's not a solution, however, because it needs to be so tight, that'll I'll start getting a headache after 2 minutes.

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I'm not really sure if my eyes are sunken (I don't think so?), but everything else you're saying is 100% in line with my experience. I've also found that bringing the lenses closer helps, but like you say the tension is pretty headache inducing. I think I might just have a smaller head in general because I easily get light leakage around my nose and the bass response on the headphones sucks unless i bring them in closer to my ears. This is definitely OT though so this conversation might be better moved to PM.

 

[Dewin]

Facebook wants to know what VR Porn you watch.

 

[Radline]

This was coming a mile away ever since acquisition. Good thing Valve Index has been the one I'm interested in anyway.

 

[woolyninja]

I mean, just create a fake account and never post anything to it? I don't see why a company requiring you to login to that company to use its product is a big deal. The outrage seems strange to me, but maybe I'm missing something?

 

[Haint]

I'll just register a new disposable email and create a barebones account with maximum privacy settings that I only log in once for setup with.

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Use your real name and expect (and be willing) to upload your drivers license when they lock the account.

 

[Huggie]

Thats me out then, I'll get the Reverb g2 :)

 

[Deleted member 14313]

Welp. And here I was interested in a future Occulus Quest.

Hope someone else can put out a good realiatively cheap standalone headset.

 

[Haint]

I mean, just create a fake account and never post anything to it? I don't see why a company requiring you to login to that company to use its product is a big deal. The outrage seems strange to me, but maybe I'm missing something?

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See above, you can not create a "Fake Account", they systematically lock Wooly Ninja's or John Smiths. You are however free to use your real name and never post anything to the account, but fully expect to give them your drivers license or work/student ID to restore your purchases, cause they routinely lock inactive accounts due to "suspicion of dormant bot farms". Facebook are not Twitter or Gmail, their business is real ID and they enforce it.

 

[Kotze282]

Just make a dummy one? Edit: With a fake generated name maybe?

 

[bes.gen]

lol, no chance zuck, you can shove your headset

 

[King Kingo]

Damn Zuckerburg, you could have had people sign up with an Instagram account, instead.

This is clearly an intentional move to get younger people back to using Facebook.

 

[Samiya]

So what you are telling us that it doesn't matter at all because of your digital footprint nothing matters right? People in Europe mostly use WhatsApp so for them it doesn't already matter anymore. With Facebook shadow profiles and all nowadays good luck getting out at all. A burner account to have certain things separated works in that regard. If you like privacy I have news for you (Google, Sony, Nintendo, Apple - everyone has your data)

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So how is making FB a requirement any different from their current tracking capabilities if you make a fake account?

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I'm saying that getting a VR headset that requires a FB account that will most certainly mine as much info as possible from you to sell to advertisement agencies, insurance companies, and authoritarian intelligence agencies is bad. And that using a fake FB account won't help things either, as they triangulate information to your digital identification 'data double'.

 

[Scuffed]

This really sucks.

 

[canderous]

Fuck Facebook and all that, but realistically in my case this wouldn't be a big deal. I do not have a FB account, so if I needed one it would be a dummy account with no friends or contacts on it whatsoever.

Facebook is hard blocked on my pi hole though, so I'd probably need to finesse some of that stuff to get oculus working. I just wouldn't let myself be logged in anywhere but that oculus app.

 

[Beanman25]

I'll make a dummy account named facebook sucks. Lol. No big deal

 

[Spenny]

Neat. Now both HTC and Oculus are dead.

 

[Nzyme32]

Ah remember the days when they swore this would never happen. Glad to have avoided investing in the ecosystem.

I want as little association with Facebook accounts as possible, let alone the hardware and policy changes over time that seems to have further enabled their ability to grab data. The Quest requiring accepting the policy change a while back hinted at this, and here it is.

Good that there are more competitors at this stage.

 

[pksu]

Just make a dummy one? Edit: With a fake generated name maybe?

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I'll make a dummy account named facebook sucks. Lol. No big deal

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If you have an account that counts as "atypical" (like with only few friends, the exact triggers are not known afaik) FB may lock the account and ask you to prove your identity for example by providing a scan of your driver's license.

 

[Haint]

I'll make a dummy account named facebook sucks. Lol. No big deal

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The OP really needs to add this to the OP, you can not do that. Facebook locks burner accounts and requires photo ID's to unlock them. You will forfeit anything you purchase on a fake account.

You’ll need a Facebook account to use future Oculus headsets

You can keep a separate “VR profile,” though.

www.theverge.com

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[signal]

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

From Palmer Luckey:

I am already getting heat from users and media outlets who say this policy change proves I was lying when I consistently said this wouldn't happen, or at least that it was a guarantee I wasn't in a position to make. I want to make clear that those promises were approved by Facebook in that moment and on an ongoing basis, and I really believed it would continue to be the case for a variety of reasons. In hindsight, the downvotes from people with more real-world experience than me were definitely justified.

A few examples below so people won't make up their own version of what I actually said:

• I guarantee that you won't need to log into your Facebook account every time you wanna use the Oculus Rift.
• You will not need a Facebook account to use or develop for the Rift
• Nope. That would be lame.
• I promise.

Click to shrink...

 

[1-D_FE]

Ah remember the days when they swore this would never happen. Glad to have avoided investing in the ecosystem.

I want as little association with Facebook accounts as possible, let alone the hardware and policy changes over time that seems to have further enabled their ability to grab data. The Quest requiring accepting the policy change a while back hinted at this, and here it is.

Good that there are more competitors at this stage.

Click to shrink...

I ditched them after DK2, but came back for Quest. It's such a shame that it seems like a high quality inside out tracking system AND wireless PCVR seems so far away from anyone else. Like, I'm not even a little optimistic this is coming from anyone not named Facebook. Not in the next two years, at least.

 

[8bit]

Are you sure?
I run 3 dif accounts one personal, one for games and one for testing ads / content and they never clashed with each other. 2 of them dont have any friends or anything, each a dif email address. It cant track my main account. Even tho i login to them on same machine.

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Facebook knows you're one person with three accounts.

Just permanently deleted my Facebook account last week. Not re-opening it for this. I want hardware, not a platform.

Can you setup and use a Rift / Rift S without logging into an Oculus account, and then just purchase games on Steam? Obviously I'm grandfathered in for the time being.

Click to shrink...

You only deleted the bit you see, your data is still with facebook as a shadow account with the preferences and groups and likes you had. If you ever create a new account, facebook will pretty quickly figure out who you are.

 

[chrominance]

So much for ever buying another Oculus product again.

But also, why do we give a shit about what Palmer Luckey thinks? In addition to him being an asshole, he hasn't worked at Oculus/Facebook for years and certainly would not have known if Facebook would change course after he left. And if anyone felt like he was making a lifetime guarantee, you should've known no one would ever be able to hold Facebook to that.

 

[Kotze282]

If you have an account that counts as "atypical" (like with only few friends, the exact triggers are not known afaik) FB may lock the account and ask you to prove your identity for example by providing a scan of your driver's license.

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Ok that sucks. But if you buy something on the Oculus Store, you would have to compromise your identity (to Facebook) anyways, right? Same with PSN, Steam etc. At least in Germany, you have to provide some proof of your identity because of age restrictions if you use something where you would remain "anonymous" to the seller, like PayPal.

You only deleted the bit you see, your data is still with facebook as a shadow account with the preferences and groups and likes you had. If you ever create a new account, facebook will pretty quickly figure out who you are.

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There is a law in the EU (I think it falls under GDPR) where if you instruct them, they have to delete everything they have on you. Only thing they are allowed to keep are things where they are required by law to keep it, like purchasing data, which they then have to delete after a set amount of time (like when your warranty ends or something). The question is are they really doing that, because how would you control it, and what is the legality of just keeping stuff on servers not in the EU I guess.

 

[Scuffed]

This really makes me feel good that I only ever bought Virtual Console and Beatsaber for my quest. Everything else I only get through Steam. So I can ditch the ecosystem and not be out much.

 

[bbg_g]

Wow RIP

 

[Dave.]

People with Oculus been giving Facebook money for years through Oculus, but now acting like it's unacceptable to be associated with Facebook because they now need a Facebook account.

It's a weird stance. If you're against Facebook as a company or as a concept, why would you use Oculus products in the first place?

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I guess people have just been able to maintain separation in their minds, optimistically or naively, that an "oculus account" wasn't already just a facebook account by any other name. And now that minor distinction is removed, the illusion is shattered resulting in anger. But yeah, it doesn't really hold up to much scrutiny, logically.

 

[DavidDesu]

Knew this would happen eventually. Zuckerberg wants all your data.

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Yep, ultimately this is about getting as much entertainment running in VR where they can literally know every single thing you do, everything you look at, and down the line when you have everything like your heart rate monitoring watch connected up to see how you react to different stimuli and so on.... I mean I don't actually think it's crazy to suggest that one day they really will want to do a Westworld on us all and hone their AI to predict your behaviour or even mimic you in some nefarious form or another. We really need super powerful global laws but everyone has their head in the sand or is downright gonna get lobbied, i.e. paid to minimise the lows against this tech which ultimately will breach everyone's right to freedom of thought (because they will have stolen that data from us too given how wide a net they have cast on all of our behaviour).

TL:DR Fuck Zuck!

 

[hikarutilmitt]

I'm not sure anyone would be surprised by a company wanting you to have a account with them to use their device. Particularly a datamining, ad-pushing one that makes its users the product like Facebook.

 

[Nzyme32]

I ditched them after DK2, but came back for Quest. It's such a shame that it seems like a high quality inside out tracking system AND wireless PCVR seems so far away from anyone else. Like, I'm not even a little optimistic this is coming from anyone not named Facebook. Not in the next two years, at least.

Click to shrink...

The priorities are simply very different.
You can't get wireless VR without significant expense at high fidelity and framerate and low latency, which is what is being pushed on PC right now. If you don't like that, then for sure PC VR isn't going to be for you. It will scale over time based on what vendors are prioritising, manufacturer processes and market scale etc. And so far, since PC is so focused on an established home setup, this makes sense - with wireless strictly option for the time being, and pushing all the various technologies to scale appropriately gradually, while bringing in more technologies that are critical for improving the experience. I definitely wouldn't bet on wireless HMDs being a focus on PC near term.

 

[1-D_FE]

I guess people have just been able to maintain separation in their minds, optimistically or naively, that an "oculus account" wasn't already just a facebook account by any other name. And now that minor distinction is removed, the illusion is shattered resulting in anger. But yeah, it doesn't really hold up to much scrutiny, logically.

Click to shrink...

There's a huge distinction. Facebook won't email people I know and ask them to friend my Oculus account. Nor will they lock my Oculus account because I'm not making shitty posts on it.

The privacy thing is less of a concern to me. I've never used Facebook (or their platforms) and block any and all web scripts associated with them. They may know my name/location/and Oculus Quest activity, but very little else.

The priorities are simply very different.
You can't get wireless VR without significant expense at high fidelity and framerate and low latency, which is what is being pushed on PC right now. If you don't like that, then for sure PC VR isn't going to be for you. It will scale over time based on what vendors are prioritising, manufacturer processes and market scale etc. And so far, since PC is so focused on an established home setup, this makes sense - with wireless strictly option for the time being, and pushing all the various technologies to scale appropriately gradually, while bringing in more technologies that are critical for improving the experience. I definitely wouldn't bet on wireless HMDs being a focus on PC near term.

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I might be wrong, but I would bet that OG Quest and Rift S are both going to be put in the grave by Quest 2. And yes, I expect I very high quality, wireless streaming solution for the Quest 2. The main issue with Quest's streaming was Snapdragon 835. It's going to be way better than Quest and VD (even with just Snapdragon 845). Both in terms of bandwidth and latency. Good enough that very few people will care about the slight tradeoffs.

Even with the limitations with Quest, I still played my free copy of HL:A (from Index purchase) on my Quest. Although it helps that I would have smashed my Index into a million pieces if I would have been forced to play those dark sections on my Index.

 

[truncated_pachyderm]

Facebook knows you're one person with three accounts.



You only deleted the bit you see, your data is still with facebook as a shadow account with the preferences and groups and likes you had. If you ever create a new account, facebook will pretty quickly figure out who you are.

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I understand that, and I am not planning on making a new account. My question is whether an account is necessary to setup the Oculus Rift / S and use its basic functions. Obviously an account is necessary to make or access purchases, but thankfully Steam supports the Rift and the Oculus software allows you to play user-installed apps.

 

[HeyNay]

So what's the end goal here? Facebook wants to create the Oasis? Or they just want to keep you logged into Facebook for as long as possible so they can watch your every movement and shovel personalized advertisements down your throat while feeding you their preferred political messaging?

 

[Theron]

That's a big fat nope.