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Question about Oculus and Forced Facebook Signups

Nimarus
Protege

So I purchased my Oculus Rift (Before Rift S and Quest) a while back and enjoyed it greatly. I invest in a 3rd sensor, got extension cables for the headset to give me more room. I've also purchased several games on my Rift as well. Though...those purchases have stopped entirely. Now everyone has been told they MUST sign up for Facebook and merge their Oculus Accounts. That's already happened and customers, who had no idea this would happen, are told their product must be paired with a Facebook Account. Something that would have made Oculus COMPLETELY undesirable for me if I had known.

 

I wonder, what happens to customers who refuse to use Facebook? What about people who are banned from using Facebook ever again? If I had a Facebook account and I got banned, do I lose access to my library of Oculus games THAT I PAID FOR? If I had a Facebook account and got a 7-30 day ban, will I still have full functionality of the games THAT I PAID FOR during that time?

 

Last I checked, there was a set period of time that holdouts have to sign up for Facebook. But what if I'm already banned? Terms of Service say that anyone already banned from Facebook is not allowed to create an account. So would Oculus customers in that position eventually have their digital licenses revoked because they are banned on Facebook?

 

Myself, I've never used Facebook and absolutely refuse to EVER use their services. Will I eventually lose all the games I paid for? Will Oculus reimburse me for my purchases so I can switch to the Valve Index or another competitor?

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Crazy_Sane
Superstar

I hear you. I started a discussion a while ago. Most people feel the same way. It's an invasion of privacy and almost akin to China's social credit system.

The fact is you're not actually buying a game to own. You're paying for the right to play that game so long as you work for them. Facebook doesn't make much money from selling games. Their real bread and butter is utilising metadata for profit. And VR is a means of collecting data on a whole other level. Not to mention the fact that they force you give personal information to Facebook, which even if you don't interact with it, can tell a lot about someone by their location, their friends list, and other people tagging you in photos.

It's all a bit dodgey, but that's the price of Oculus VR. They practically give the headsets away, but the developers are setting the price of games. It's crazy cheap because you make them money in the long run. Now they're even talking about ads in VR. Now that would suck.

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7 REPLIES 7

Pixie40
Expert Trustee

If you have a Quest 2 (or a recently factory reset Quest), then you do require a facebook account to sign up. If you already do have an Oculus account and an HMD you've been using, you can continue using it without linking a FB account. However you'll be locked out of social features like the friends list, the Venues and (when it launches) Horizon apps. In addition, in a couple years support for future updates will stop unless you have a linked FB account. Any apps you already bought should still work, but social aspects such as multiplayer may get disabled. It'll be up to the app developers if they want to continue supporting people who didn't link their account. But again, single player stuff like Moss should continue to work.

Lo, a quest! I seek the threads of my future in the seeds of the past.

Crazy_Sane
Superstar

I hear you. I started a discussion a while ago. Most people feel the same way. It's an invasion of privacy and almost akin to China's social credit system.

The fact is you're not actually buying a game to own. You're paying for the right to play that game so long as you work for them. Facebook doesn't make much money from selling games. Their real bread and butter is utilising metadata for profit. And VR is a means of collecting data on a whole other level. Not to mention the fact that they force you give personal information to Facebook, which even if you don't interact with it, can tell a lot about someone by their location, their friends list, and other people tagging you in photos.

It's all a bit dodgey, but that's the price of Oculus VR. They practically give the headsets away, but the developers are setting the price of games. It's crazy cheap because you make them money in the long run. Now they're even talking about ads in VR. Now that would suck.

That's why I'm saving up to leave Oculus and move to the Valve Index. I loved Oculus, but they have destroyed that.

kojack
MVP
MVP

For the login thing, here's what Oculus said:

"If you choose to continue using your Oculus account, you’ll be covered by our updated Oculus Terms of Service and Oculus Privacy Policy, which we previewed last month. After January 1, 2023, we will end support for Oculus accounts. If you choose not to merge your accounts at that time, you can continue using your device, but full functionality will require a Facebook account. We will take steps to allow you to keep using content you have purchased, though we expect some games and apps may no longer work. This could be because they include features that require a Facebook account or because a developer has chosen to no longer support the app or game you purchased."

 

So we've still got over a year, and after that devices and most purchases should still work without a Facebook account but maybe in a more limited way. At least that's what they claim, we'll have to wait and see if that holds up.

 

Author: Oculus Monitor,  Auto Oculus Touch,  Forum Dark Mode, Phantom Touch Remover,  X-Plane Fixer
Hardware: Threadripper 1950x, MSI Gaming Trio 2080TI, Asrock X399 Taich
Headsets: Wrap 1200VR, DK1, DK2, CV1, Rift-S, GearVR, Go, Quest, Quest 2, Reverb G2

Nimarus
Protege

One answer that even Customer Service doesn't want to answer is "Does a ban on Facebook affect my Oculus VR games?" If I get a ban on Facebook, will we lose some functionality of our games? Another way for Facebook to try and manipulate social behavior? Everyone just refers to the statement about pairing Oculus Accounts with Facebook. Doesn't matter how much customers disapprove of this unwanted decision, the money to be made from harvesting Oculus Customer Metadata is too tempting.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP

If you are banned from Facebook, your access to Oculus VR software should continue to work. If it doesn't, you can contact Oculus Support to resolve it. There were problems around this early on, but seem to be getting resolved. Plenty of reports of people getting their Oculus VR software remedied after having a Facebook ban.

 

Although I will say, after using Facebook myself for over 10 years and getting in to plenty of heated debates over things like politics and religion... it's pretty darn hard to get banned. I have never been banned, and I say some fairly crude and controversial things on their public facing pages quite often. Especially during the politics surrounding the pandemic in 2020.

 

From what I have witnessed, in order to get permanently banned from Facebook... you have to really be putting in a big effort to go above and beyond with excessively hostile content. There have been reports of a few "accidental bannings" related to Facebook's implementation of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, but that has also eased up over time.

 

For original Oculus owners, you should be able to continue using your software without linking to a Facebook account until 2023. How things will play out after that has yet to be seen.

 

Hopefully Facebook will allow continued access to the existing Library permanently, while simply limiting any new purchases and Store Access to those who have linked to Facebook.

I am a bit annoyed that after 2023 I will be required to have an active publicly facing Facebook account displaying my real name just so that I can keep access to unrelated products that I purchased when I purchased after aquiring the original Oculus Rift.

I would be ok with the facebook requirment if I was allowed to have a fake name publicly facing on facebook without breaking terms of use.