Live data from Hacker News

Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

oculus.com

631–640 of 1001 posts

Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

#631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you click "Agree" to the new ToS? We told you of the changes and you agreed. Go fly a kite! --Facebook

To be fair, in my case, I did not. I actually received one as a gift last Christmas. I never got around to setting it up (still in packaging). I was planning on trying it out when I had some free time. Now I have a useless device that I can’t even return since I refuse to create a Facebook account.

Return it to Amazon.

Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

#633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you make a Facebook account and never touch the Facebook aspect of it, is there any material difference between that and an Oculus account?

A better question: why does a VR headset require an account at all? Should my monitor require an account? Should my keyboard? It's a peripheral, not a platform.

I would call Oculus Rift as "just VR headset" but Oculus Quest would be reasonable to call as "standalone VR computer", not peripheral. Is requiring account for a "computer" reasonable is another question.

Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

#634
post #13

Palmer Luckey, the original creator had this to say over on /r/oculus: 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 w…

so is this the start of virtual world deeply integration to facebook society?

Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

#635
post #115
post #81

I recently gave a seminar about how to use Oculus devices in combination with Unity at university. Oculus produces great devices, but man is the software a convoluted nightmare. A (very patient) student of mine tried to install the oculsu software on a current thinkpad for 4 days in a row. It always failed for various reasons. She used a current Windows 10 and her computer definitly has the specs. She even reinstalle…

What are viable alternatives?

HP Reverb G2 seems the be the most competitive so far. It's still in pre-order so its not battle-tested yet, but its 600$ and has comparable hardware to the valve index ($1000). Still 200$ more than oculus headsets, but that gap is much better than the 600$ from oculus to valve headset

Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

#636
Yah, guess i'm going to be selling my rift, or at least re-purposing it. Not that it matters much, i'm already unsupported as I refused to upgrade to win10 on the machine it was attached to.

PS, oculus has been the only piece of hardware I've purchased in the past few years where the drivers caused a blue screen. Thats ignoring all the other bullshit problems with the driver stack they have that can't even consistently enable a pile of USB devices.

Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

#637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I set up a fake Facebook profile 10 years ago, because I needed a profile with no friends that I could use for testing some stuff at work. It is still alive and kicking; Facebook keeps sending it emails suggesting friends.

We can spend all day arguing anecdotes. As a counterpoint, I've never used Facebook, but once tried setting up an account to participate in a group event organized by some friends - by the next day, before I could even use the account, Facebook had locked my account, and wanted a photo of my ID to let me access the account. Needless to say, I abandoned the account.

The person who I replied to made a personal challenge to try creating a fake account, so I responded with my personal experience doing just that.

I was not making any claims about the likelihood of an account being banned.

Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

#638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook deals in contracts, not promises and even if it was contractually agreed upon, what would you do about it? Sue? At a guess you'd count the money one more time, shrug and maybe send a short apologetic note about how terrible you feel about it. And then count the money again.

My moral compass would get real wobbly if I had (insert some unfathomable number here) in my bank account following an acquisition. Probably not a great thing to confess to but I doubt I’d find myself caring what my acquirer was doing with their new real estate.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

#639
post #13

Palmer Luckey, the original creator had this to say over on /r/oculus: 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 w…

Practically every corporate acquisition in the history of ever goes something like: day 1: "Nothing will change." Six months later: "All you knew is gone."

Six years in this case. Not too shabby really.

Re: Facebook account now required to login to Oculus devices

#640
post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better question: why does a VR headset require an account at all? Should my monitor require an account? Should my keyboard? It's a peripheral, not a platform.

Not sure if you know what device you're talking about. The Oculus Quest is very much a platform, not a "peripheral". There's no device that the Quest connects to to be used as a peripheral. It's a completely stand alone computing device that serves as a platform for third party software, the same as your phone which requires an account.

I know the blog post refers to "Oculus devices" and does not in any way imply that the account is required only for the Quest. I agree that the Quest is not the same as their other headsets. I disagree that any of these should require an account.
Post reply on HN