Oculus users, already fuming at Facebook chaining their VR headsets to their Facebook accounts, have been warned they could lose all their Oculus purchases and account information in future if they ever delete their profile on the social network.
The rule is a further binding of the gaming company that Facebook bought in 2014 to the mothership, and comes just two months after Facebook decided all new Oculus users require Facebook accounts to use their VR gizmos, and all current Oculus users will need a Facebook account by 2023. Failure to do so may cause apps installed on the headsets to no longer work as expected.
The decision to cement together what many users see as largely unrelated activities – playing video games and social media posts – has led to a wave of anger among Oculus users, and a renewed online effort to jailbreak new Oculus headgear to bypass Facebook’s growing restrictions.
That outrage was fueled when Facebook initially said that if people attempted to connect more than one Oculus headset to a single Facebook account, something families in particular want to do as it avoids having to install the same app over and over, it would ban them from the service.
Facebook has since dropped that threat, and said it is working on allowing multiple devices and accounts to connect. But the control-freak instincts of the internet giant were yet again on full display, something that was noted by the man who first drew attention to Oculus’s new terms and conditions, CEO of fitness gaming company Yur, Cix Liv.
“My favorite line is ‘While I do completely understand your concerns, we do need to have you comply with the Facebook terms of service’ like Facebook thinks they are some authoritarian government,” he tweeted.
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Robin Edgar
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