Oculus is Losing its Identity

Welcome to the blog!

It has been a few weeks since last we chatted, but that is because I have waited for more information to release regarding Facebook's total acquisition of the Oculus brand. Yes, Facebook purchased Oculus on March 25th, 2014 for $2 billion but Oculus still had a marginally separate identity. Users operated under an Oculus ID which separated itself from the social media giant, minimizing security risks often associated with the Facebook platform. However, with the most recent news (released as early as August 18th, 2020 by UploadVR) fans of the Oculus brand are outraged as Facebook will require new users to sign in under a Facebook account starting October 2020, and Oculus ID's will be irrelevant as of January 2023. The implications of this total acquisition are vastly expanding with speculation running amok, but there are real concerns that are objectively critical to the rise or fall of the Oculus brand.

To start, let us review the impact on the consumer market. In the past year, Oculus sales have increased substantially more-so immediately prior to the release of Half-Life: Alyx, at which time hardware for both the Quest and Rift S sold out (this was temporally parallel with COVID-19's initial impact). The Quest alone has seen significant growth for the brand because of its natural versatility and generally cheap price tag. Without a doubt, Oculus is quickly becoming a household name and becoming one of the fastest growing VR leaders in the business. This all might change, however, under the direction and control of Facebook. Though the social platform is home to billions of people (give or take a few million duplicate or smurf accounts), it is safe to say a great majority of users remain idle and absent in the daily use of the application. I am among those who rarely use the platform for personal use and only have an account for when I truly need to reach people I would not otherwise be able to. Despite its popularity, Facebook has been the talk of much controversy in regards to the user's personal information data mining that exists within its software, and many fear those security issues will negatively impact Oculus users during the merging of accounts, thus impacting sales on the whole. In response to this outcry, Facebook states, "...all future unreleased devices" will require a Facebook login, and the data people are concerned about they have owned since their initial acquisition in 2014, as reported by The Verge. However, the Oculus ID information was limited to notifications as to when someone logged on to their Oculus; personal information was not stored and saved as a means for targeting advertisement, much like what is done on Facebook so the reports suggest. The security issues and forced account merger will split their consumer market and unintentionally oust the originally loyal Oculus user-base.

But the impact of this account merger will do harm to more than just the consumers; the game developers are being strong-armed into creating games within the constraints of Facebook's guidelines and requirements. From game concept to distribution, what product consumers receive will be controlled and moderated by Facebook much like Electronic Arts or Activision does with properties they acquire - the consequence of this is unknown but the speculation is ominous. Some developers are so concerned that some have already chosen to no longer produce for the Oculus platform, such as Isaac Cohen, creator of Blarp! who said, "I deactivated my Facebook account earlier this year, and don't plan on devving for Quest/Oculus ever again" (article found here). Markus Persson, creator of the beloved Minecraft IP foresaw the issues of the 2014 acquisition and killed a deal that would put his game on the Oculus platform stating he was, "officially over being upset;" Microsoft later acquired the rights to Minecraft and released it on the Rift soon after its launch. What leads developers to worry about their prospective future is the potential drop-off of consumers as discussed above and limitations imposed by certain features being available to only those who log in with their Facebook account - more information from a developers standpoint can be found here in this interview conducted by UploadVR.

In this summary, I have chosen to not expand on certain facts brought forward by representatives of Facebook Reality Labs, but I will mention them here. According to sources, Oculus will not be re-branded as previous speculation suggested. Their event Oculus Connect, however, will be renamed to Facebook Connect. It is reasonable to assume this event will have less to do with Oculus and more to do about general operations and upcoming features related to Facebook as a whole given the name. Furthermore, Oculus will fall under the flagship of Facebook Reality Labs alongside their other products such as Portal and SparkAR (source document found here).

This is the part of the blog where I share my perspective with a hint of opinion. The impact of this merger will have little effect on me as I currently have two Facebook accounts - one is personal while the other is gaming related. The implications of the merger, however, trouble me as this appears to be the start of a monopolization of service provisions within the VR market. As general gamer's are concerned about exclusivity's negligence towards consumer friendly service and big companies acquiring independent labels, virtual reality gamer's should be concerned about platform acquisitions by unrelated conglomerates who are less concerned with VR development. We as VR users have always been given choice as there are a variety of options offered to us from hardware to software: Windows MR, Oculus Rift/Quest/Gear VR, Valve Index, HP Reverb, Pimax, Google Daydream, HTC Vive, Pico Neo, Playstation VR and more! It is this variety of competition that has pushed hardware and software technology rapidly forward without the restriction and oversight of bureaucracy. The freedom to be creative and innovative has been the driving force behind VR development, but if the trend of platform acquisition takes hold, we may see less creative development and more financially/business driven development comparable to loot boxes and micro-transactions. Hardware development such as the Index, which was solely created for the "hardcore VR enthusiasts," may become a thing of the past as it could be obsolete from a lucrative standpoint resulting from an over-saturation of cheap VR HMD's (head mounted display).

My worry about personal information being stored in a database somewhere is low on my list of worries. As many of you are, I am "wired" in to everything so I know my information already exists elsewhere on the internet and is subject to mining at any point. If I were to be optimistic about the foreseeable merger, it is that I can at least feel comfortable knowing both my Facebook and Oculus information is centralized to one location and, arguably, less for me to monitor. It is not so much the personal data storage I am concerned about, but how unpopular this idea is to the general consumer public. By forcing loyal brand followers to rid themselves of their Oculus ID (arguably more secure than Facebook) and use a potentially non-existent Facebook account (a product they already dislike) to gain access to ALL features is criminal and not consumer friendly (similar to locking assets behind a paywall). Virtual Reality gaming is already a niche group which will be marginalized further by this merger. Oculus is a popular and powerful product that is routinely innovative in its development of hardware and software. The Quest is the first all-in-one product that is affordable for most and offers people a cheaper route to PC gaming through the Link application. Oculus was also first to introduce hand tracking in a meaningful way; the application of hand tracking is limited, but still creates a platform on which to build future technology. It is in my opinion that Facebook should use their existing platform of Facebook Reality Labs to create a new product under that banner. In this way, they would financially benefit by having two VR products under their name competing with one another, and create opportunities for feature specific platforms distinguishing one from the other: Oculus maintains its centrally focused gaming market while Facebook Reality Labs HMD creates a socially driven market heading such products as Horizon. Acquisitions of talent by larger companies has often resulted in the eradication of the acquired, and no field has seen this quite like the gaming industry. Developers will choose to ignore the Oculus platform

which is not good for consumers, and developers who choose to stay will be locked into an undesirable and lackluster development cycle. All these factors is what makes this total merger troubling, but this is just my opinion. What are your thoughts? Does this merger effect you as a consumer? Are you of the opinion that this is a good thing? Be sure to share your thoughts and opinions in the comments, or check us out at our discord here! Thank you for reading, and we will chat in the next one.