Oculus, formerly called Oculus VR, LLC is a subsidiary of Facebook Inc. It has made a big announcement for its users this week. As per sources, you need to have a Facebook account to access your existing or new Oculus in the future. If you already have a Facebook account, you can merge it to your oculus account too. It will be mandatory post 2022.
Why this change?
As Oculus VR is the subordinate company of Facebook since 2014 March. Facebook has acquired Oculus for 2.3 billion US dollar and the company releases a variety of hardware products under the Facebook brand.
Oculus is a prominent leader in Virtual Reality technology and Facebook is moving towards a virtual world called Facebook Horizon. So there is no wonder why Facebook has invested this much of its money to own the giant VR tech-company.
Facebook already owns Oculus data officially and now it wants to divert every user from Oculus VR platform to its own.
What are the changes and how to deal with it?
On August 18, 2020 Oculus made an official announcement via its blog that people who are using Oculus devices need to create a Facebook account(if they haven’t one) or merge their existing Facebook account to access the device.
- From the starting of October this year you have to login through your Facebook account if you are using the Oculus device for the first time.
- If you are already an user of Oculus and have an account, then you will get an option to login through facebook and merge both the accounts to enjoy further services.
- If you don’t want to merge the accounts for now then you can continue using your Oculus account for two years from now.
Which means post 2022 December, Oculus will officially end its support for your Oculus account. If you want to utilise every feature of your device then it will be mandatory to log in through Facebook from the 1st January, 2023.
Sources say that you will be able to access your purchased content with the support of Oculus except some games and apps may no longer work, but the unreleased Oculus devices need a Facebook account- no matter if they have already an existing Oculus account.
Benefits of the merger
- It will be easier to find your facebook friends, connect with them to play in VR.
- You can explore, play and create a virtual world with the help of Facebook Horizon.
- You can create a separate and unique VR profile if you don’t want to get noticed by your Oculus friends on Facebook. Make the settings to “Only Me”.
Social Features Facebook provide in VR
- You can chat in or out of the VR headset with your friends and play games at the same time.
- Meet up your friend in VR open parties- you can create the party on your own.
- Post on different Facebook groups of VR with your VR user name.
- Organise multiplayer games and tournaments along with your friends.
- Livestream on Facebook and share your VR game play.
What will happen to your data when you will login to your VR account via Facebook?
The official statement says your data is secure and there is no threat of data leak. Facebook already owns Oculus so there is no chance for data piracy. You will only get updates from your VR related new apps or services you haven’t tried yet.
Change is good and there is no harm to merge the two accounts if you can enjoy the overall features. The merger is applicable to every part of the world where Oculus serves. Let’s wait for the time and get prepared to enjoy a whole new world of VR technology along with Facebook.
