Alyx has decided that moving my head forward e.g. to look in a box now no longer works; the VR world just moves away from me. Turning my head in pitch or yaw works fine. WTF is going on!?
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Curious about that. At present, FB have resolved this by just not selling the OQ2 in Germany. Talk on Reddit is that this could establish an EU-wide precedent, which would be a difficult outcome for FB, though realistically I don't think this will go the way FB's critics want (I think FB would rather just get rid of the OQ2 in the entire EU, because it's a loss-making product).Originally posted by Brad View PostComment
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That makes no sense. Why sell it anywhere then? They’re selling at a loss (apparently) for some reason. Presumably they want to dominate the market. I think this is a good move. Monopolies are bad and harvesting your data and using it against you is also bad.Comment
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Because I think the purpose of the headset is to get more people using FB, and extend FB's reach into VR. If the German gov't says they're not allowed to do that, I think they'll just not sell the headset in Germany for that reason (that's what they're doing right now). If the EU bans the practice, they would just pull the headset out of the EU, same reason.Originally posted by Brad View Post
The purpose of it isn't to make money as such. They lose money on every set and they already had a fully functional sign-on system comparable to consoles, with voluntary Facebook take-up if you wanted certain features.
All I'm saying is that some online think if the EU slaps them with a ban, they'll reverse the practice; I think FB would "stop doing VR" before going back to how it was.Comment
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The thing is though, Oculus user or Facebook user - makes no odds, they own both sets of data.
What The Quest users want are clear and concise user controls to allow users to protect their privacy. The same way as a web browser.Comment
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If affects what they can do with that information, though, or at least, how useful it is.Originally posted by huxley View Post
Prior to the switchover, it was feasible for a user's Oculus account to contain very little actual information, and the Quest doesn't have GPS, so in that scenario, the account information would be kinda useless. They would know what Oculus needed to know to support the headset and its store, etc. but some of that information, which would be more useful, like the user's payment info, was probably ringfenced as not-indexed due to its sensitive nature.
I mean, consider if you're a user who has an Oculus account and a Facebook account, and they're registered to different email addresses. It might not be clear to FB that they're owned by the same person. Hell, an individual might have had multiple Oculus accounts (not sure why, but it's possible regardless).
FB need information that they can use to create their "advertising demographic voodoo-doll" to be able to profile you for advertisers. That's why they've bothered with the merge at all; it will purge all the accounts that aren't paired with an active FB account, and when the merge happens, they can more easily index your VR stuff with all the data that works out your daily habits, political leanings, religious views, what angers you, what sells you things...
Prior to the merge, FB know that [email protected] likes Superhot and is some dude called Steve Tuttle.
After the merge, they know that FeelsGoodMan55 likes SuperHot, and also that he's Steve Tuttle from Grimsby, who votes Tory, hates prawns and is anti-abortion.
The prior state is only useful, really, if someone wants to advertise Superhot 2. The latter one is useful to MANY advertisers.Comment
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If you made purchases they would have more than enough information. While the quest doesn’t have gps etc the mobile device required to set it up does. Let’s face it, you won’t be able to use a Facebook / Oculus product and maintain any sort of anonymity. Apple are meant to be implementing ad tracking soon.Comment
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They've pissed off a decent wedge of their userbase, even if it's 5%, I'm willing to bet it's of a strong overlap with people who've bought more than £150 worth of software and used the headsets most. They wouldn't have done that if they didn't stand to gain something from the exchange; it's almost certainly because the manner in which the Oculus account information was arranged is materially worse for them than if all those people were made to be Facebook users.
Theoretically there are cost-savings in just simplifying the whole affair but I don't think it's really that much simpler.Comment
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Facebook are looking far into the future, they are losing regular users at an alarming rate, and the restrictions the likes of apple are looking to implement have them running scared.
VR needs a killer social app, something like Playstation home but less sucky.Comment
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I think the fundamental issue with FB's approach is that they think Horizons is that app, and honestly?Originally posted by huxley View Post
Like technically it looks great, but it suffers from one flaw - you log on to Horizons as your real, named, Facebook self. It's essentially a virtual world created where everyone in it is meant to be their actual self. I can see how that would be useful; their focus is on hosting events, like concerts etc., and I can get what they're going for...
... but it's just the complete opposite of what I, and, I suspect, a lot of other people, want out of a VR headset. I spend all day as the real me. I have a VR headset so I can be someone or something else for an hour. I use it to get away from real places and real people, even in multiplayer.Comment
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Yea I couldn't agree more. Horizons will be a watered down VR experience with drab little cookie cutter avatars. And everything you say and see will be recorded and used.
Look at the highest regular VR user number experiences on Steam. VR Chat is constantly near the top (the steam number doesn't include Oculus).
You can sign in with Steam or set up a VR Chat account with what ever info you want. A little bit of freedom makes all the difference. You do get a lot of idiots, but you are free to mute, block and report.Comment
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Looks like even if the German thing caused FB to backpedal in Germany or the EU, it would keep things as-is in the UK:
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Out tomorrow but only on Quest
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That’s a bit weird as that is pc gameplay.Comment
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