{"id":116901,"date":"2020-08-18T22:44:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-18T22:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/368451"},"modified":"2020-08-18T22:44:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-18T22:44:00","slug":"oculus-plans-to-replace-oculus-accounts-with-facebook-accounts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/08\/18\/oculus-plans-to-replace-oculus-accounts-with-facebook-accounts\/","title":{"rendered":"Oculus plans to replace Oculus Accounts with Facebook Accounts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook-owned Oculus is starting to pivot away from the sole use of Oculus accounts on its VR devices, and will eventually end support for Oculus Accounts all together.<\/p>\n

Instead, Oculus the company is looking to make Facebook accounts the go-to account service<\/a> for its entire line of headsets. The full switchover on the player side of the fence isn\u2019t expected to take place until 2023, but Oculus has already announced a series of gradual changes how its accounts work to ready for that transition. <\/p>\n

Folks signing up for a new account will, starting in October 2020, need to do so through their existing Facebook account. Those that already have Oculus accounts, meanwhile, will have the option to coast on their current setup until that full 2023 switch or can opt to permanently merge their Oculus and Facebook accounts ahead of that. <\/p>\n

Declining to do so won’t render current VR headsets unplayable, only limit access to some features, but all future Oculus devices will require a Facebook account.<\/p>\n

This looks to also at least partially apply to developer accounts. Developers can find more on those specific changes in Oculus\u2019 dev portal,<\/a> but in short it looks like developers will only have access to a limited set of features for in-headset testing should they decide not to merge their accounts with their personal Facebook accounts. <\/p>\n

In order to access the full gamut of testing tools, devs will need to use either a Test User account, where they can download apps uploaded by their organization and \u201c test features such as Entitlement Checks, In-App Purchases, and social features, in addition to playtesting your application\u201d or merge a personal Facebook account with their developer account to \u201cfriend users outside of your organization and purchase content from the Oculus Store\u201d in addition to what\u2019s offered by the Test Account.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will also be an option to continue logging into current devices for development purposes using your unmerged Oculus Developer account, but with limited functionality,\u201d explains that post. \u201cFor example, you will not be able to test new, updated, or social features, which require a Test User account or a Facebook account.\u201d<\/p>\n

Logging into the Oculus Developer Dashboard, meanwhile, looks to remain unchanged by Oculus\u2019 larger shift toward Facebook accounts.<\/p>\n

The biggest changes look to be user-facing. On that side of the fence, once January 1, 2023 rolls around, un-merged Oculus accounts will no longer be supported. That won\u2019t render Oculus VR headsets unplayable by any means, but Oculus warns that some games may no longer work for those users as \u201cthey include features that require a Facebook account or because a developer has chosen to no longer support the app or game you purchased.\u201d On top of that, all future Oculus device launches will skip right ahead to requiring a Facebook account. <\/p>\n

The full post has more on what to expect from the change, and notes as well that merging accounts will let Facebook use info about VR to \u201cprovide and improve your experience,\u201d an addition that, given Facebook\u2019s privacy background and despite Facebook\u2019s assurances that this was a partially privacy-driven change, has some concerned. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the fact that a Facebook account requirement makes Oculus a potential no-go for people who have left Facebook\u2019s ecosystem over privacy concerns or the company\u2019s complicated history<\/a> of forcing legal name usage on Facebook, sometimes in cases where doing so is inaccurate or unsafe for the people behind the profiles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook-owned Oculus is starting to pivot away from the sole use of Oculus accounts on its VR devices, and will eventually end support for Oculus Accounts all together. Instead, Oculus the company is looking to make Facebook accounts the go-to account service for its entire line of headsets. The full switchover on the player side […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}