Just received an email from Meta, part of it states:<p>“Starting January 1, 2024, we will start deleting old Oculus accounts to ensure that we are not keeping Oculus account data longer than necessary. If you do not create a Meta account by this date, your Oculus data (including associated apps, content and games you have downloaded or purchased) will be deleted.”
...but <i>why?</i><p>I was happy to switch from my original Oculus/Facebook account to a Meta account back in October when I was prompted to, I never wanted the (originally mandatory) Facebook association in the first place.<p>But why wouldn't Meta just migrate these accounts automatically? I'm <i>baffled</i> by how the pros could possibly outweigh the cons for Meta here.<p>For people who don't touch their Quest for a year and a half that was associated with an e-mail account they don't check regularly, and then decide to dust the Quest off to play a game when their niece or nephew visits... and discover all their games are gone?<p>What the hell? The resulting hatred towards Meta is going to cost more in the long run than any extra money resulting in re-buying a couple of games.<p>I usually feel like I can understand when companies take user-hostile decisions because it's still easy to see how it makes sense for the company/investors. But here, I'm utterly stumped.<p>Nevertheless, this is where there need to be laws around this kind of thing. It should be illegal to delete digital purchases or delete accounts like this, end of story. Consumer protection laws are desperately needed here.
I was confused by the terminology between Meta, Oculus and Facebook accounts, and which was an upgrade of which.<p>When confronted by the upgrade (I was actually trying to do something else, which required upgrading the account to Meta, which required upgrading the software) I tried the path of least resistance, which was just "log in with your email". I didn't remember if this was how I always logged in, and honestly this is a gaming gadget which receives far less atention than my laptop or mobile -- I just figured whatever I chose would be harmless. Turns out this wasn't right, and then the oficial docs warn that choosing the wrong option may result in creating an empty new account without any apps/games, which will require deleting it before proceeding, which may take up to 90 days.<p>I freaked out, tried logging in, it didn't work, freaked out some more and one of the random things I tried (I forget which) worked and I suddenly had all my stuff again.<p>Noteworthy here: I'm tech savvy, this shouldn't require freaking out, and in fact it should be smooth sailing, something like "click here to upgrade, done, you're ready to go".
<a href="https://time.com/38366/here-are-7-promises-oculus-has-made-after-getting-bought-by-facebook/" rel="nofollow">https://time.com/38366/here-are-7-promises-oculus-has-made-a...</a>
<a href="https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/09/facebook-login-adds-real-name-policy-auto-updated-friends-list-to-oculus/" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/09/facebook-login-adds-r...</a>
<a href="https://www.quora.com/Do-you-need-a-Facebook-account-to-use-the-Oculus-Quest-2" rel="nofollow">https://www.quora.com/Do-you-need-a-Facebook-account-to-use-...</a><p>This has changed back and forth twice now in the less than 10 years since Oculus launched.
To add to the confusion: A Meta account is not a Facebook account. Meta accounts are specifically to get access to Meta's metaverse. So basically it's a newer version of the old Oculus accounts.<p>For Facebook you still need a separate Facebook account.
I will never buy hardware that requires an online account. At least not expecting it to last.<p>If a company does not leverage the account, maybe they go bankrupt, get acquired, or just shut down their servers supporting old hardware.<p>That said, I wonder if people might still qualify for small claims when their devices get turned into bricks.
Dang, not an oculus/meta User but hopefully people can transition over their games/content to the new account in the shuffle of it all. What a headache! It often such a bummer as a consumer when the platform you bought into gets acquired.
But... why would one need an accout to use a freakin gadget!?
I'm kind of new to this, but isn't VR helmet just a werable display with a few sensors??