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Facebook will start putting ads in Oculus Quest apps
- HWR_14 5y agoIf you have an old (1st gen) Oculus, is it somehow bricked if you don't register a Facebook account to it? If you just want to use apps not through the Oculus store (either self-developed, sideloaded or through Steam)?
- cfffcvggg 5y agoI believe if you already have an oculus account you don’t need Facebook, but I think if you are starting fresh you need a Facebook account. I have one not hooked up to Facebook, but I’ve had it for a while. There are a few “social features” that don’t work, but it still browses the web and plays oculus store content. With the link cable you can play steam games too. It won’t stay that way forever - 2022 I think. You’re better off looking for something else if you don’t want Facebook. I am hoping Valve has something by then.
- cwkoss 5y agoMine is bricked, and my facebook account was attached. Tried to reinstall a mod I was using for over a year that a system update broke, and now whenever I turn it on it just shows a loading spinner and then hangs on a black screen. It feels like Facebook is taking a deliberately hostile stance to modding because they can't get their cut.
- nabakin 5y agoI've had a CV1 Rift and Oculus account since a few months after it came out and all that's changed for me is that I have to connect a Facebook account to access some social features of the Oculus Home platform like messaging and adding friends. I abhor Facebook is in control of the Oculus ecosystem. Literally the worst company of all big tech imo to have this responsibility. I'd prefer Valve and next Apple. Unfortunately Facebook has too good of a market position for me to see them losing.
- mark_l_watson 5y agore: “self-sustaining platform” for VR development I pay for the VR apps, that is not self-sustaining? This is like ads in the movie Minority Report - yuck.
- twobitshifter 5y agoGiven Facebook’s ads, I was thinking more like idiocracy.
- BHSPitMonkey 5y agoYou're probably going to see this in free social apps like VRChat, not inside of immersive games.
- jabbany 5y agoThat's being optimistic... Remember when EA put ads in games that people paid for? They will most certainly try to put it in immersive games if they can get away with it...
- BHSPitMonkey 5y agoAnd? There's a million other ways a VR developer can make their game suck; at the end of the day, the quality of the experience is in their hands.
- practice9 5y agoI'm not opposed to seeing ads if they're relevant and stylized thematically for the game / app
- rpdillon 5y agoBlaston is a $10 app. https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2307085352735834/ https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2307085352735834/
- throwaway3699 5y ago
- Simulacra 5y agoAnyone want to buy a barely, used mint condition Oculus Quest?
- enumjorge 5y agoNope. But thanks for the offer ;)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- anvemaha 5y agoI was just starting to come around to the idea of buying a Quest 2 :( I had a CV1, but sold it some years ago, I found the usb-attached lighthouses too messy for my setup. Ideally I would like to get rid of the headset cable as well. I pretty much only played Beat Saber so Quest 2 would have been perfect! I guess it's time to order a Valve Index?
- nickthegreek 5y agoYou can just use the quest 2 with Virtual Desktop and SteamVR and save yourself some money.
- cwkoss 5y agoI would not recommend Quest 2 for BeatSaber unless you'll be content without using any mods or custom songs. If you decide to go this route, I'd suggest deleting Wifi connection information once you get it working the way you like and only changing songs via Sidequest, because system updates have broken custom song functionality multiple times. You may need to download a "pirated" copy of an older beatsaber version, because afaik, the most recent update broke it again.
- gundmc 5y agoIf they are already using a CV1, I suspect they have a gaming PC capable of driving beatsaber. With a quest 2 you can wirelessly stream from your PC to the headset to play any game including beatsaber custom songs. I've had Good experience with the latency on this setup, but I do have my PC connected to a 5 GHz router via ethernet and play in an area next to my router.
- cowgoesmoo 5y agoI also have the CV1 and am looking to upgrade. The Index has better tracking (using lighthouse) and a larger FOV than the Quest 2 but much worse resolution. If you want the inside-out tracking and higher resolution of the Quest 2 but don't want to deal with Facebook, check out the HP Reverb G2. It's pricier than the Quest 2 but still much cheaper than the Index. Resolution comparison between Index, Quest 2, and Reverb G2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny_OPsxHQmU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny_OPsxHQmU Resolution comparison between CV1, Vive, and Quest 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTaYQNghAxI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTaYQNghAxI
- cwkoss 5y agoAVOID OCULUS! I have a Quest 1. The game selection is alright but expensive for what it is, but never found an unmodded game that kept my attention for more than ~5 hours - they are mostly VR demos without staying power. Modding is a huge pain in the ass, and every update breaks it again. I used to use it regularly for BeatSaber + Custom Songs (though its underpowered so can't play all custom songs). For a while I was able to limp along by avoiding updates, but it eventually was broken by one of them, so I could no longer change custom songs. Finally I tried to fix it, failed, and tried to uninstall and just get unmodded BeatSaber working again. Quest decided to update, and now it doesn't even load the home screen - just a loading icon and then infinite black. I guess I'll try a factory reset, but I'm so frustrated with it I'm not sure it's worth trying to salvage. It feels like Facebook is deliberately hostile to modding because they want to fortify their walled garden. I will never buy oculus again. Steam's VR is higher quality, has much better game selection, and is much easier to mod as you want. My friend has an Index and I prefer it in every respect - the only downside is that it's wired and more expensive.
- nickthegreek 5y agoI've used Vive and rift. I now own the Quest 2 ($299). You can play any steamVR content on it without a cable using the free Air Link or the $20 Virtual Desktop. Better deal than anything else out there.
- xnx 5y agoDoes Air Link offer acceptable performance for low latency games (e.g. Beat Saber)?
- nickthegreek 5y agoThe best way to use airlink is to have a hardwired connection to the PC and a wifi 6 router close to your Oculus. I use a 5g router in the basement though and my gaming is fine. Quest2 will also use ASW for helping overcome lag as well. https://www.oculus.com/blog/introducing-asw-2-point-0-better-accuracy-lower-latency/ https://www.oculus.com/blog/introducing-asw-2-point-0-better... But Virtual Desktop just released a new version that uses SSW, and it might even be better. https://uploadvr.com/virtual-desktop-synchronous-spacewarp/ https://uploadvr.com/virtual-desktop-synchronous-spacewarp/
- elliekelly 5y agoSo will the proceeds from these ad sales go to Facebook? Or the developer of the title(s) the ads are featured on? Edit- I don’t know how I missed this: > Developers will get a share of the revenue from ads in their apps, but Facebook isn’t publicly revealing the percentage.
- only_as_i_fall 5y agoRemember when FB bought oculus and evangelists insisted that people were overreacting? Can we officially admit that the naysayers were right and that fb not only killed the oculus brand but perhaps even tarnished public opinion of this generation of VR?
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- nickthegreek 5y agoIm not a FB fan, But they didn't really kill the oculus brand... its now the most popular VR headset on SteamVR. https://www.tweaktown.com/news/78089/oculus-quest-2-is-now-the-most-popular-vr-headset-on-steam/index.html https://www.tweaktown.com/news/78089/oculus-quest-2-is-now-t... "According to Valve's data, Quest 2 owners comprise 22.91% of all SteamVR users, while another 21.58% use a Rift S headset. Oculus also owns another 13.49%, with the original Rift, and Quest headsets added. All told, Oculus is responsible for 57.98% of all VR headsets used on Valve's platform."
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- ThatPlayer 5y agoYou can check Steam's hardware survey for more up to date stats. Quest 2 is now up to 29.33% https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
- AuryGlenz 5y agoThat’s just for people that have it plugged it when they take the stats, too. Considering you can use it wirelessly and standalone it has a commanding lead of the market.
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- baby 5y agoWhat’s the difference with mobile games choosing to show ads?
- amelius 5y agoLittle difference. They suck too. Except you can still use your mobile device for other purposes.
- baby 5y agoRight, but it doesn’t make the whole platform bad. Just pay for games that don’t have ads.
- shadowgovt 5y agoPeople have concern that such a thing won't exist, or will be the tiniest margin of games. Personally, I respect that fear but I think it's going to be alright. If we're talking about an ecosystem with hundreds / thousands of games and 90% have ads as opposed to one with fifty games with no ads that cost $10+ each, I'm in favor of the more diverse experience space.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jabbany 5y agoI think it's closer to YouTube running ads in videos---it's more of a platform level thing rather than a "cross platform ad SDK".
- hn8788 5y agoThere's not much difference, and that's the problem. Mobile games are notorious for being asset flips and shovelware because being funded by ads means they don't have to worry about making something worth paying for. I imagine people who were excited about AAA VR games are disappointed that it looks like VR technology is turning into a race to the bottom with ads subsidizing hardware costs.
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- honkycat 5y agoFacebook has done an amazing job turning an interesting piece of technology into a worthless ad-ridden piece of junk.
- BHSPitMonkey 5y agoBecause a few developers will choose to place ads inside their apps? There will soon be cross-platform ad plugins like this in PCVR software, too. The only reason you don't see it more already is that advertisers haven't figured out how to value what exactly they'd be buying; There's so many more factors regarding visibility/readability/placement in a 3D virtual environment, and there's a big difference between a real-life billboard that moves slowly past every driver on the interstate vs a canvas in a VR game where players might teleport right by in a hurry. Even with Facebook solving the technical aspects of measuring impressions/"engagement" in virtual worlds, I don't think the platform will attract many advertisers outside of the gaming/VR industry itself.
- lovegoblin 5y agoIt has done this to everything it's touched, including facebook.com itself.
- dstaley 5y agoI honestly don't understand the doom and gloom from this announcement, which essentially amounts to "leading VR platform tests new way for developers to monetize applications with personalized ad service". People seem to think this is Facebook injecting ads into games all willy nilly, when in fact it's just a platform for developers to add ads to their VR apps/games. If a developer can't make ends meet with a full up-front purchase price for their app/game, I'm totally supportive of them trying the ad-supported route. At the end of the day, I'm glad that Facebook/Oculus is giving developers access to this so that they can make their own choices regarding the monetization of their software.
- nickthegreek 5y agoI think the issue with this announcement is that Blaston isn't a free game. Its a game that you pay for and it will now also shows you ads.
- dstaley 5y agoThat's a totally fair point, but the argument to that is "don't support this developer" not "sell your Oculus Quest". Getting mad at Oculus for this is basically like getting mad at Apple because developers are including ads in their paid apps.
- xg15 5y agoSo who should you get mad at then? Every single app developer? That developer can probably hardly care less that I don't support them. Either the app is good enough that people will endure the ads (in which case they will always preser two revenue streams to one) or the app is not good enough in which case people will stay away on their own. The incentive alignment is pretty clear: if Facebook and users let them, devs will show ads.
- EricTBone 5y ago> So who should you get mad at then? Developers who do the thing you don't like. > Every single app developer? No, just the ones who do the thing you don't like. > The incentive alignment is pretty clear: if Facebook and users let them, devs will show ads. Google and Apple pays devs show ads. Therefore all games have ads, right? No. I don't buy games with ads. I have plenty of options. > Either the app is good enough that people will endure the ads (in which case they will always preser two revenue streams to one) Again you're arguing that all games that can have ads, do have ads. This is proven wrong by the world. We have two gigantic app stores with 5 million apps between them. None of the apps on my phone have ads.
- root_axis 5y agoWhy isn't there a bigger push to regulate the pernicious injection of ads into every aspect of society? There is regularly discussion about the dominance of big tech and often suggestions that we enshrine big tech as permanent fixtures into our life by designating them as necessary utilities that we pump into every home like running water, yet we rarely if ever hear any discussion of cracking down on ads, which are actually the primary source of power for big tech and also the source of all the things we hate most about them (tracking, behavior and demographic analysis, data collection, advertiser driven content agendas that result in bans etc). I wish this were more of a concern to the public.
- cwkoss 5y agoI think society needs to have a reckoning around advertisement and decide what kinds of ads are moral and societally good. There are lots of categories I'd love to ban if king: - All advertisements to children - Advertisements for prescription drugs - Advertisements that intend to evoke emotional responses rather than inform: --- Many ads are designed to make the viewer feel inferior so they want to buy the product to remedy the negative emotions the ads caused --- Many ads seek to irrationally associate a brand with a positive feeling, which overrides consumers ability to make rational purchasing decisions --- Many ads seek vague 'brand awareness' without any informational content I think there is a narrow case around informative advertisements "Hey this product or service exists, it might be something you want" that can be societally useful, but the vast majority of video and print ads are not doing that.
- lamontcg 5y agoI'd ban all ads that were intrusive, so that advertising was only allowed if you had to go looking for it, rather than having it come looking for you. With a bit of an allowance for stuff like sandwich boards directly in front of shops or "so-and-so's bed+breakfast 3 miles ->" kinds of signs.
- chopin 5y ago- All advertisements featuring children
- shadowgovt 5y agoI'm pretty fine with this, though I won't be interested in paying $20 for a game that also has ads in it. Blaston is $10, which... Enh, that's pushing my personal threshold. But if it allows developers to build a free ecosystem that's ad-supported, that'll lower the activation cost to new VR ideas, increase iteration, and generally could increase the health of the whole ecosystem in terms of experience diversity.
- tomc1985 5y agoAnother Silicon Valley rug pull... When will we ever learn?
- Sr_developer 5y agoAt this moment of the VR craze/wave/hype if you buy an Oculus and you get burned by Facebook you kinda deserve it. They have demonstrated time and time again how shitty they are.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- qq4 5y agoOh no, think of the gamers! Anyone who didn't see this coming is a fool.
- binarymax 5y agoWe can sell up to 80% of the view before inducing seizures https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KpPE85Jogjw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KpPE85Jogjw
- zmmmmm 5y agoStep 1 - drive competitors from the market by selling massively subsidised hardware below cost. Step 2 - announce advertising is necessary because the "ecosystem" is unsustainable. I don't know how this is not attracting the attention of competition regulators. Coming in 10 years from now after the damage is done will be way too late.
- Tijdreiziger 5y agoYou're missing something here - they're also simply selling a product that nobody else on the market is selling. The Quest is on it's 2nd generation, yet I can't go out and buy an equivalent standalone, wireless VR headset from e.g. HTC, HP or Sony. For me, this is a reason to hold off on VR despite being eager to use it - for others, it may not be. edit: huh, this disucssion prompted me to look at HTC's website again and it seems they do have a wireless headset: Vive Focus for Business. Even though it's aimed at business, I wonder if you could get it to work with SteamVR?
- zmmmmm 5y agore: HTC - yep. And if you look even harder, you will find they are not selling it to consumers at all, and somewhere there is an interview where they actually explicitly saying they are specifically not selling it in the consumer market because of Facebook subsidising the Quest.
- Tijdreiziger 5y agointeresting - it looks like their website will let me add the Focus to my cart, but not the Focus Plus (the difference seemingly being the controllers?). It allows me to add a pre-order for the Focus 3 to my cart, but that's €1451 - a bit expensive! Someone else in this thread said that Facebook will sell businesses an accountless Quest for $699 - I wonder if you could buy that one as a consumer (I'm guessing not).
- xg15 5y agoIsn't this basically the classic Silicon Valley playbook? 1) growth at any cost, even if you're burning money left and right 2) find clever ways to "monetize" your product and strip everything that made your product attractive in the process.
- scabarott 5y agoWhatsapp all over again (sigh). Thank you Signal. Now would you consider making a VR headset?
- everdrive 5y agoA service is always subject to change. Consider it a lease or a rent, rather than something you can always count on. Be prepared to drop any given service you have, and ready to seek alternatives.
- rognjen 5y agoAnd no one was shocked.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- kevlar512 5y agoI would never buy or use any hardware tied to facebook. Period.
- kevlar512 5y agoI would never buy or use anything associated with facebook in any way. Period.