It seems like Facebook can’t handle a few moments of not being in the limelight. Reporting from The Verge indicates that FB will be deprecating support for standalone Oculus user accounts in the near future. New users will be required to associate their device with a FB account, while existing users will be prompted to merge their Oculus account into a FB account.
Nobody should be surprised by this, given the company‘s history of forcing “external” services to integrate into the umbrella of the main FB service. This is par for the course when it comes to management of user information spread as a corporation grows and wants to either create new systems or persuade users to give another more modern system a shot.
In the case of Oculus, it’s a bit more complicated than simply merging a couple of databases, as the Oculus account method doubled as an entire digital rights management system complete with financial credential holding. If Facebook wasn’t already in possession of your financial details, this change will definitely give them access.
Most users who just want to continue to use their device are either going to pile into the ‘who cares, stop bugging me’ camp or the ‘fuck FB’ camp—and given the recent Epic vs. 30% developments, the latter camp might gather a few more loyalties than it might have at another time.