In light of recent revelations that Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey is funding a pro-Trump political group that makes anti-Clinton memes, a number of developers have decided to drop Oculus support in protest.
Working behind the scenes to help Donald Trump get to the top has put Palmer Luckey in a tough spot with several developers who find his scheming unfitting. Word got out that Luckey has been financially backing a non-profit company called Nimble America, which in turn supports Republican nominee Donald Trump.
The scheme involves memes directed at Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton, and Luckey thought it "sounded like a real jolly good time," according to the Daily Beast.
An increasing number of developers don't find this so jolly, however, and are publicly announcing that they will no longer be supporting Oculus for their current or upcoming games.
Tomorrow Today Labs, a company working on an unannounced VR game and VR physics middleware, was among the first to drop Oculus support.
Hey @oculus, @PalmerLuckey's actions are unacceptable. NewtonVR will not be supporting the Oculus Touch as long as he is employed there.
— Tomorrow Today Labs (@TTLabsVR) September 23, 2016
Scruta Games, which is also working on several VR titles, made a similar announcement.
Until @PalmerLuckey steps down from his position at @oculus, we will be cancelling Oculus support for our games. — Scruta Games (@ScrutaGames) September 23, 2016
The anti-Luckey list goes on with VR developer Mark Sumner, indie developers Kokoromi and Polytron and others.
While the protest of these smaller developers is not exactly a serious developer boycott that could take a toll on Oculus' success or games, it does show that Luckey did stir quite some controversy with his pro-Trump actions. For the gaming world, this may be the first time a platform is ousted over the political views of its leaders. Motherboard has put together a list of developers who joined the Oculus boycott.
Developers are not the only ones taking a stance in this context, however. A number of consumers also seem willing to join the protest, pledging to support the Oculus boycott by not buying any products belonging or associated with it.
Donald Trump may well be one of the most controversial presidential candidates ever, dividing public opinion and stirring strong reactions with his often blunt, white supremacy remarks.
While each person is entitled to their own beliefs, convictions and political views, public figures who choose to support controversial politicians are up for some controversy themselves, and Palmer Luckey is no exception.
It remains to be seen whether more developers will join the Oculus boycott and whether this protest will get big enough to affect the company, but things are definitely heating up. As always, we'll keep you up to date on any new developments as soon as they unfold.
