Oculus has started rolling out its new set of social features for the Oculus Platform, and it's going to be powered by Facebook. Oculus already uses Facebook for certain features such as VR livestreaming and safety tools like user reports. Finally, Oculus will be having full social features such as chatting, but there's a catch, users are going to have used their Facebook account.
New Set of Features
Oculus will be rolling out a lot of new features over the next few days. These new features include chats to message Oculus friends, quickly joining friends with links to head where they are within an app, as well as view the most popular destinations in VR. Users can also create events to organize meetups or multiplayer gaming with friends. Facebook will also be improving integration, allowing users to share photos, videos, or livestream to Facebook and integrate Messenger friends for quick invites. Lastly, Oculus friends can now join parties instead of having to send invites.
Some of these features have been available for some time now, and Oculus says Facebook has always powered them, but as they continue to increase integration, first-party social interactions will now be backed by Facebook Identity, for ease of use as well as improving security. Oculus has also updated its Privacy Policy to clarify how Oculus data is being shared with Facebook.
Whether or not users decide to log in to their Facebook accounts, will still be able to keep a separate Oculus account. That means they will get to keep their current Oculus username, profile, and friends list. Users who have logged in to Facebook can opt to automatically add their Facebook Friends on Oculus, as well as choose what information they post on their Facebook Profile and Timeline.
User Data and Ad Targeting
As part of their integration, users who log in with their Facebook account will be having their user data collected to receive better-targeted ads. This user data will include what apps the users and will be used to recommend Oculus events or certain apps available on the app store. None of this is coming as a surprise as Oculus was purchased by Facebook back in March 2014, for what was later disclosed to have been $3 billion.
Oculus has also begun strongly integrating with Facebook recently and will continue to do so as they plan to introduce even more social features in the coming months, including sharing to Facebook groups and co-watching on the Quest. Finally, a beta for Facebook Horizon, the social VR world, is slated next year, 2020.
The Future for Oculus
A lot of fans are worried about the future of Oculus as it gets integrated into Facebook. Still, so far, it has only brought more features to Oculus, and Facebook is leaving the option not to log in with their Facebook accounts and keep their accounts separate. Furthermore, Facebook has been taking steps to help VR become more ubiquitous with the entry-level $199 Oculus Go, and the $399 Oculus Quest. Users who own a more powerful gaming PC can get the full Oculus experience with the Oculus Rift S, also at $399.
