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Comment by neither_color | Hacker News Reader

Nobody is buying an Oculus headset right now because they've been recalled and won't be available until August 24th.

https://www.oculus.com/quest-2/removable-facial-interface-al...

This recall is only for the foam face insert. It's removable and probably very inexpensive to make / replace. Oculus is sending free replacements to folks.

I am an avid Quest 2 user since ~October. I play Population:one and _love_ it. It's a team-based Battle Royale. I am just blown away by how much fun and social it is. It's been a godsend during the pandemic.

The Quest 2 is only $300 - I strongly recommend it!

Does this model require an FB account to be used as intended?

I believe so. It is required by them for store purchases.

Yes

Yes, so it should absolutely be avoided at all costs.

From what I read there’s an enterprise Oculus Quest 2 model that is more expensive but doesn’t require a Facebook account.

But it doesn't have access to the consumer-facing store and is intended solely for internal business usage (for example, employee training and the like.)

Ok, but the Oculus store sucks anyway, so the question is: can I just use Steam with it?

You can actually obtain it with access to the consumer facing store now, but you couldn't when that scheme launched.

But there is no way to switch between these options, or even to upgrade the consumer hardware you had to buy to get stuff out of the door when they launched without this functionality to be able to utilise the business accounts, even if you were willing to pay to do so. The answer is literally to junk your existing hardware investment.

It's really a crazy mess. Nobody at Facebook/Oculus seems to really care about how this is supposed to work for businesses developing for the platform in practice.

It seems so much harder than just permitting business users to set up a "faux" account that can be used for company wide demo machines (and managed only by signing into that account, not having to buy specific hardware), even if a bunch of verification was required for that initial setup.

It does, but "requires a Facebook account" doesn't entirely capture the nature of Oculus' requirements. If, for instance, Twitter sold hardware that required a Twitter account, that would indeed be the beginning and end of it – create a new Twitter account for the hardware, and off you go.

What Oculus requires, however, is your Facebook account, as in the one you created over a decade ago and never use but is full of all your friends' pictures of their children and/or political memes.

Creating a separate account just for using the hardware is not only expressly forbidden, but can result in you being locked out of your device: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/oculus-quest-2-users-banne... And if you truly do not have an existing account, good luck convincing the algorithms of that.

The same is true of an Xbox and a Microsoft account. The sign up flow requires a full name and the ToS requires you not to give false information.

Last I checked, it wasn't a TOS violation to have multiple Microsoft accounts like it is with FB. Microsoft even has some official support for for work vs personal accounts

I’ve dealt with this before, I routinely break my social graphs. New email address, dont link a phone number or not one that youve ever given to anybody.

The trick is, on the first session upload a profile photo or two or three, and actually friend a few people.

YMMV

Interesting, did not know that they could ban people for that. I did exactly this and haven't had an issue yet. Maybe because I've purchased games through their store. Fingers crossed.

No, there are numerous accounts online of people losing all their purchases because of violating their terms of service or whatever. Having purchased content won't help.

Here's one from a few days ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/ouubx1/deleted_face...

Or this from a week ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/osbbkj/i_lost_my_en...

> Creating a separate account just for using the hardware is not only expressly forbidden, but can result in you being locked out of your device:

I'm not one to defend Facebook, but what you've said is just not true. That only happened to a handful of people at the very beginning and was likely a moderation bug. People aren't getting banned for having burner accounts.

I've had this happen to me on more than one occasion over several years, so I find it very hard to see it as a "moderation bug"

You've had burner accounts disabled, or you've had your oculus quest 2 disabled for using burner accounts multiple times over several years? Impressive considering it's been out for less than a year.

it's hard to judge how frequent but there are a continuous stream of people and even one prominent YouTube reviewer who got their whole FB account banned (sometimes their actual lifelong account).

https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/search?q=banned&restrict_sr=...

It's not important what is or is not happening right now, or even a little while ago.

The TOS expressly allows them to lock you out of your account if they detect you using an account that is not your Facebook Real Identity (tm)

They are allowed to brick your Oculus at any time, with no recourse.

See "I want to use a name different from my legal name for my Facebook account." Here https://support.oculus.com/fb/

And "If I’m having problems accessing my Facebook account, can I still use my Oculus device?" here https://www.oculus.com/blog/facebook-accounts-on-oculus/

https://www.facebook.com/help/112146705538576/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_real-name_policy_cont... https://www.wired.com/2015/06/facebook-real-name-policy-prob... https://media.business-humanrights.org/media/documents/files...

> Creating a separate account just for using the hardware is not only expressly forbidden, but can result in you being locked out of your device

Wow. That is despicable.

I deleted by FB account and created a new dummy account for Oculus. No issues.

FB runs bots over the platform to detect these accounts. Since they have everyone's contact list, they can just check your friends list and see if you appear in their contact lists. If not, they will lock you out and require you to send a photo of your ID.

And even if they have not yet, they can at any time and all of your games and hardware get locked which is permitted in their ToS. Why would you want to take this risk when the alternative platforms do not have real identity rules.

Hmm, I can understand getting banned for having a side account. But GP claims they fully deleted their account, and created a new one. What is Facebook gonna do, punish them for no longer having a FB account? What if I happened to have deleted my FB account a year ago and want to play Oculus now?

For people who don't care about the account they made a decade ago and no longer use, this seems like a reasonable and probably safe approach.

I was asked by Facebook to create a second account and hand the details over to their developers in order for them to have access to a platform we're developing for some validation regarding our use of OAuth, it's probably also against their TOS, yet had I not done that they would've locked us and our users of OAuth...

A number of people make a FB account just for the oculus.

It's highly risky .... it is directly against Facebook TOS and people are actively banned for it, not only losing all their purchases but sometimes their lifelong real facebook account as well.

So this is a way to get them to permanently deactivate my account? Doesn’t sound so bad.

I used a throwaway email, phone, fake photos and friended a number of accounts. I have nothing connecting it to my "real" facebook and/or social graph. Maybe I'm lucky.

If anyone else is on the fence about the Quest 2, I received on as a gift, and it has totally blown me away. I was previously somewhat skeptical of VR, but it's so fun. FWIW, it also feels a bit _different_ than normal video games, because you're on your feet, moving your body, etc.

Yes, I used a friend's, and it really is great.

However, you must link it to your facebook account that is connected to your true friend graph, and they can deactivate your account at any time.

I highly recommend that no one buy one.

I wasnt knocking on the quest 2, I love mine. You just literally can't buy one retail right now, only second hand like ebay. It's an FYI.

You can find brand new sealed ones on ebay... Just sold one for about $450

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