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Comment by solid_fuel | Hacker News Reader

Meta locked two games I already paid for - Blade & Sorcery VR and Beat Saber - behind account verification on the Quest 2. I already bought both of these, played them for a while, but now it won't let me use the headset without "verifying" my facebook account by sending them a photograph of my drivers license. Neither of these games are online, neither allow me to interact with other users in any way.

I will never buy a Meta product again, the brand reputation is lower than dirt to me. Even ignoring all the other awful things Meta does, they have no reason to require a verified account to play two local-only games that I already paid for. No matter how cool glasses like these may look, I have no trust that the brand will not suddenly demand more money or information from me to continue using a product I have already purchased.

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Switching from just basic Oculus accounts to Facebook accounts was the dumbest move, I say that from someone who was really enjoying the Rift and Quest 1 hardware. Whole thing was pretty effortless until that moment, then logging into it became this massive chore where you're bounding between the phone and headset twice, really tedious if you're not a big facebooker so haven't used their login flow in years and it was all just extremely janky.

Then there were a bunch of walls in the transition period where Oculus accounts can do X,Y but Meta accounts are needed for Z.

Can really tell Zuck told the teams "All in on VR/AR" and the accounts/FB team began "well if its core it's account should be the core account we use".

Would have been much smarter to keep it like Instagram where it's an entirely separate feeling account but under the hood deeply connected in a way that allows the data syphoning they want but the end user it rarely feels like a Facebook account.

That was the day I stopped developing for VR completely. Kind of dodged a bullet because the space didn't explode the way I thought it was going to.

Why did you have to switch to a Facebook account?

I was gifted a Meta Quest 3S, and I was forced to make a Meta account, but I didn’t have to make a Facebook account.

When the Quest 2 came out they shifted from using a specific Oculus account to requiring Facebook accounts. It was a dumb idea and my wife was questioning why I made a Facebook account for my 12 year old kid (who as a typical Gen Z will probably never use FB proper).

They have since reversed that decision.

I dislike being forced into any Meta account whatsoever, and I would’ve purchased a Valve Index, but I did get the headset for free in a giveaway.

A lot of big companies make this mistake and dont see how it hurts them.

I’m almost at a tipping point of leaving windows because of the weird account integrations.

Even my Mac nags me to log in. Why do I have to log in online to use a computer? This bothers gen x at least.

And I use google products way less than I would because of all the login requirements.

Same. I already left windows because of the weird integrations, continuous cpu use, intrusive analytics, slow WSL, and forced reboots.

Linux doesn't do any of that or bug you about logging in. It's been a breath of fresh air. I have a windows VM in case I absolutely have to have Office365, but so far LibreOffice has been great.

No doubt that Facebook is losing people over it, but they're gaining what they care about most -- your data.

Agree. And the constant spying doesn't help either. Who wants an always online meta controlled camera/microphone in their bedroom all the time?

I'm never going to update a photo government ID to some company just to use an app. What kind of a bonkers world are we living in? Totally ridiculous. No app is worth this.

Most new accounts seem to require a face scan too (finally they're true to their name?). I recently needed to get a Facebook account and was not able to use it without providing the scan. Luckily I was able to do an AI face swap, but far from everyone is that savvy.

Interesting. Did you swap your face on a computer, and pointed the smartphone camera on the monitor?

Desktop browser & https://github.com/hacksider/Deep-Live-Cam

Some sites outsource their ID verification to platforms that want live videos of different angles of your face, along with pictures of your ID.

Literally all the data they could possibly need to build 3D models of your face for even better facial recognition, along with plenty of data to train models on. When that data eventually leaks, it will be interesting.

It's insane that anyone puts up with it.

people scan their retina in exchange of coupons amd shitcoins in mall booths

Some people also eat rocks, it doesn't mean it's common or even a good thing to do.

desperate people do that. Scammer Altman went to Argentina during the peak economic crise of the century to make that offer.

likewise, most USA government backed benefits require people to submit all sorts of biometric to a private company who used to monetize coupons for military deployed personel, called gov.id or something.

I've seen them in Chile, which wasn't in crisis. Always had a queue waiting to be scanned.

> "that want live videos of different angles of your face"

Hetzner (outsourcing to Idenfy) dared to demand this of me, three years ago. I'm still mad about it.

> "When that data eventually leaks,"

Indeed, my understanding is these sensitive biometrics are generically (i) uploaded in full to a remote server, where they're (ii) retained for a nontrivial amount of time, because they need to be (iii) manually QA'd by humans. It's nothing like an iPhone's local-only biometrics enclave. My understanding's based on the specific case of Idenfy, and an ex-Idenfy HN'er explaining its workflow[0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33863625#33864440

Hetzner (in Germany) never did things like these to me. What were you trying to do with them?

Hetzner uses some kind of AI (the old kind) to assign risk scores to customers. In my case they just wanted a photo of my passport, but that was years ago. For some people they just outright deny access no matter what you upload. Other people just go right on through.

I had to go through this shit show once in my life, in order to use Airbnb.

It's been a few years since I last used Airbnb and I regret that moment of weakness.

It’s likely your face in multiple angles already exists online whether from photos or videos, simply because you were in the background of someone else taking a photo or video. Whilst I align with you in being restrictive in the data we share online, corporations and government with infinite resources likely have everything they need to construct “3D models of your face for even better facial recognition”.

Lots of people, actually. This website is an echo chamber of those privacy-conscious.

HN is typically slow to admit it, but Facebook and TikTok wouldn't be popular if you were wrong. Consumers don't care.

Google glass

People care about other people they meet spying on them or doing creepy things. They don't care about people they don't meet spying on them or doing creepy things, because they don't notice it and it has a very low chance of showing up in the social media feed of people they know.

Consumers don't know or want to know rather - ignorance is bliss when it comes to getting Children to spend relatively quiet time independently. Otherwise the GOP would be virtue-signalling about getting Roblox as a platform getting banned due to the preponderance of predators and material unsuitable or unsafe for children.

I live in Europe so there are still rules keeping Weyland-Yutani in line.

If you're in the US you're on your own I guess.

Totally. Most people just click Accept All on the dumb cookie banners, and they don't give a sh*t about privacy at all.

Its not that they dont care at all. They just dont care until they feel the pain of it, because they are optimising for short term satisfaction.

You already have one, regardless of some companies repeating the privacy claim 24/7 to make you believe so.

Objectively speaking, most people do. That's why Meta has so much money.

This. Also (if possible) move away from Facebook. I have zero respect for this company, no matter what they do or come up with.

Always remember that you are under their will, be your data, be the devices you purchase from them or any other thing that is related to them.

Microsoft pulled the account verification trick with Minecraft after forced account migration a few years back, locking accounts and forcing customers to verify mobile phone number to even launch the game.

That's crazy.

If you want to play something minecraft-like, Luanti (VoxeLibre) is really excellent. I play it with my child, and it's indistinguishable from 'real Minecraft'.

https://www.luanti.org/

I am looking at Vintage Story, to be honest. Inspired by TerraFirmaCraft mod, it is indie and seems determined to stay that way.

iirc there's a YouTuber that wants to sue Microsoft for this weird rugpull, although I doubt it will happen

At least on nintendo switch that's not true

In the most minor defense of the devil: with Minecraft, you have a substantial audience who is underage, the game features multiplayer heavily, and I don't think it's the worst idea ever to have verified accounts there.

True, though whether you play on any servers or not does not seem to be relevant to Microsoft’s process. Also, it works the other way too, in that Microsoft would be collecting information of children who are presumably the majority of players.

That was a real scumbag move. Thankfully its easy AF to "pirate" Minecraft by simply commenting out account verification in a 3rd party launcher. But I will never forgive Microsoft for stealing my account with that dirty trick.

Yea, that was a major pain. I had a Mojang account since basically day one when the Minecraft beta came out and then over 10 years later I want to boot up the game to play with some friends for nostalgia and my account no longer works.

they don't look cool anymore. they are the eyes of skynet. I have prescriptions coming up and I have always bought ray bans. I won't anymore, I don't want anyone to think I am spying on them, because that's what they are, spy tools.

Yeah, looks like a cool product, but I would never buy anything from Facebook, because it's primarily an advertising company.

> Neither of these games are online, neither allow me to interact with other users in any way.

Beatsaber has a multiplayer mode, so if your opinion is contingent on online play you should reconsider.

> now it won't let me use the headset without "verifying" my facebook account by sending them a photograph of my drivers license.

I believe this would be the first time in my life that I would try to generate a fake driver's license.[0] It's completely ridiculous.

[0] Not to mention that I'd only use a fake FB account first anyway, there's no way I'd give them my real data. I know Zuck apologized by "dumb fucks", but while the wording was offensive he was actually right.

This, plus the fact that if you dig deep enough into your google account you'll probably find an audio file with you saying "really? I can't play this game? Fuck you facebook, never buying your gear again" recorded from your android phone without your consent or knowing.

How does that work? The Quest doesn't even require a Facebook account. They were decoupled in 2022.

I'd assume the purchases were made with the Facebook account, when it was still required, so the purchase can't be used on another account ?

I haven't checked, but the Facebook decoupling was made kicking and screaming so I assume there will be rought edges

You can’t tell me a Meta account isn’t just a Facebook account with extra steps.

It’s still Facebook and will always be Facebook.

The above post didn’t even load for me because I have all of their domain names DNS blocked at my router and in NextDNS on mobile.

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