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.

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.

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

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.

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.

> 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.

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

> 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.

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.