Facebook's First Oculus Ads Partner Is Already Retreating

Mark Zuckerberg's ongoing quest to turn every Facebook property into ad-riddled real estate hit a snag this week when the only virtual reality game that publicly offered to onboard Oculus's VR ads (rightfully) backed down. Gizmodo reports: Originally, Facebook set out to test its first iteration of VR ads in Blaston, a $10 multiplayer title for the Oculus Quest that was created by the prolific VR games publisher Resolution Games. The idea of being pummeled with VR ads in a game is bad enough, but the fact that players were going to be pummeled in a game they already paid for was enough to set some players over the edge. Pretty much immediately after Facebook announced its plans to blast Blaston's users with ads, the game's page on the Oculus store was pummeled with one-star reviews.

Less than a week after these reviews started pouring in, Blaston backed down. "After listening to player feedback, we realize that Blaston isn't the best fit for this type of advertising test. Therefore, we no longer plan to implement the test," the company wrote in a Twitter thread posted Monday afternoon. About three hours later, the company added that it did have plans to roll out a "temporary test" of Oculus'sVR ads in another one of its games -- a free-to-download fishing title called Bait!.

Mark 'Nolan Sorrento' Zuckerburg

[frivolous_taco]

"We have determined that we'll be able to fill 80% of the user's display with advertising before inducing seizures”

Re:Mark 'Nolan Sorrento' Zuckerburg

[lessSockMorePuppet]

If you didn't abandon it when Facebook became a requirement, they figure you've got Stockholm Syndrome.

Re: Mark 'Nolan Sorrento' Zuckerburg

[Agent Fletcher]

Maybe for new users but people who already spent $300 on the equipment and who knows how much on games aren't going to quit. I know I made a fake Facebook account for oculus. I have no friends and no profile information it's only a login for oculus.

Re:

[lessSockMorePuppet]

people who already spent $300 on the equipment and who knows how much on games aren't going to quit.

Now you're describing throwing good money after bad. Do you think maybe you actually have Stockholm Syndrome, to where you need to identify with your captor and you feel invested in your captivity?

Re:

[WankerWeasel]

Totally. Facebook bought Oculus back in 2014. In 7 years there's plenty of opportunity to bail on them. If they spent $300 on equipment, that means they bought the Oculus Quest 2, which wasn't released until October of last year. You'd have to be pretty silly to believe Facebook wasn't going to go the same direction with it that they have with every single other major purchase they've made. They didn't spend $2 billion to buy them to just lose money on them forever.

Re: Mark 'Nolan Sorrento' Zuckerburg

[Agent Fletcher]

No. I just liked getting peed on by pregnant girls in VR.

Re:

[lessSockMorePuppet]

It's hard to argue with you there. To each their own. ;)

Re:

[nehumanuscrede]

Throwing $300 into the trash can because Facebook requires you to bow to their demands if you want to use their hardware ?

That's an easy decision. I'll donate that unit without a second thought.

Re:

[k0t0n]

That's how you lose access to your hardware and software once a trigger happy bot bans your fake account

Re:

[SniffTheGlove]

It still shocks me to think someone comes along and goes, "I know what will be great for our product, ADS!!!!, the customers won't mind at all and just think of all that lovely money coming in" and then proceeds to apply the ads and then wonders why the fuck is their so much discent with out customers, don't they know that these ADS are good for us"

Bait!

[Arethan]

And Switch?

Re:

[dohzer]

Does the Nintendo Switch even have VR?

Re:

[RitchCraft]

No, this was a switch and Bait!

Re:

[GoTeam]

gross

Re:

[meerling]

Well it's definitely the correct description of the "game"

lol

[mustafap]

ah, I think they enrolled and expected to exit, just for the PR

Ads everywhere except your dreams

[quonset]

People usually say The Simpsons predicted, but in this case, it was Futurama [youtube.com].

So happy I canceled my pre-order when FB bought

[Spamalope]

I had an Oculus pre-order when FB bought 'em. I've been so thrilled I did since.

Has anyone ever tracked what FB snoops on via Oculus drivers? Is it the same sort of invasion they've been caught at with cell phone apps?
It doesn't seem surprising that they'd expect to double dip - charge for apps then also treat them as free-to-play ad supported both.

Re:

[sound+vision]

I didn't see any games I wanted or have nearly a good enough GPU when I first heard about these headsets years ago.

Both of those things have changed now, is there any hardware out there now or in development that is at least as good?

Re:

[RockDoctor]

I didn't see any games I wanted or have nearly a good enough GPU when I first heard about these headsets years ago.

Neither did I, and I wasn't sure then if my hardware qualified as a "GPU". I'm still not sure if this laptop (only 10 years old!) has a sufficient GPU, or if whatever video hardware it has, qualifies as a GPU. I'd have to care enough to find out how to find out.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

Darn. Was kinda hoping this would be the downfall of the VR fad. A promising technology, but overrun with ads that killed it for good.

I mean, who's going to want to pay hundreds of dollars for a specialized device aimed at funnelling ads to your face?

Seems like an ideal use of VR, to be honest.

Don't worry

[LoneBoco]

Don't worry, there are still many different options to choose from for adding advertisements to your game. Unity Ads, Anzu, the Microsoft Advertising SDK, Bidstack, and so on.

Re:

[RockDoctor]

The ancient Romans loved this sort of thing.

Think of the employment opportunities in training the animals - they won't do it naturally, you know. The Romans left some textbooks that give a rough idea of how they did it ...

Hey, I think we have a kernel of an idea for a great VR game - "Beastiality Beast Trainer" - throw in some AI to mimic the animal's instincts, various methods for the trainer to deploy, lots of really juicy graphics - we're onto a winner.

But Officer, it's historical education, not porno

One star reviews on the facebook store?

[PingSpike]

Facebook owns the store so I don't see why they don't just delete all of the one star reviews.

I know some people might feel that would damage the integrity of the store's review system, but facebook has no integrity so that shouldn't be a problem.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

I know some people might feel that would damage the integrity of the store's review system, but facebook has no integrity so that shouldn't be a problem.

It works for google [hindustantimes.com].

a fishing title named Bait?

[3seas]

Well, at least the company has a sense of humor.
Not a game player myself so I can be very objective about this obvious humorous intent. Consider the reason why some can't.
Ready Player One?

I own a Quest 1

[Walking The Walk]

tldr; I have a Quest 1, Bait! is free but you pay to get the extra lakes (which I've done), I don't want ads added to content I've paid for. If ads will be in the games, that should only happen in "free" games or be made clear before purchase.

Background: We bought a Quest 1 1.5 years ago, and it's been great. No base stations means we can bring it anywhere (friend's house, office, gymnasium at the community centre), and combined with the price really lowered the bar to entry. A couple of my friends have

Router/ Firewall rules

[RockDoctor]

What rules would I need to put into my firewall to return a "Name not resolved" error for whichever Facebook domains this tries to read?

Seems less prone to problems than fiddling with the actual computer that the game is running on.

I might need a cron entry too, to allow one query a month (or one in 10,000, or whatever) through, so it looks to the game as if the server is down/ flaky, rather than outright banned.