In a move that just about everyone saw coming, Facebook has announced that it's going to begin testing adding adverts to its Oculus Games. Now, on top of having to have a Facebook account to use Oculus VR, you'll also need to put up with immersion breaking ads for all sorts of services inside the games themselves.
"Our primary focus at Facebook Reality Labs (FRL) is to bring more people into VR, advance the consumer experience, and make progress on our longer-term augmented reality initiatives. We’re also exploring new ways for developers to generate revenue," Oculus said in its announcement blog. "This is a key part of ensuring we’re creating a self-sustaining platform that can support a variety of business models that unlock new types of content and audiences. It also helps us continue to make innovative AR/VR hardware more accessible to more people."
Users will first see these ads tested in Blaston from Resolution Games and a couple of other unnamed developers over the next few weeks. As in the gallery screenshot, the adverts will appear as 2D static ads in spots are aren't deemed too immersion breaking, even if it's clearly not an immersion improvement in any sense of the word.
Gamers will be able to look at details of the advert, including expand to an external link if they want to learn more about the brand being advertised, or even hide the advert entirely. But they'll need to stop the game they're playing in order to dig through the menus to do it.
Fun.
Oculus claims that it doesn't use any personal information to target ads to users. At least for now. Considering how much it's trying to lock down the Oculus VR platform and tie it to everyone's Facebook, you know it's coming down the pipe.