back to article Unlucky, Palmer: Facebook's going to BAN Oculus pr0n apps

Facebook has contradicted a statement by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and declared that pornographic content will be forbidden from appearing on the Oculus store. Speaking at Silicon Valley's Virtual Reality Conference in San Jose, in May, 22-year old Oculus founder Palmer Luckey was asked whether his company would be blocking …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Prudish much?

    Repeat after me the "American Dream" mantra:

    GUNS GOOD, TITS BAD.

    FFS...

    1. Graham Marsden
      Alert

      Re: Prudish much?

      Yep, you'll no doubt get many games which let you shoot, blow up or run down people in exquisitely rendered 3D graphic detail, but gods forbid you might get to see a pair of boobs...

      1. Indolent Wretch

        Re: Prudish much?

        Unless the owner of the boobs is a stripper who you have to gun down.

        Then it will be fine.

        1. Trigonoceps occipitalis

          Re: Prudish much?

          But no nipples!

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Bleu

      Re: Prudish much?

      Have you seen Zardoz (a cult item here, some graphics for Space Harrier from Sega were based on it).

      THE GUN IS GOOD, THE PENIS IS BAD!

    3. TheVogon

      Re: Prudish much?

      Just remember why VHS succeeded... I think we can conclude that Oculus will likely be the new Betamax!

  2. Little Mouse
    Unhappy

    Occulus Rift is owned by Facebook?

    I'll stick with Cardboard then.

    Or maybe my old ViewMaster.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Occulus Rift is owned by Facebook?

      And how is Google better?

      Both are advertising agency obsessed with tracking your every move.

      1. Little Mouse
        Unhappy

        Re: Occulus Rift is owned by Facebook?

        You're right!

        ViewMaster it is then. At least Mattell aren't trying to spy on us all. Could you imagine such a thing?

        "No Little Mouse. We couldn't." </'WIFI Barbie' voice>

    2. Bleu

      Was there pr0n on

      the Viewmaster?

      What a wonderful and magical toy, educational, too. Imagine if the UK still made anything much but second-rate weapons and riot control gear.

      1. Bleu

        Re: Was there pr0n on

        My bad, in Singapore, all of the viewmaster discs were brit-market, I forgot it was made by Mattel.

      2. Thorne

        Re: Was there pr0n on

        It's a stupid move. It was porn that won the war for VHS against BETA.

        Porn would sell more units and more units sold means more applications.

        The best way to get new technology into the market is porn

        1. ChrisBedford

          Re: Was there pr0n on

          "It was porn that won the war for VHS against BETA."

          It was? And there was I thinking it was all about Sony not allowing 3rd party manufacturing to the Beta specs, while VHS was an open standard.

          Can someone PLEASE reveal the secret to putting text into italics, bold, or blockquote in this forum? I've tried <q> [q] <quote> [quote] <blockquote> and [blockquote] all to no avail.

          1. JetSetJim
            Headmaster

            Re: Was there pr0n on

            try < i > tags for italic

            or < b > tags for bold

        2. Bleu

          Re: Was there pr0n on

          Thorne,

          Could you give the exact or near-exact stats on VHS vs. Beta for things that deliver five-knuckle shuffle fun to you?

          I think you are talking rubbish, the pr0n copying mania long post-dated Sony's post-dating of its cancellation.

          Sad thing is, Sony, so dutifully built by Morita from the ashes of fire-bombing, by buying USA media, is now largely under control of those arseholes, Stringer the worst, if a Welsh Regtard can assure me that 'Stringer' is a Welsh name, please correct me.

          SCE, of course they still make good products, but to me, the only recently interesting one was the backwards-compatible PS-3s that also would boot Linux.

          Of course, Stringer ordered no backwards compatibly and no booting to a general-purpose OS.

          It is such a shame that the Cell chip was so quickly abandoned.

          Games that were on both ps3 and xboy 360 all looked better on the former. Everybody knows

          Electronics, too, the walkman, cameras, many good products.

          Screwing that up has nothing to do with real Sony management, and everything to do with the idiot Stringer and his moron pals in NY and LA.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How does it affect exisiting software?

    I'm wondering what this new walled garden approach means to applications which have been under development for years, some of them rather very sophisticated, like flight and combat simulator DCS:World.

    Do they have to get Facebook's approval now?

    Let's hope the competition get their VR headsets on the way rather quickly.

    1. Vector

      Re: How does it affect exisiting software?

      "I'm wondering what this new walled garden approach means to applications which have been under development for years..."

      I suspect very little. Mainly, that they won't get listed on Oculus's store. That's not the death knell that being shut out of the Apple Store would be for iOS developers.

      The Rift is a peripheral. The computer to which it's connected is the arbiter of what software is allowed. Unless Oculus has gone to some extreme lengths to limit what it will display (which I think they would regret in the long term), you'll still be able to buy (or sell, as the case may be) whatever you like for it. You just may not be able to do it through Facebook. And that might just be a good thing.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How does it affect exisiting software?

      I must admit, I'm having second thoughts about Virtual Lab - the fast paced, first person virtual laboratory game I'm developing for the Rift where you fall in love with female lab assistants, they fall in love with you and when you criticise them, they cry.

  4. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Sabotage your own product?

    > pornographic content will be forbidden from appearing on the Oculus store

    Well, I suppose that's one way to kill it off.

    I guess the smut-mongers will either have to wait a few weeks until there is a cheaper chinese clone on the market, or wait a day or two until someone roots the device and makes an absolute fortune for themselves with their own Succubus Rift store.

    1. Grikath

      Re: Sabotage your own product?

      Wouldn't kill it off. Most peeps would still buy the thing for non-nookie applications if it adds sufficient value.

      But, yes... The biggest internet industry in the US (ironically..) will find a way onto it. one way or the other..

      1. Steven Raith

        Re: Sabotage your own product?

        Pretty sure that's what they said about BetaMax and HD DVD as well....

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sabotage your own product?

        "But, yes... The biggest internet industry in the US (ironically..) will find a way onto it. one way or the other.."

        By the front door or the back door?

    2. Slacker@work

      Re: Sabotage your own product?

      Upvote purely for coining "Succubus Rift"

  5. ratfox
    Paris Hilton

    What are the advantages of Oculus Rift?

    Compared to the various ways you can strap a cell phone on your face?

    1. Clive Galway

      Re: What are the advantages of Oculus Rift?

      Apart from the visual differences, the head tracking is optical as opposed to gyro based.

      Gyro based does not come close to the fidelity of optical - for a start gyros only give relative, not absolute tracking.

      TL;DR: You are much less likely to vomit over your PC with optical tracking.

      1. Charles Manning

        "You are much less likely to vomit over your PC with optical tracking."

        Yeah, but anyone else in the room is still likely to vomit over you!

        OR would seem to take Glasshole to a whole new level.

        1. Thorne

          Re: "You are much less likely to vomit over your PC with optical tracking."

          "Yeah, but anyone else in the room is still likely to vomit over you!"

          Well they will be when they walk in on you wearing nothing but the Oculus Rift and a smile......

  6. DropBear
    Facepalm

    So, could it be that those of us who dismissed Oculus completely as soon as we heard about the Facebook buyout may have had some sort of point after all...? Gasp, shock, horror...

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How is banning pr0n is the Oculus App store, the same as banning it on Oculus itself? Which is what the headline, and article seem to be indicating.

    Surely this just means that Oculus/FB are unwilling to distribute the pr0n themselves, and you'll just have to download those items from, ehem, elsewhere.

    This is of course unless Oculus/FB intend to cripple the device somehow, and only allows apps acquired through their official store to use the device. But that would be product suicide if it was the case.

    1. Kaltern

      I would direct you to Apple, it works fine for them...

      And don't forget Microsoft are on board now, which is very odd since their development of

      Halo - unless they decided it wasn't worth it.

      The Rift is just another example of good tech gone bad with the promise of wealth.

  8. SolidSquid

    So that's them going in the opposite direction of the one they said they would with the Occulus, a closed system rather than an open one. Wonder if they'll be locking down the API which people have already been working with on the development version

    1. Naughtyhorse

      Sounds Like

      If it turns out to be a closed system, they are truly fucked. all the speculation so far has been on the basis of OR being open, and using it's early release to establish a strong market presence, since then dates have slipped, and now this.

  9. Boothy

    Bye bye Oculus, been nice knowing you, Hi HTC/Valve

    Been a fan of Oculus from the start, own a DK2, and love using it.

    But the general feeling here with FB (as expected really, once they took over!), and also bundling a XBox controller with the package, means they are likely to be pushing people towards the HTC/Valve implementation instead.

    Although would still like to see a proper HTC vs Oculus comparison.

  10. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Paris Hilton

    Er,

    What is porn?

    1. soldinio

      Re: Er,

      I believe it was congress that said "We'll know when we see it......"

    2. Doctor_Wibble
      Angel

      Re: Er,

      That's a good question, with all sorts of opinions on what the answer is or should be.

      But one certainty: that thing you do with your hands, it's very bad.

    3. This post has been deleted by its author

  11. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

    Porn not family friendly?

    Isn't this how families are started?

    1. Thorne

      Re: Porn not family friendly?

      "Isn't this how families are started?"

      Only in a few. Some are likely to get you arrested

  12. David 138

    If it HAS to use the app store im not sure this is the VR experience for me.

  13. JohnFen

    No sideloading == no Oculus Rift

    So you won't be able to sideload apps? That's too bad. If I (or anyone else) can't sideload apps, then the platform is dead to me both as a developer and consumer. This is my existing policy for all other computing platforms. I won't be making an exception for OR.

  14. Camilla Smythe

    Feck Feck Feck

    https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en-GB&source=hp&q=memory+sex+scene+headset+mind+link+smoking+death

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOGAEAJ4xJE

    Feck Feck Feck

    sudo apt-get install -y libav-tools ubuntu-restricted-extras

    sudo apt-get install -y libavcodec-extra-54 libavformat-extra-54

  15. Dave 32

    Business Model

    So, step 1: Kill the business model. Step 2: File for Chapter 7 bankruptcy? No, wait, it's owned by FB. Still maybe FB will file Chapter 7?

    Dave

    1. Captain DaFt

      Re: Business Model

      "So, step 1: Kill the business model. Step 2: File for Chapter 7 bankruptcy? "

      Um, if other similar scenarios are followed:

      Step one: Kill business model

      Step two: Release poorly thought out version of product

      Step three: Kill product, citing "lack of demand"

      Step four: Use patent portfolio to sue all successful maker of similar/not so similar products (AKA: Profit!)

  16. EuroAnchor

    One Valve/ HTC Vive please!

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh well...

    Good thing we got Sony's Project Morpheus. Japanese tentacle porn FTW.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    > Oculus would therefore not be an open platform,...

    Seriously, the thing will be cracked about 2 minutes after it is released.

    Then porn *will* be available.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Seriously, the thing will be cracked about 2 minutes after it is released"

      They are using Android or some other flavour of Linux in it then?

  19. Daniel B.

    So we skeptics were right

    Once FB got on board, they were going to find a way to ruin it.

    1. dan1980

      Re: So we skeptics were right

      Well, more accurately, they want to monetise as much as possible and it's so much easier to control and keep track of everyone in a nice walled garden.

      Anyone who is even the slightest bit surprised is, frankly, rather naive or hasn't been paying much attention.

  20. raving angry loony

    Wonderful. Another walled garden with puerile censorship policies. Watch me not jump on that bandwagon.

  21. bobdobbs416

    Good thing there are sites out there like http://www.vrpornlist.com/ that already have a ton of apps available on the Oculus!

    1. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
      Coat

      And just like the real

      thing, complete with viruses for those without protection....

      Boris

      <<<putting his inside a rubber overcoat

    2. Boothy

      Lets hope they don't implement something into the Oculus drivers that restricts usage to only 'authorised' apps!

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    oculus store?

    Who gives a shit what's on that? Unless the thing is DRM'd to only allow content from the store - which would be suicide, I can use anything that installs on my pc, facebook and oculus store can go fck themselves.

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