Starting in October, owners of the new Oculus VR headset will need a Facebook account if they want to use the device; the message from Oculus is not misleading: "Everyone who uses an Oculus device for the first time, with a Facebook account must log in with their Facebook account," the company wrote in a blog post.

The official Oculus application is where users configure their Oculus VR headsets, update drivers, and purchase from the Oculus Store. While it is possible to use the Oculus headset with third-party software, it seems very difficult to avoid the official app, at least for the initial setup.

Existing Oculus headset owners can continue to use their standalone Oculus account, which for now is just tied to their email address. But come 2023, their accounts will no longer be supported and they will lose "full functionality" (whatever that means after 3 years of changes to the software). The only way to maintain full functionality is to integrate their Oculus account with their Facebook account.

Oculus was acquired by Facebook in 2014. While that meant that the concept of finances was purely theoretical for the once kick-started company, avid fans feared that Facebook would turn VR into a mere means to satisfy their hunger for personal data. As expected, Facebook wants to incorporate VR into its vast social network, which is the reason behind this account requirement.

"By providing a single way to log into Oculus using your Facebook account and password, we're making it easier to find, connect, and play with friends in VR," the company wrote.

"This change allows us to integrate many of the features people know and love about Facebook."

It's easy to see Facebook's vision here. Connect with everyone you know on Facebook, see when they are participating in VR, join their ranks, share images taken in VR with other friends to add to their ranks, and eventually Facebook will completely replace reality and we will all be taking orders from Vil Azac. (You can read more about Facebook's vision on the Oculus blog.)

Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, who left the company in 2017, responded to the news on Reddit, admitting that he was wrong at the time when he promised that Facebook's acquisition would not mean users and developers would have to log in with their Facebook accounts He stated.

"I want to be clear that those promises were approved by Facebook at that moment and on an ongoing basis, and for a variety of reasons I truly believed they would continue to be so," Luckey wrote.

"In hindsight, the downvotes from those with more real-world experience than I had were definitely warranted."

While the change may not ultimately hinder Oculus - after all, Facebook's active accounts have recently been measured in the billions - the social network is not necessarily popular among tech enthusiasts. Facebook is arguably the world's biggest cause for concern about online privacy, at least in competition with Google.

Last year, Facebook paid a $5 billion fine to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). This year, Facebook agreed to pay $650 million to Illinois users for violating state laws on biometrics.

Oculus' biggest competitor is Valve's SteamVR system, which supports headsets from several manufacturers, including Valve's own Index, although using SteamVR apparently requires a Steam account, which Steam has problems with, It's not Facebook, so it's not frequently accused of being a curse the world can't shake off. I think it's safe to say that in the eyes of hardware enthusiasts, this Facebook account requirement is a major consideration when choosing a VR headset.