Following last night’s report that Oculus founder Palmer Luckey has been funding an anti-Hillary Clinton meme campaign, a number of VR developers are sharing their disapproval, some choosing to pull Oculus support for their games altogether.
In a statement released today, Insomniac Games — the studio behind Sunset Overdrive, Ratchet & Clank, and three Oculus games — said,”Insomniac Games condemns all forms of hate speech. While everyone has a right to express his or her political opinion, the behavior and sentiments reported do not reflect the values of our company. We are also confident that this behavior and sentiment does not reflect the values of the many Oculus employees we work with on a daily basis.”
Indie VR studios Scruta Games and Tomorrow Today Labs both announced a cessation of Oculus support until Luckey is no longer employed by the company. Polytron, the developer behind Fez, also announced they would be halting their work with Oculus, stating, “In a political climate as fragile and horrifying as this one, we cannot tacitly endorse these actions by supporting Luckey or his platform.”
https://twitter.com/ScrutaGames/status/779134849512857601
Hey @oculus, @PalmerLuckey's actions are unacceptable. NewtonVR will not be supporting the Oculus Touch as long as he is employed there.
— Tomorrow Today Labs (@TTLabsVR) September 23, 2016
Developers such as Job Simulator’s Owlchemy Labs and Fantastic Contraption’s Colin Northway have similarly expressed disapproval of Luckey’s funding activities, though refrained to comment on their involvement with Oculus. Others, such as SoundStage and game designer E McNeill, are choosing to contribute to Hillary Clinton’s campaign in response to the news.
On a scale from 1 to LITERAL GARBAGE, today is firmly in garbage territory. #humansWhy
— Owlchemy Labs (@OwlchemyLabs) September 23, 2016
Definitely using every fibre of my “professionalism” to not tweet some tweets right now.
— ColinNorthway (@ColinNorthway) September 23, 2016
https://twitter.com/soundstagevr/status/779318912152317952
Idle Q: Would any Oculus devs join me in a donation drive for Hillary? We could aim to beat Nimble America's $11k. I'd start with $1k myself
— E McNeill (@E_McNeill) September 23, 2016
Neither Oculus nor its owner company, Facebook, has commented on the situation. We’ll update this post should more news arise.
