With Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp all household names, Oculus is perhaps Facebook’s most little-known subsidiary.
The social media giant acquired the virtual reality (VR) company in 2014 and has been steadily building up Oculus ever since.
Given Facebook’s heavy involvement with digital advertising, it is no surprise to learn Oculus has been working on ways to integrate ads into VR.
Earlier this month, Oculus revealed it would be adding in-game ads into VR duelling game Blaston.
“Once we see how this test goes and incorporate feedback from developers and the community, we’ll provide more details on when ads may become more broadly available across the Oculus platform and in the Oculus mobile app,” Facebook said in a statement.
However, this week it was revealed that Blaston was backing out of the trial, citing user concerns.
“After listening to player feedback, we realize that Blaston isn’t the best fit for this type of advertising test,” a tweet from the Blaston account said.
“Therefore, we no longer plan to implement the test. We look forward to seeing you in the arena and hope you try the Crackdown Update that went live today!”
Oculus has recently introduced ads to its mobile app.
And while Blaston might not be the right fit, that doesn’t mean the end for in-game ads on Oculus.
Resolution Games – the developer behind Blaston – told TechCrunch that there is still the possibility of placing ads in games.
“To make it clear, we realize that Blaston isn’t the best fit for this type of advertising test. As an alternative, we are looking to see if it is feasible to move this small, temporary test to our free game, Bait! sometime in the future,” the developer said in a statement.
