Late last week, Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey was at the center of a controversy. According to a report by The Daily Beast, it appears that Luckey has been finacially backing a pro-Donald Trump political organization called Nimble America. Once this piece of information began spreading out to the internet, reaction towards his actions have been swift unforgiving.
Based on The Daily Beast’s reports, it appears that Luckey has been playing an active roll in funding Nimble America’s pro-Trump agenda. Luckey has also been an active user at reddit’s The_Donald subreddit, going under the pseudonym “NimbleRichMan.” “I came into touch with them over Facebook,” says Luckey to The Daily Beast. “It went along the lines of ‘hey, I have a bunch of money. I would love to see more of this stuff.'”
SUPERHYPERCUBE will not be supporting Oculus. https://t.co/sqtAzZ8hJZ
— Polytron (@Polytron) September 23, 2016
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
Upon discovery that Luckey has been funding a pro-Trump group, Oculus was instantly hit with a fallout, with many game developers outraged over Luckey’s actions. Some developers, like Tomorrow Today Labs and Scruta Games, have announced that they will be dropping support for the Oculus Rift until Luckey is no longer working for the company. Motherboard has since compiled a list of developers who have announced that they would be boycotting Oculus.
Luckey has since issued a statement regarding the controversy, saying that he was “deeply sorry” that his actions have negatively impacted the perception of Oculus. Luckey also clarifies that his actions were his own and do not represent Oculus. However, it appears that the damage has been done, and nothing short of Luckey resigning from Oculus can be done to amend it.
Source: The Daily Beast, Motherboard, Ars Technica
