"Change always sucks because people lose their jobs": but Oculus founder Palmer Luckey still thinks Meta is doing the right thing for VR

The world of virtual reality headsets is a strange one. Once pegged as the new frontier for tech and gaming, these devices have largely fallen by the wayside, with brands opting to pivot towards smaller, more fashion-focused smart glasses.

It makes sense, too. A more wearable everyday product is likely to have a wider mass appeal than the larger headsets, which have proven to be more niche than many will have hoped. Even so, the news that Meta was laying off around 10% of its Reality Labs division was tough to take.

As many began to suggest that it was the beginning of the end for Meta's VR endeavours, form Oculus founder, Palmer Luckey, had a different take. In a long post on X (formerly Twitter), he suggested that the changes were "a good thing for the long-term health of the industry."

Luckey says, "The majority of the 1,500 jobs cut ... were roles working on first-party content, internally developed games that competed directly with third party developers. I think this is a good decision, and I thought the same back when I was still at Oculus."

His argument is that Meta subsidising its own games at the expense of improving its platform stability and technical features "doesn't make sense" – especially when it also crowds out smaller, third-party developers.

While I definitely don't wholeheartedly agree with his statement, I can certainly find some common ground. If Meta can refocus some of that resource into improving its platform, the overall experience would certainly be better. Many users cite issues with central spaces like the Horizon Worlds app, which could be improved upon to make the overall prospect of owning a Meta Quest more enticing.

Even so, in the short term, it's tough to look at the move as anything more than a backwards step for the industry at large.