Facebook outage affects Oculus, FIFA Mobile and Pokémon Go

Facebook couldn’t be lower right now. As the world gets a taste of the alternate reality where Mark Zuckerberg played sports in college, we also learn how our lives are entangled in the Facebook empire. As for the game, if you were hoping to buy this new game on Oculus VR, you might wish you had gone for a Vive earlier. And anyone looking to connect FIFA Mobile, Where Pokémon Go, or anything else attached to a Facebook account, is the same bad luck shit.

Facebook is now experiencing an absolutely huge outage, with all aspects of its business currently offline. Instagram, WhatsApp and of course the endless hell that is Facebook itself are all unavailable, and people around the world are looking up from their screens and noticing the sun for the first time in years. Despite cartoon blue birds landing on outstretched arms and rabbits leaping from mound to mound to everyone’s delight, those who refuse to embrace this newfound freedom find that Facebook’s tentacles extend far beyond ‘they wouldn’t.

Oculus, for example. It’s good to pretend that these cute Quest helmets have nothing to do with the Zuckerverse, but of course the sad reality is that the two are one. Last year, the literally evil company announced that Facebook accounts would be inextricably linked to everyone’s fancy machine hats, to the point that removing Facebook would mean removing your access to purchased Oculus games. So of course, with the anti-social network down, there are games and apps that you can’t play anymore. There is also no store to buy new games. Simply put, you get a taste of what could happen if you ever felt like pulling the tube out.

Oculus confirmed this in a tweet that said how “Some people” – even knowing it was “everyone” – had difficulty accessing apps and games. The tweet made it clear that it was “working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible”.

(Fortunately, games you’ve already purchased that don’t rely on Facebook servers should still launch for now.)

This extreme blackout also has ripple effects on games where players log in using their Facebook accounts, making it a huge deal. FIFA Mobile tweeted that he knew something was going on, but rather shaded Facebook in the process with a “we hope they or they resolve it shortly. (Our emphasis.)

Niantic also acknowledged the issues for those who log into Pokémon Go via their Facebook credentials. Niantic more nicely explained that he was “reviewing the error reports” and apologized even though it wasn’t even Niantic’s fault.

Facebook is typically shy about the issues, giving no explanation as to the cause of the outage. Instead, making the whole world laugh at the ironic horror of existence, he had to turn to Twitter to explain that “some people” have problems. Some people! What a weird, silly lie of 2021.

The best guess is some sort of DNS problem, which is the Internet equivalent of forgetting where you live. Some speculated earlier that perhaps this was a somewhat malicious act on the part of someone, removing the DNS records for all the products of the mega-corporation.

Still, whatever the cause of the unbelievably complete blackout, it serves us very well. When you go to bed with the devil, you should expect a trident to sting your back every now and then.