Facebook apologizes over “Bullet Train” VR demo at right-wing conference
Enlarge / A scene from the "Bullet Train" demo that Facebook removed from the CPAC political conference over the weekend.
The Unreal Engine demo "Bullet Train" has been a standard part of Oculus' trade show demonstrations for the Rift headset for many years now. But in the wake of a school shooting in Florida earlier this month, the violent, gun-based demo didn't prove a good fit for the Conservative Political Action Conference in the Washington DC suburbs this weekend.
Sean Morrow, a producer for Now This News, noted the presence of the "VR shooting game" at Facebook's CPAC booth in a widely circulated tweet late Friday. Within hours of the tweet, Facebook had responded by removing the demo from the conference floor.
"There is a standard set of experiences included in the Oculus demos we feature at public events," Facebook's VP for virtual reality said in a statement provided to Variety. "A few of the action games can include violence. In light of the recent events in Florida and out of respect for the victims and their families, we have removed them from this demo. We regret that we failed to do so in the first place."
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