Echo VR’s days are numbered, as Meta introduced earlier this 12 months it could quickly be pulling the plug on one in all its most profitable video games on Quest. But hardcore gamers of zero-G sports activities recreation Echo VR and its shooter variant Echo Combat aren’t taking place and not using a combat.
Organizers behind a protest group referred to as ‘The Fight For Echo’ need to maintain their favourite recreation alive, they usually’re apparently able to take drastic measures.
On Wednesday, March 1st, the group commissioned an airplane-towed message to fly over Meta’s HQ in Menlo Park, California, which then circled the guts of Silicon Valley for over three hours for all to see. The message was directed at Meta founder & CEO Mark ‘Zuck’ Zuckerberg, stating: “ZUCK, DON’T KILL VR ESPORTS FIGHTFORECHO.COM”
You can see the aircraft in motion, courtesy of a YouTube livestream by ‘rev2600’, one such devoted Echo VR participant:
The protest group defined the transfer on the Fight For Echo website:
While we’re extraordinarily captivated with these video games and are very supportive of the staff at Ready at Dawn and the Echo Games franchise on the entire, we expect we are able to nonetheless assist Meta and Ready at Dawn by persevering with to be the testing floor and supportive group we at all times have been and supply a spot the place bigger concepts for different VR video games might be examined.
We can not do this nonetheless with out some form of recreation server being offered to the group to host ourselves, or minimal infrastructure to play on and the permission to work with the folks required to do it.
We perceive that there’s a future path being taken; and that it’s tied to rules and compliance, and our intention is to not maintain something again. We solely want to proceed to do what we’ve at all times performed and be the ambassadors of VR that you really want us to be.
The Meta-owned builders Ready at Dawn introduced in late January that it was shutting down the popular free-to-play multiplayer game Echo VR, which is slated to go darkish on August 1st.
At the time, the studio stated the choice to close down the sport “was made for many good reasons and chief among them is the studio coming together to focus on our next project.”
Undeterred by the airplane-towed plea, Meta despatched out the next message to Echo VR gamers final evening:
We are reaching out to let you already know that Echo VR servers will shut down on August 1st, 2023 – 10:30 AM Pacific. On this date, each Echo VR and Echo Combat will not be playable.
Add-ons are not out there for buy within the Quest retailer. Echo Points are not out there for buy within the Echo Shop. Any Echo Points at the moment in your account can be utilized till August 1st, 2023 – 10:30 AM Pacific, with gadgets closely discounted within the Echo Shop.
It has been our pleasure to see this group develop and compete over time. Thank you to your time and keenness. For extra data, please learn Ready At Dawn’s weblog put up at https://medium.com/@EchoGames/an-update-on-the-future-of-echo-vr-7f074dca1ed1.
While a reversal of the shutdown appears much less doubtless now that Ready at Dawn has utterly neutered the free-to-play recreation’s in-game forex, the founders behind ‘The Fight For Echo’ initiative have setup a change.org petition so others can present their help. At the time of this writing over 25,000 folks have signed.