The United States Federal Trade Commission is supposedly investigating Meta’s virtual reality division. The news comes from a Bloomberg News report that landed before the holiday weekend.
Working with a number of state regulators, the FTC has apparently been interviewing third-party Meta VR (formerly known as Oculus) developers over concerns that Meta (formerly known as Facebook) has used its market position to stamp out competition with other headset makers.
Those headset makers would include Valve, HTC, Windows, and Sony, all of whom have navigated the seas of the virtual reality market with mush less success than Meta.
This is not the only FTC investigation into Meta’s market-shaping business business practices. A judge recently ruled that its lawsuit attempting to force Meta to sell off WhatsApp and Instagram may move forward.
2022 might prove to be an eventful year for the FTC and the video game industry. The agency announced today that it intends to more tightly scrutinize various mergers and acquisitions, like Microsoft’s jaw-dropping $68.7 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard.