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[Durante]

And there it is.

The final step on a long road of incremental shittiness demonstrating beyond any doubt that (a) the company we kickstarted is dead and (b) Palmer either no longer has any control over what Oculus does, or no longer gives a shit. Either way, anything he said is completely immaterial at this point.

The thing is, that if they add that HMD DRM now, what would happen to all the games I bought on the Oculus store if I switch to Vive 2 or another VR HMD for the next generation.

It means its like a console. Everything I bought will be useless unless I buy Oculus CV2 and thats really really bad.

Yeah. I'm happy I never bought anything on the Oculus store, and this move ensures that I never will.

If he gets this working for chronos and blaze rush I'll try and block the oculus client from updating and just play those and not buy anything in the future.

Is there a good way to stop an app dialling out?

You can use a Windows Firewall rule to completely block specific executables from establishing connections.

 

[Majukun]

well,glad all these things are happening now,so that i can have a clearer picture when it will be my turn to buy a headset

 

[Chairmanchuck]

 

[Branduil]

Well Valve's decision to get in on the VR headset market sure looks smart now that Oculus is repeatedly shooting itself in the feet.

 

[Specialmias]

As someone that owns both... aside from Eve Valkyrie am I missing out on any real quality game I couldnt launch in SteamVR? Hell, the only real reason I use my Oculus over my Vive is how quick it is to launch, grab and go. My Vive often has to be recalibrated before each use but is an amazingly superior product.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

ReVive has already found a way to bypass this DRM check and Vive's are subsequently back in business.

:-3

 

[plagiarize]

ReVive has already found a way to bypass this DRM check and Vive's are subsequently back in business.

:-3

Good.

Maybe I'm stupid for believing that Oculus didn't break ReVive on purpose... but that doesn't mean I don't want Vive owners to be able to buy the Oculus exclusives.

 

[mrklaw]

btw, doesn't anyone have the old runtime installer? just upload it somewhere and let people revert back to that could be another solution until Revive bypasses the DRM fully.

you'd need to backup a bunch of files - the installer is only a couple of meg and I think it downloads the rest from oculus during installation

As an "old Oculus fan" I'm saddened by the way things are going right now. This was not how it was going to happen. What happened to the idealistic talks about everyone heading in the same direction together to get the VR momentum going. This is not that.. this is going hostile.

I would even go as far as warn every Rift owner out there to think well and hard about buying anything more from the Oculus store unless they are 100% certain they will for the rest of their lives never ever again buy a non-Oculus/facebook HMD.

well pragmatically all they have to consider is if they want to buy a non-oculus HMD will they mind not being able to play a few games that will be at least a couple of years old by then. I know its the principle etc, but - so far at least - I wouldn't feel particularly 'locked in' when gen 2 comes around.

 

[KC Denton]

As someone that owns both... aside from Eve Valkyrie am I missing out on any real quality game I couldnt launch in SteamVR? Hell, the only real reason I use my Oculus over my Vive is how quick it is to launch, grab and go. My Vive often has to be recalibrated before each use but is an amazingly superior product.

Eve Valkyrie is actually getting a Vive release this year so you're not going to be missing out on anything of note besides Edge of Nowhere.

 

[MUnited83]

I wonder if you people put a big image logo of Valve every time you try to launch Dota 2 outside of Steam and it doesn't work...

Comparison doesn't work, unless Valve starts locking Dota to pieces of hardware.

 

[Tunesmith]

Is there a good way to stop an app dialling out?

I think you can simply stop the Oculus runtime from starting automatically at Windows runtime in the task manager services menu.

 

[Turin Turambar]

Comparison doesn't work, unless Valve starts locking Dota to pieces of hardware.

I don't agree. You want to play Valve games, you want to use their system, as that system will give Valve money; you want to play Oculus games, you want to use their system, which will give Oculus money.
Software, hardware, the difference is not relevant here. Both are systems designed to assure the money goes to their pockets, and not competitors.

 

[ViviOggi]

I don't agree. You want to play Valve games, you want to use their system, as that system will give Valve money; you want to play Oculus games, you want to use their system, which will give Oculus money.
Software, hardware, the difference is not relevant here. Both are systems designed to assure the money goes to their pockets, and not competitors.

This is some next level spinning

 

[The Flash]

 

[Durante]

Software, hardware, the difference is not relevant here.

I couldn't disagree more. The more components you aggregate vertically under the control of a single corporate entity, the less power you retain as a consumer.

On PC, we are traditionally in the extremely fortunate situation where our hardware is provided by a wide set of vendors, we have a large set of game distribution options from an entirely separate set of companies, and the operating system is provided by yet another different party. Like the division of power in a modern democracy, this keeps the individual parties from accruing too much power and makes the entire system a lot more resilient to individual failures.

It's why I'm incredibly opposed to UWP, and also why I'm incredibly opposed to a VR store which only allows a single VR API which is in turn closed to any competing hardware.

 

[Paganmoon]

To us maybe, but I don't think this'll hurt them one bit with the general public, or the next batch of adopters.

Just browsing the net, searching for "VR Games" on Google, almost everything is Oculus, very little really links directly to Vive. So people hardly even know of competitors to Oculus, so hard to see what they're doing is anti-consumer.

 

[Fried Food]

do oculus games bought on steam still work, assuming the game worked with revive in the first place?

seems like they would have blocked that as well

 

[Zepp Twofist]

do oculus games bought on steam still work, assuming the game worked with revive in the first place?

seems like they would have blocked that as well

They don't do DRM checks on stuff bought on other platforms, so they aren't blocking that. Would be pretty insane if they started to do that as well, but who knows what they might do at this point.

 

[NoPiece]

Palmer Luckey (re)tweeted this morning. Perhaps the beginning of a justification for locking down the store? They had to protect uninformed consumers from poor quality Chinese clone hardware.

Reminds of of Makerbot which started positively and open, got bought by a big company, reneged on all their open source hardware plans (blaming Chinese clones), lost tons of goodwill, and now is in the midst of large layoffs.

 

[Chairmanchuck]

Palmer Luckey (re)tweeted this morning. Perhaps the beginning of a justification for locking down the store? They had to protect uninformed consumers from poor quality Chinese clone hardware.



Reminds of of Makerbot which started positively and open, got bought by a big company, reneged on all their open source hardware plans (blaming Chinese clones), lost tons of goodwill, and now is in the midst of large layoffs.

If the product is good enough, people would want to buy the original and not some knock-off.
And actually Palmer was the one who said years ago "Of course there will be cheap ones, that target the crowd that cant spend much on VR and there will be high-end products like ours". Something along the line.
Also Chinese/American can also see the difference when they see a 30$ VR HMD and a 600$ one. They do it with PCs, they do it with mobile phones and they are able to do it with VR headsets.

Another thing. While afaik HTC is even investing about VR in China (they wanna bring the Vive to chinese internet cafés, where it might become huge), Oculus ignored the market totally.

 

[Fried Food]

They don't do DRM checks on stuff bought on other platforms, so they aren't blocking that. Would be pretty insane if they started to do that as well, but who knows what they might do at this point.

i guess the question is, are they ok with ocuclus games running on non oculus powered headsets. if the answer is no, then its just a matter of time.

based on what theyve said about this situation, my guess is they are not ok. If this was done for security reasons, allowing oculus games to run on any random headset seems like a risk.

 

[KingSnake]

Maybe I'm stupid for believing that Oculus didn't break ReVive on purpose...

How do you accidentally add a DRM check for the hardware?

 

[hymanator]

At first I was annoyed that Valve wanted to make a competing headset with Oculus, segregating the VR market before it could even grow. I didn't consider the idea (at the time) that Oculus/Facebook wanted to compete with Valve by making a competing storefront.

On the flip side, I can understand why Oculus would want to put DRM on their headset. If counterfeit Oculus headsets get made, Oculus doesn't want to have to deal with providing technical support for them. At the very least though, it would be nice if Oculus could work some sort of deal out with Valve and "whitelist" Vive headsets to work with the Oculus store.

 

[spekkeh]

People who are surprised by this are faking it surely? Rift is going to be dead come next year if they don't do it. HTC has the superior hardware, so their deals with the developers are the only cards they have left. Every second Revive exists they bleed market share to Valve. Imagine if the total potential market of XB1 and PS4 was just a few million and XB1 had no exclusives at all.

 

[Extollere]

Poor form Oculus.

They really need to demote Palmer and get a CEO with some balls and passion for the gaming industry.

Palmer shouldn't let this bullshit happen. He is one of the more anti consumer CEOs out there.

Palmer isn't a CEO, never was.. that's Iribe. I think Palmer's only title is "founder" or whatever that means... Surely, he has his hands in certain decisions, but I'm willing to bet this one was above him.

I've had a lot of faith in Oculus in the past... I still think they make a good product, but these kinds of moves are just going to put off the base, and word of mouth...

 

[Haroon]

This is good news. I have been meaning to purchase one of the headsets, but I am not sure which one to support. Based on what happened here. I am definitely leaning towards Vive.

 

[Extollere]

I am happy to wait a generation or two... see how the tech evolves, see if the games stack up... see down the road a little bit where each company's policies and practices line up. Consumers, especially gamers, are extremely vocal about DRM shit... I'm honestly surprised Oculus didn't seem to remember the shitstorm surrounding Microsoft's DRM fiasco with the Xbone launch, and consumer sentiment basically forcing them to backpedal. I don't have a lot of faith, but I'd like to know how things look a few years from now, and how consumers feel before diving in.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

To us maybe, but I don't think this'll hurt them one bit with the general public, or the next batch of adopters.

Just browsing the net, searching for "VR Games" on Google, almost everything is Oculus, very little really links directly to Vive. So people hardly even know of competitors to Oculus, so hard to see what they're doing is anti-consumer.

Wholly irrelevant. Anyone who is at a stage where they're seriously considering spending $600 on VR will do their homework. They will know what their options are in full before investing. There will be nobody who hasn't heard of all the major competitors before spending big money.

 

[Pie and Beans]

So Palmer is actually trying to spin this and not just stay silent? What a stooge he's become. No surprise, when you get to that affluence level the echo chamber must be absolutely fucking deafening.

 

[Azure Dream]

I wonder if the Chinese knockoff problem turned out larger than expected because they can't get enough of the real headsets out the door, so buyers are turning to what's available.

Pretty sad that they said "the knock-offs and cheap boxes won't be a concern since we have quality" and now that's their implied justification for extra DRM, which also goes against what Palmer promised about the software.

Oculus is losing a lot of good will very fast. It seems increasingly like anything they said prior to Facebook's buyout doesn't matter. And that's a bad look.

 

[Elfforkusu]

So, the Vive it is

 

[spekkeh]

Wholly irrelevant. Anyone who is at a stage where they're seriously considering spending $600 on VR will do their homework. They will know what their options are in full before investing. There will be nobody who hasn't heard of all the major competitors before spending big money.

So what's the alternative? Anyone who does their homework knows that the HTC Vive is currently more capable and future proof, but Oculus has better games.

 

[Krejlooc]

So what's the alternative? Anyone who does their homework knows that the HTC Vive is currently more capable and future proof, but Oculus has better games.

Looks like spekkeh didn't "do his homework."

 

[I'm new be nice]

I'm not happy about it, but until someone can make a headset fit as well as the Rift I can't see myself shifting away from them, the care put into its design was the reason I went with Oculus. I'm not particularly concerned about holding onto Oculus exclusive games, I understand why that's highly important to people though.

It sucks and I hope they reconsider. I would like to see them succeed because I really appreciate the money put into its design.

 

[Saintruski]

This move conflicts with statements of how much they make off hardware.

Corect me if I'm wrong but this move would cut off a large portion of potential software sales on other hardware vendors choking revenue from their software pipeline. So it really begs the question, how much profit do they make off the hardware...

 

[Zalusithix]

This move conflicts with statements of how much they make off hardware.

Corect me if I'm wrong but this move would cut off a large portion of potential software sales on other hardware vendors choking revenue from their software pipeline. So it really begs the question, how much profit do they make off the hardware...

Technically it doesn't really matter what they make on the current generation if they're playing the long game. If they can lock people into an ecosystem where they're the only hardware provider (or at least one where they can dictate the terms of any hardware allowed), then they can jack the prices (and thus profit margin) up for subsequent hardware iterations. You'd either have to give up on all the software you've bought, or buy CV2 from them.

 

[flaxknuckles]

ReVive has already found a way to bypass this DRM check and Vive's are subsequently back in business.

:-3

Lol at any Vive owner who continues to buy games off the Oculus store now that we know they are actively trying to prevent them from playing them.

 

[Jimrpg]

Followed Oculus for a few years now and they (Palmer) have backtracked on basically every good thing they've said. Hes not really a leader, he's just some hobbyist that got taken over by a big corporation. I congratulate him on making millions but every decision he's made so far has been for himself or the corporation. From $599 ballpark, to releasing without motion controls to headset DRM, unless their product is wholly superior I won't be getting one. Much happier with the steam ecosystem anyway.

 

[Linkup]

The thing is, that if they add that HMD DRM now, what would happen to all the games I bought on the Oculus store if I switch to Vive 2 or another VR HMD for the next generation.

It means its like a console. Everything I bought will be useless unless I buy Oculus CV2 and thats really really bad.

It wouldn't be useless, you would keep using your Rift CV1 with it or third party software like Revive, as we've seen here they can get around the DRM in a day.

 

[Kusagari]

Followed Oculus for a few years now and they (Palmer) have backtracked on basically every good thing they've said. Hes not really a leader, he's just some hobbyist that got taken over by a big corporation. I congratulate him on making millions but every decision he's made so far has been for himself or the corporation. From $599 ballpark, to releasing without motion controls to headset DRM, unless their product is wholly superior I won't be getting one. Much happier with the steam ecosystem anyway.

I think everyone blaming this solely on Palmer is vastly overstating how much power he has at this point. I'm sure he gets a say but I doubt he's the one giving the final verdict on any decisions.

 

[Zaptruder]

I think everyone blaming this solely on Palmer is vastly overstating how much power he has at this point. I'm sure he gets a say but I doubt he's the one giving the final verdict on any decisions.

I'd wager most of the critical decision making is due to a guy that's been very very fucking quiet. But also the guy with most of the actual power and say with what happens with Oculus - Brendan Iribe.

Just go watch some Silicon Valley to see what's up.

 

[Neander]

I think everyone blaming this solely on Palmer is vastly overstating how much power he has at this point. I'm sure he gets a say but I doubt he's the one giving the final verdict on any decisions.

Exactly. Zuckerberg stuck his fist in the pie and he won't let go.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

They don't do DRM checks on stuff bought on other platforms, so they aren't blocking that. Would be pretty insane if they started to do that as well, but who knows what they might do at this point.

There was a whole thread on their attempt to keep outside software from their rift. You can bypass, but it's just an underhanded attempt to push their storefront. It serves no real purpose except to deter your from using other sources, like steam.

 

[thepotatoman]

The thing is, that if they add that HMD DRM now, what would happen to all the games I bought on the Oculus store if I switch to Vive 2 or another VR HMD for the next generation.

It means its like a console. Everything I bought will be useless unless I buy Oculus CV2 and thats really really bad.

Yep, that's why Rift owners should be even more upset than Vive owners, even though only Vive owners are being hurt at the moment.

 

[moniker]

It's so sad to see what has become of Oculus. The years after the Kickstarter I had no doubt I'd get the CV, but everything after the Facebook acquisition has been a shit show, and until the company changes direction I won't even think about supporting them.

At least we've got HTC and Valve for now.

 

[Spiral Insanity]

Jesus. Glad I chose Vive.

 

[hesido]

Way to mislead people. I wonder how many people bought Vive in anticipation of being able to buy from the "oculus platform" (less serious offense from Oculus by misleading people to make a wrong buyer decision), or how many people with Vive bought software from the oculus store comforted by Palmer's false advertisement (much more serious offense)

 

[Kevin]

It's super disappointing to see Oculus run this way. Everything Oculus related so far has been a complete disaster. What a shame.

I really hope that whatever Magic Leap is working on, it really is as revolutionary and amazing as has been suggested.

 

[spekkeh]

Looks like spekkeh didn't "do his homework."

So in terms of exclusives we have Chronos, Lucky's Tale, Eve Valkyrie, Adr1ft and The Climb versus Budget Cuts, The Gallery, and, a bunch of tech demos?

Even if you do think the tech demos on HTC Vive are more interesting than all of Oculus' exclusive output, which...I don't disagree...then it's not hard to see that at least some people might be swayed by Oculus' games. If there are no Oculus exclusive games, there is literally no reason left to choose for Oculus Rift over HTC Vive (except for the price difference I guess, though Rift has higher PC requirements).

 

[Chairmanchuck]

So in terms of exclusives we have Chronos, Lucky's Tale, Eve Valkyrie, Adr1ft and The Climb versus Budget Cuts, The Gallery, and, a bunch of tech demos?

Even if you do think the tech demos on HTC Vive are more interesting than all of Oculus' exclusive output, which...I don't disagree...then it's not hard to see that at least some people might be swayed by Oculus' games. If there are no Oculus exclusive games, there is literally no reason left to choose for Oculus Rift over HTC Vive (except for the price difference I guess, though Rift has higher PC requirements).

Isnt the Adr1ft Vive version out yet?

Right now the thing is still, that if Oculus doesnt make money with their Headset, they need to make money with the software. And if they have the Vive audience, they could still easily make money with Oculus exclusive games, if people buy them from their storefront. The thing is all the non-exclusive games, people will buy on Steam because honestly besides the nice Oculus Home in VR, Oculus Home itself is bad. Really really bad when it comes to being consumer-friendly. Can only pay with CC (and CC isnt as common in europe as it is in the USA). Cant refund. No reviews. No chat. A store, that doesnt even offer a search-function. No community-features. No achievements. No cloud-saves. It feels totally barebones and people are still defending that because "its just the beginning"....