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“Oculus removed the headset check from the DRM in Oculus Runtime 1.5”

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Re: “Oculus removed the headset check from the DRM in Oculus Runtime 1.5”

#61

Post by CaptSpify »

caconym_ wrote: post #58
faide wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the exclusivity outrage. It seems entirely fair to me for a platform holder to expect something in return for funding development of a game. Consoles have had exclusives since time immemorial and no one seems to bat an eye when it happens. What makes this case special?

All other things being equal, hardware exclusivity is terrible for consumers. Oculus is free to do whatever they want, "fair" or not, and consumers are free to vote with their wallets in return. I think people have been particularly vocal here because a) the exclusivity ship sailed for consoles decades ago while the VR market is fresh, b) because the market for 1st-gen VR is mostly early adopters who pay attention to…

Exclusivity has been horrible for consumers in the console market. Speaking for myself, I'd like to put my foot down and say "No, you aren't going to pull the same crap here". I personally really want VR, which means I want it done right. I fear that if it starts off on the wrong foot, it won't get anywhere.

Re: “Oculus removed the headset check from the DRM in Oculus Runtime 1.5”

#62

Post by Wile_E_Quixote »

Content has almost always sold hardware in the video game industry. Look at all of the exclusive content for Nintendo consoles. Or how many people bought XBox's for the sole purpose of playing Halo.

Sure, most VR hardware options may technically be peripherals for PCs, but at a cost of several hundred dollars or more, it isn't in the same category as PC mouses or joysticks. The way I see it, VR hardware is essentially a standalone device that connects to PCs, simply so that many people won't need to buy that too, saving them $1k-2k.

Creating exclusive games and buying exclusive content licensing/distribution rights for any gaming platform, especially ones in stiff competition for early adopters and the lion's share of a new market, is a great business decision. If Oculus hadn't secured exclusive content, people would have simply bought whichever hardware worked better, or shipped first. In this case, most people would have likely bought the Vive. Oculus knew that superior content is the tie-breaker and can even overshadow slight technological shortcomings, if they exist.

Oculus should never have reversed their plans to keep the content exclusive. Now, many people will just buy Vives and use them to play Oculus-subsidized content. Oculus could have created a great monopoly. Now I suspect they will have serious difficulty building a sustainable business. Peter Thiel is on Facebook's board and Marc Andreessen is on both Facebook's and Oculus's board. I can't imagine either one would support reversing the decision to make exclusive content.

Re: “Oculus removed the headset check from the DRM in Oculus Runtime 1.5”

#63

Post by orclev »

tetrep wrote: post #35
Klathmon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never got the quest for punishment for actions like this. They did something bad, the community reacted negatively. If they fix the problem, rewarding them is going to make sure it sticks around. Continuing to "punish" them for something they fixed only sends the message that the fix was pointless and that it would have been better to ignore the problem like so many other companies (including Facebook themselves) d…

I think for this it is twofold: 1. They're only doing this because of the community reaction/outrage. I want to be able to trust a company to at least appear to have my interests in mind, I don't want to have to be ever vigilant, ready to "freak out" whenever they do something bad in order for them to respond and actually fix it. They're showing that they only care that we noticed them doing shitty things, not that t…

Well, they recognize a problem, the community and them just disagree on what the problem was. The community views the problem as exclusivity deals. Oculus/Facebook see the problem as bad PR causing them to miss out on exclusivity deals they'd like to make and ineffective DRM (to be clear it isn't the DRM that they view as the problem, but that it was apparently too easy to bypass the DRM). Oculus "fixed" the problem by removing the DRM check (which wasn't doing much anyway), which they're hoping will also clear up that little PR issue. Once people forget about all this and they build up their market dominance a bit more, they'll take another swing at exclusivity deals in the hope that they'll be big enough to force the developers they want into it despite the community backlash it will cause.

Re: “Oculus removed the headset check from the DRM in Oculus Runtime 1.5”

#64

Post by daveguy »

sgarman wrote: post #34
burke wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Continuing to "punish" them for something they fixed only sends the message that the fix was pointless It also sends a message to other companies that things like this aren't forgiven easily, whether or not that's the immediate intent.

I think a "hey we messed up" would go a long way.

That won't happen because to them the only thing they messed up was the execution.

Re: “Oculus removed the headset check from the DRM in Oculus Runtime 1.5”

#65

Post by rtkwe »

gthtjtkt wrote: post #11

They deserved the backlash for implementing it, and I hope the Rift continues to suffer now that people know Facebook's true intentions. Not to mention how poorly they treated early supporters after the buyout, e.g. stocking Rifts on retail shelves before they'd fulfilled orders for all backers, then telling backers who complained to get a refund and go buy one from a store... They're only doing the "right" thing bec…

> stocking Rifts on retail shelves before they'd fulfilled orders for all backers

That I'm not so annoyed with. Their retail contracts would have had set due dates with penalties for breaching them. The backer headsets were giveaways right? They weren't promised when they originally ran the Kickstarter as I recall.

Re: “Oculus removed the headset check from the DRM in Oculus Runtime 1.5”

#66

Post by Ar-Curunir »

Wile_E_Quixote wrote: post #62

Content has almost always sold hardware in the video game industry. Look at all of the exclusive content for Nintendo consoles. Or how many people bought XBox's for the sole purpose of playing Halo. Sure, most VR hardware options may technically be peripherals for PCs, but at a cost of several hundred dollars or more, it isn't in the same category as PC mouses or joysticks. The way I see it, VR hardware is essentiall…

VR is effectively a better monitor. The cutting edge monitors also go for hundreds of dollars. Do you agree that monitors should also have proprietary ports that refuse to play non-licensed games or content?

Re: “Oculus removed the headset check from the DRM in Oculus Runtime 1.5”

#67

Post by mdc2161 »

Wile_E_Quixote wrote: post #62

Content has almost always sold hardware in the video game industry. Look at all of the exclusive content for Nintendo consoles. Or how many people bought XBox's for the sole purpose of playing Halo. Sure, most VR hardware options may technically be peripherals for PCs, but at a cost of several hundred dollars or more, it isn't in the same category as PC mouses or joysticks. The way I see it, VR hardware is essentiall…

A few counter points:

- hardware exclusives may be a better business model, but consumers (at least a vocal subset) clearly don't like them

- Microsoft seems to be moving towards having all Xbox games run on pc so console exclusives may be on their last legs

- the vr market is relatively tiny, so splitting it up with exclusives will make it harder for devs to justify making content

- game margins are much higher than vr hardware, and do it may be better to have store exclusives rather than hardware (something steam is doing without the backlash)

Re: “Oculus removed the headset check from the DRM in Oculus Runtime 1.5”

#68

Post by ChrisLTD »

Wile_E_Quixote wrote: post #62

Content has almost always sold hardware in the video game industry. Look at all of the exclusive content for Nintendo consoles. Or how many people bought XBox's for the sole purpose of playing Halo. Sure, most VR hardware options may technically be peripherals for PCs, but at a cost of several hundred dollars or more, it isn't in the same category as PC mouses or joysticks. The way I see it, VR hardware is essentiall…

"Creating exclusive games and buying exclusive content licensing/distribution rights for any gaming platform, especially ones in stiff competition for early adopters and the lion's share of a new market, is a great business decision. If Oculus hadn't secured exclusive content, people would have simply bought whichever hardware worked better, or shipped first."

Good for Oculus, but as you point out, bad for consumers who might prefer another vendor's possibly superior hardware.

Re: “Oculus removed the headset check from the DRM in Oculus Runtime 1.5”

#69

Post by zeta0134 »

orclev wrote: post #63
tetrep wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think for this it is twofold: 1. They're only doing this because of the community reaction/outrage. I want to be able to trust a company to at least appear to have my interests in mind, I don't want to have to be ever vigilant, ready to "freak out" whenever they do something bad in order for them to respond and actually fix it. They're showing that they only care that we noticed them doing shitty things, not that t…

Well, they recognize a problem, the community and them just disagree on what the problem was. The community views the problem as exclusivity deals. Oculus/Facebook see the problem as bad PR causing them to miss out on exclusivity deals they'd like to make and ineffective DRM (to be clear it isn't the DRM that they view as the problem, but that it was apparently too easy to bypass the DRM). Oculus "fixed" the problem…

The thing that bugs me about the whole thing is, the headset check does nothing for the fundamental implementation of the exclusivity deal. If I buy it through the Oculus store, then Oculus still gets their cut. After that, it really doesn't matter which headset I play the game on. The deal was still a success. I gave them money, and even did it on the storefront they sold the game on. What's the big deal?

I still think exclusivity deals are a bit bogus to begin with, but I think a perfectly reasonable compromise is to be exclusive to a particular storefront, but not a particular device. If another device shows up with the right capabilities, and the community is willing to do the leg work to port my legitimately purchased game to it? Awesome! Rah rah community, you've just expanded my potential market considerably, for no effort on my part.

The only real advantage I can see for a developer to be exclusive to hardware at this point is to cut down on development costs in the first place. The hardware platforms are emerging, very different, and not always compatible, even if it seems like they would be on the surface. So I can understand the reservations against wanting to code for or support more than one complicated VR setup. But if anything, it's been shown that the VR community right now is chock full of enthusiasts and tech--savvy people who will happily take a stab at those sorts of complicated ports all on their own. I think it's important that they have the freedom to do just that.

Re: “Oculus removed the headset check from the DRM in Oculus Runtime 1.5”

#70

Post by Wile_E_Quixote »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #66
Wile_E_Quixote wrote: post #62

Content has almost always sold hardware in the video game industry. Look at all of the exclusive content for Nintendo consoles. Or how many people bought XBox's for the sole purpose of playing Halo. Sure, most VR hardware options may technically be peripherals for PCs, but at a cost of several hundred dollars or more, it isn't in the same category as PC mouses or joysticks. The way I see it, VR hardware is essentiall…

VR is effectively a better monitor. The cutting edge monitors also go for hundreds of dollars. Do you agree that monitors should also have proprietary ports that refuse to play non-licensed games or content?

I think your argument is a great defense for whichever VR company ultimately secures a near-monopoly on this market. “Your Honor, my company is really just a fancy monitor company. We are actually in close competition with dozens of monitor and television manufacturers. We don’t have anything close to a monopoly.”

Again, I don’t believe VR hardware is in the same category as most PC peripherals, including monitors. The hardware could easily be marketed as a standalone system if the more traditional PC hardware was put into a pretty box and sold with it. The system would just cost $1k-2k more and few would be able to afford it.

If I was a traditional monitor manufacturer and I created some kind of magical new content for traditional monitor viewing that people would be willing to buy a new monitor to experience, I would definitely try to make it exclusive. Though I’m not sure the best way to do that would be a proprietary port.

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