“Oculus removed the headset check from the DRM in Oculus Runtime 1.5” • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by Wile_E_Quixote » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 8:57 PM UTC

mdc2161 wrote: post #67

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…

-Early adopters take considerable risk when buying new hardware. If the market ends up crowning a different system king, your options are: Accept that objectively/subjectively superior technology isn’t the only thing driving sales and adoption. Or be a sore loser (which I’m not admonishing; VR tech is expensive) and complain loudly on message boards.

-I doubt that what Microsoft chooses to do with Xbox games in the future is due to regret or guilt about past decisions regarding exclusive content. Halo served them quite well at the height of the console wars.

-If I’m a dev making VR content and I am doing it to make a living, not just to make something cool to show my friends or as a fun project, my dream is that a VR hardware manufacturer pays a premium for exclusive rights. The hardware manufacturers can currently afford to pay more for exclusive content than they can hope to actually earn from the content, simply to drive hardware sales and platform adoption. I suspect it will be rough for developers, especially small teams, that are unable to negotiate exclusive deals. They will need to optimize and maintain their content for multiple platforms. And what can they hope to earn? -Exclusive content makes sense for many businesses. Doing it flawlessly, without causing potentially debilitating PR backlash is clearly easier said than done.

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

#92

Post by JoshTriplett » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 9:01 PM UTC

marknutter wrote: post #76

JoshTriplett wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing the right thing in response to backlash suggests that you would rather do the wrong thing, but couldn't get away with it. There are several other VR vendors; this provides at least some motivation to favor another vendor.

So by your logic, nobody can ever legitimately apologize for something or change their behavior without being disingenuous. Everybody loses, no matter what they do.

No, not at all. But as another response noted, trust is a lot easier to lose than to regain.

A clear statement about the matter can help a bit. Active steps to make the ecosystem less proprietary would help as well.

That would help turn the message from "sorry we got in trouble" to "sorry we made a mistake, here's what we learned and what we're doing to fix it".

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

#93

Post by golergka » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 9:12 PM UTC

azernik wrote: post #86

Different context, but Dan Savage articulates this well. Relevant (and censored, because he is who he is) paragraph from a long blog post [1] on Sanders vs. Clinton: 'It's ####ing moronic—it's political malpractice—to attack a politician for coming around on your issues. There are lots of other issues the queer community is going to be pressing politicians on, from passing equal rights bills and trans rights bills to…

It's because people want to see politicians as idealists — while usually, cynics who just want to get elected actually make the best politicians in a functioning democracy while idealists tend to become bloody tyrants.

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

#94

Post by rincebrain » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 9:16 PM UTC

zeta0134 wrote: post #69

orclev wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

The entire reason for the exclusivity is to drive sales of their hardware.

If they need to sell 500 units of hardware or 5000 games to break even on a given investment, and selling that hardware also increases the odds that you'll purchase other exclusives from their store once you've sunk the cost, there's plenty of motivation to do it, even if you don't end up buying most of the exclusive games.

(Note that I am not weighing in on the ethics of this, just remarking that there is a legitimate business reason to do it.)

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

#95

Post by duncanawoods » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 9:17 PM UTC

azernik wrote: post #86

Different context, but Dan Savage articulates this well. Relevant (and censored, because he is who he is) paragraph from a long blog post [1] on Sanders vs. Clinton: 'It's ####ing moronic—it's political malpractice—to attack a politician for coming around on your issues. There are lots of other issues the queer community is going to be pressing politicians on, from passing equal rights bills and trans rights bills to…

In the Clinton case, she doesn't own her flip flops, she tries to rewrite history. Instead of discussing in depth how and what changed her mind (which would be really powerful), she will just claim to have always been a tireless campaigner for the issue. Its evident her flip flops are not from a change of personal philosophy but only because its now politically expedient to adopt a position.

Similarly with Oculus. Have they changed their philosophy on openness? Probably not. We will just see them attempt their goal in a different way e.g. all sorts of incompatible features in their v2.

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

#96

Post by chrischen » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 9:18 PM UTC

marknutter wrote: post #79

johnward wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't continue to punish them it sends the message that it's OK to do bad things if you back pedal. This is basically Facebook's strategy on everything including privacy. Let's say they want to implement some new feature that they know will impact user privacy. They push two steps further than that they really want. Then when users backlash, Facebook takes one step back. Everyone is happy and Facebook gets mor…

No, it sends a message that you shouldn't bother with the customers you can't please no matter what you do, and just focus on the ones who don't get so emotional about stuff like this.

We keep punishing because we're still not satisfied, and because we can't catch their wrong doing all the time so we punish them to detract from their aggregate gains from wrong-doing.

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

#97

Post by romanows » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 9:18 PM UTC

zeta0134 wrote: post #69

orclev wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

It's not just the storefront, Oculus sells headsets too. But even more than making money right now on software and hardware, they want to capture the emerging VR market, dominate it for years, and make even bigger profits when the market has grown up.

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

#98

Post by chrischen » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 9:19 PM UTC

faide wrote: post #44

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…

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?

And it's entirely fair for me, and others, to be outraged at this tactic.

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

#99

Post by spb » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 9:24 PM UTC

azernik wrote: post #86

Different context, but Dan Savage articulates this well. Relevant (and censored, because he is who he is) paragraph from a long blog post [1] on Sanders vs. Clinton: 'It's ####ing moronic—it's political malpractice—to attack a politician for coming around on your issues. There are lots of other issues the queer community is going to be pressing politicians on, from passing equal rights bills and trans rights bills to…

Well, this is missing the point, in both cases. Opponents of neither Hillary Clinton nor Oculus are opposing them for the sole reason "they used to have this opinion".

In Oculus's case, this DRM was only the most obscene manifestation of their exclusivity strategy - the one that would set them up to be, going forward, between a legal rock and a PR hard place if they kept it in (they'd have to either leave ReVive's DRM-breaking alone, making their case in court harder if suing someone breaking DRM with the intent to steal games, or they'd have to send ReVive a DMCA takedown, and face a fatal PR backlash).

While Oculus has extricated themselves from that strategically untenable position, they're still pursuing a market-dividing strategy of exclusives through every other, subtler and less-ambiguously-legal, avenues, like timed exclusivity deals. THIS is why people are continuing to rail against Oculus.

If Oculus genuinely changed their position on exclusives (ie, they removed that restriction for every game they'd "supported" with such a deal), the VR enthusiast community would, reluctantly, welcome them back into the fold. However, that is nowhere near what Oculus are actually doing here - they're just adjusting their course so that they'll face less resistance to do the stuff everybody hates them for.

So as to keep this comment "apolitical" (as if corporate actions are less consequential than outright political ones), I've posted my response to Savage in a separate thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11973600

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

#100

Post by spb » Fri, Jun 24, 2016, 9:24 PM UTC

duncanawoods wrote: post #95

azernik wrote: post #86

Different context, but Dan Savage articulates this well. Relevant (and censored, because he is who he is) paragraph from a long blog post [1] on Sanders vs. Clinton: 'It's ####ing moronic—it's political malpractice—to attack a politician for coming around on your issues. There are lots of other issues the queer community is going to be pressing politicians on, from passing equal rights bills and trans rights bills to…

In the Clinton case, she doesn't own her flip flops, she tries to rewrite history. Instead of discussing in depth how and what changed her mind (which would be really powerful), she will just claim to have always been a tireless campaigner for the issue. Its evident her flip flops are not from a change of personal philosophy but only because its now politically expedient to adopt a position. Similarly with Oculus. Ha…

In the Hillary Clinton case, it's not because she changed her opinion - it's because she only changed her opinion once it was clear she'd face more backlash for holding it than abandoning it (indeed, the opposite appears to be the only reason she'd ever held her original stance in the first place). This indicates that, on future civil-rights issues to come that will have a similar public adoption curve (ie. transgender acceptance), she'll take the same strategy of appeasing the opposition until she can no longer get away with it - and, by turn, if the political winds blow the other way and the makeup of her constituency regresses toward a majority of bigots, she'd be perfectly willing to strip those enfranchised by her previously-enacted positions, so as to be continuously pleasing the majority.

Voters refusing to fall in for Hillary Clinton are holding out for a candidate like Bernie Sanders, who has made it clear that he will follow his moral compass, even when the people around him have been whipped into a hateful frenzy. Considering the history-repeating-itself rise of nationalism and racism in the face of economic hardship the world is currently barreling toward, this is the only kind of leader that Sanders supports feel could possibly help to right the ship.