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Oculus No Longer Lets Customers Move Purchased Software To Non-Oculus Hardware (boingboing.net)
AmiMoJo quotes a report from Boing Boing: As recently as 5 months ago, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey was promising his customers that they could play the software they bought from the Oculus store on "whatever they want," guaranteeing that the company wouldn't shut down apps that let customers move their purchased software to non-Oculus hardware. But now, Oculus has changed its DRM to exclude Revive, a "proof-of-concept compatibility layer between the Oculus SDK [software development kit] and OpenVR," that let players buy software in the Oculus store and run it on competing hardware. The company billed the update as an anti-piracy measure, but Revive's developer, who call themselves "Libre VR," points out that the DRM only prevents piracy using non-Oculus hardware, and allows for unlimited piracy by Oculus owners.
Totally open platform with no restrictions, except for Windows 10 spyware, Oculus DRM, Origin DRM, Blu-ray DRM...
sign me up
Wow. Looks like I definitely made the right decision cancelling my Rift preorder and spending the extra dosh on a Vive.
VR is supposed to be about getting up and moving anyway. I've been looking forward to this for 20 years now.
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
The future looked bright. A company was finally taking consumer level VR seriously. Hardware advances thanks to the smartphone market were being used to bring better and cheaper VR headsets.
Then they missed their target price point by a country mile, and closed the hardware down tight.
Anyone have any more context?
So far it looks like all of this is based on a quick couple of comments by the ReVive developer:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4k8fmm/new_oculus_update_breaks_revive/
and
https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/4k8krc/oculus_home_14_update_breaks_revive_adds_specific/d3d3298?context=3
"I'm basing it on the fact that the "Headset not detected" error are now coming from the OculusOnlineSubsystem which is also responsible for entitlement check (DRM) errors.
This is on top of the check for the headset the game does itself. If I don't use Revive I get a different "Headset not detected" error coming from the game itself."
This deal's getting worse all the time...
* Only supported OS is Windows
* Always connected to the internet, constanly spying on you
* Now this
Facebook is shady? Who knew.
For this to occur during an election season. The flip-flop that is. Either don't make promises you can't keep, or run for office.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
You made the right choice. Having used both, the Vive is a much more fun and rewarding experience. Room scale makes *all* the difference :)
William George
As many among you, I plan to buy a VR set in the next few months. ...
The choice between the brands was kind of difficult.
Thanks to this, it just became one brand easier.
So, thanks, I guess
Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
Every single company that promises open and freedom goes against those promises.
Honestly Oculus has been sketchy from day one, One of the reasons I backed away from them.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You will now not get any recommendations from anyone tech savvy, ie: influencers. You are now irrelevant. Thanks for coming out. Hope your death is quick and painless.
Piracy is the act of committing crimes such as murder, kidnapping, and rape on the high seas. This is the second time that it has been substituted for copyright infringement in two days.
What you are describing does not even rise to the status of copyright infringement. It is more like fair use. The player has paid for the use of the product, now the producer is tying it to their product.
Misleading reporting like this should be blocked.
So how is that $2.4 million you "invested" in a company you get no return on and have no control over working out?
This must be an extraordinarily hard choice for someone in the market for VR software.
Buy from Facebook and end up locked into the Rift.
Buy elsewhere and use it with any display you want including Rift.
I would appreciate it more if the company just came out and stated what they were doing, rather than hiding behind some bullshit "anti-piracy" statements.
I can understand someone trying to sell me shit, as long as they're calling it shit. Once they try to play it off as something else, I lose any respect for them.
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
You pay for DRM, you get DRM. Trusting DRM purveyors to keep their promises is like trusting Obama to close Gitmo, Trudeau to fix first-past-the-post, the British public to vote smart and BrExit, and police to serve & protect.
Serves you right if you've given any of your money to the assholes at Facebook. It serves you right that you're getting fucked over.
Don't feel that you're getting fucked over? Just wait a bit because things will continue to get worse.
Face it! Oculus Rift has screwed all of you and Facebook has is laughing at your idiocy ... and if that's not enough ... you can't do shit about it, except for whining over here and in reddit
You guys are no longer 'movers and shakers' of the tech world, them media heads, aka 'journalists' at CNN or BBC have taken over
Right now they have much more influences than all of you combined
Over at BBC and CNN those so-called 'tech-savvy journalists' are still heaping hosannahs at Oculus Rift, and on their reports, they get some 'researchers' from 'universities', to foretell the 'wonderful future of Virtual Reality', with Oculus Rift
Another fishy thing is that you never hear any mention of "Vive" or any other alternative to Oculus Rift on the same media channels
I smell massive ad campaign looming
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Because I'm insane, I actually own both of them and have spent a fair amount of time using each. (Was an original kickstarter backer so they sent me a CV1, then I also bought a Vive)
I like the actual headset part from Oculus better, and they currently have more games that are actually fleshed out games instead of tech demos.
Built in headphones are also way less of a pain than providing your own as well.
However, the Vive room-scale & hand controllers makes it a better overall experience. Standing, walking around, and using your hands just makes it vastly more immersive. It will be interesting to see if any of this changes after the Oculus touch controllers are released, but I am skeptical that they will be able to do room-scale tracking that's as accurate as the vive just by adding another camera. Even though I don't think they will, I'm hopeful they do, however, because I really do like the greater level of polish the Oculus device has.
Amusingly enough, I ordered a Vive after it was released and got it about 2 weeks ago. A friend of mine who preordered a Rift very early (possibly first day?) still hasn't gotten his.
I have an Oculus DK2 (and DK1), and have been doing room-scale with the DK2 for month, which actually uses an off-the-shelf webcam.
I have no doubt that the CV1, that uses a custom camera with higher resolution and wider field of view, will give even better results.
Using the Leap Motion in addition to the DK2 already gives you unbelievable presence in VR. You have to experience it. You truely have your hands in VR, down to the individual flex of any finger.
My killer-app for VR is MocuMocuDance, which is available from the author (and thus out of oculus shop DRM) and runs on both Oculus and Vive.
Thus I believe my best option is to use the Oculus CV1 (slightly better headset) coupled with Leap Motion.
However, this kind of oculus DRM restriction that is implemented as discussed in the article sure isn't pleasing me, and I would advise anyone to do like I did : determine what your killer-app is before choosing your VR hardware.
Actually, didn't we see this with 3D cards when they came out? We're currently in the Glide phase and will eventually move to OpenGL/Direct3D phase of common interfaces decoupled from hardware (or the whole thing will die off). Combined with the frankly ridiculous price for a niche entertainment product with just a few games or apps, I'd say the best option is to simply wait (or use Google Cardboard if you must).
Being an early adapter is a suckers game unless you're so rich the price is pocket change for you and you enjoy new technology for its own sake.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
rhetorically, and substantively, it works.
People who have Facebook pages are just the useful idiots who keep making Zuck richer and stronger and re-enforcing this sort of stuff. The next cool thing you think you will crowd source will go the same way if it looks promising to the Zuck. With companies like Facebook around, it becomes a strategy for some startups to create something spiffy and then get bought by a billionaire. Crowd sourcing just makes it even easier.
Stay on Facebook and accept your assimilation into the new mega-AOL or free your mind and realize that "social media" is actually anti-social media that replaces actual social contact with live human beings and that its primary beneficiary is NOT you (who gets a "free" webpage) but rather Zuck and his investors and advertisers who get YOU as a product that serves itself up on a microscope slide.
If I remember correctly, initial funding was largely provided by Linux users with the promise their product would work with it. Now it's Windows only. How many times can they backtrack? Is there no end to this bullshit?
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Though I was leaning towards buying Steam VR more so than Oculus, I was playing the "wait and see" game. Thanks for clarifying my decision FaceBook.
These apparent turn-abouts are a clear indication that management is incompetent. I say this because it appears that Mr Luckey may have come to the realization that his hardware endeavor may suffer sales. It is his company, and he can do whatever. Yet, he really ought to define a solid mission for the company and stick to it.
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
I saw this coming the moment they were sold to Facebook. Nobody believed me though....
I had a big CSB for this, but it's gone forever now. I'll write it later as a blog post but not here.
Glide was only for playing games...poorly by today's standards (like tiled 8-bit was when it came out). If initial design was ever done on Glide hardware, I've never heard of it. In 1998, right after graduating from high school, I bought an Intergraph Intense 3D Voodoo card. Voodoo Rush with 4MB for 2D and 2MB for 3D. Still far better than an N64 or PS1. I went from being able to run Quake in a grainy and odd resolution to having smooth visuals that just blew me away... at the time.
That was for playing games. 3Dfx was doing with their Glide API what Faceculus/Ocubook is doing to Revive. "No! Mine! I don't care if you buy my stuff or give me market share! *raspberry spit*" And what happened to 3dfx?
Nvidia went a different direction, especially with the GeForce/Quadro (Transforms and Lighting offloaded from the CPU?!). I bought a Riva TNT2 Ultra card in 2000 that let me play around, creating things in 3DS Max and a program called Jamagic in 2001. Bad stuff happened that nuked that career path, but I was more suited to VR anyway. Hell, I bought a VictorMaxx "vr" HMD for my SNES in like 1996 just to get a taste. In 1999, I got to try a dual VGA HMD that was like being in the back row at a crappy movie theater for FOV. I was still hooked for life. Firing up my Vive for the first time? Same FOV as my racing helmet.
Room-scale VR reminds me of any game that gives the player free roam until they head to the next screen. And a GTX 1080 is still great for creation, not just playing. Hell, I managed to get my Vive working with my 2009 Radeon HD 5870. I just had to connect it to the DisplayPort.
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
Fortunately we have been given an alternative in the VR revolution called the HTC Vive.
I tried a friends headset and was sold on the cool experience it provided and decided to order one. I already have mine now and have been enjoying and sharing it's experience even before people who pre-ordered their Oculus Rift on the first day it was available have gotten their headsets.
You made the right choice. Having used both, the Vive is a much more fun and rewarding experience. Room scale makes *all* the difference :)
I so so so entirely agree. The sparse hairs on the back of my neck stood up the first time I saw the SteamVR Tutorial. I'm not who I was prior to that.
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.