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Oculus-Store

Oculus' policies and practices have been under fire almost since the Rift launch. The company'due south decision to launch into retail stores without beginning filling preorders sat poorly with many of its most ardent fans, while its conclusion to pause the Revive compatibility project by introducing DRM to the Oculus Store flew direct in the face of before comments by founder Palmer Luckey. Now the company is in the hot seat once again over its attempts to secure paid exclusives for the Rift.

Yesterday, a Croteam developer named Mario Kotlar who'due south currently working on Serious Sam VR, stated the post-obit regarding Oculus:

They tried to buy Serious Sam VR as well. It wasn't easy, merely we turned down a shitton of money, as we believe that truly practiced games will sell by themselves and make turn a profit in the long run regardless. And also because we detest exclusives every bit much equally you do.
Dat shitton of money tho…

The Vive subreddit predictably exploded over this, since Oculus' efforts to lock downward its own ecosystem haven't been well-regarded by other communities or individuals who think the company is promoting its own solution ahead of trying to build a larger VR ecosystem. Another Croteam employee subsequently chimed in with additional information and clarification on the relationship between Oculus and the Serious Sam VR team.

Ok, Mario, you lot've had fun here, at present let'south get serious. :)
I want to clarify some of the inaccuracies virtually our relationship with Oculus. Oculus did approach us with an offer to help fund the completion of Serious Sam VR: The Terminal Hope in exchange for launching start on the Oculus Store and keeping it time-limited exclusive. Their offer was to assistance united states accelerate development of our game, with the expectation that it would somewhen support all PC VR platforms. We looked at the offer and decided it wasn't right for our squad. At no time did Oculus ask for, or did we hash out total exclusivity or buyout of support from Vive. Nosotros look frontward to supporting Rift and Vive.

Timed exclusives aren't the same affair universal and permanent exclusives, but trust is a rare article in the Oculus customs these days later on months of reversals past Luckey and the residue of the team. Ars Technica caught upward with the Oculus executives at E3 this week and tried to nail downwardly some of the perceived discrepancies betwixt the company's statements and its actions. According to Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe, the visitor has taken two singled-out approaches to publishing games for the Rift. On the one hand, there are certain games that were 100% Oculus-funded, like Lucky'south Tale and Edge of Nowhere. The developers in question still own the base IP and can make other games with it if they wish, but these specific titles are locked to Oculus (Loculus?) in perpetuity.

LuckyTale

Lucky's Tale is an Oculus exclusive — or at least, it's supposed to be

Other games are partially funded past Oculus Publishing in exchange for a limited window of exclusivity, as previously mentioned.

What about DRM on the Oculus Shop?

Oculus' decision to innovate DRM to the Oculus Store has been one of its to the lowest degree popular. Oculus Head of Content Jason Rubin attempted to square the circle between Palmer Luckey's early comments that Oculus didn't care where software ran with the Oculus Shop'south current practices.

"If somebody has purchased content and they want to modernistic something to piece of work on their PC and do whatever they want to practice, nobody at Oculus has ever had a problem with that," Rubin told Ars.

The problem, obviously, is when said "hacks" are distributed. "[A personal hack] is a far cry difference from an institutional tool made and distributed to a mass number of people to [back up other headsets], strip out DRM, strip out platform features and the like. For an private to practice that for themselves, that would exist all correct. Mass distribution is an entirely different situation."

This is a breathy endeavour to movement the goal posts. Luckey'due south original comment on the topic was as follows:

If customers buy a game from us, I don't care if they modern it to run on whatever they want. Every bit I have said a one thousand thousand times (and counter to the current circlejerk), our goal is not to turn a profit by locking people to only our hardware – if information technology was, why in the world would we exist supporting GearVR and talking with other headset makers? The software we create through Oculus Studios (using a mix of internal and external developers) are exclusive to the Oculus platform, non the Rift itself.

There are only two means to read these statements: Either Rubin is trying to rewrite what Luckey meant as a fashion to rein in expectations, or Luckey deliberately misled Oculus and Vive customers most the company's plans and intentions for the Oculus Store. While nosotros've previously written about how information technology made sense for Oculus to create exclusives for itself to try and challenge Steam — but explaining the beliefs by claiming that personal hacks to become games running is okay while distributing those software tools is frowned on just doesn't track with Luckey'due south original comments.