Oculus Removes DRM Restrictions Blocking ReVive Hack

[HardOCP News]

After taking a ton of flack over its DRM policy, it would appear that Oculus is backtracking a bit. This is a statement from an Oculus representative on the company's recent change of heart:

We continually revise our entitlement and anti-piracy systems, and in the June update we’ve removed the check for Rift hardware from the entitlement check. We won’t use hardware checks as part of DRM on PC in the future. We believe protecting developer content is critical to the long-term success of the VR industry, and we’ll continue taking steps in the future to ensure that VR developers can keep investing in ground-breaking new VR content.”

 

[Gigus Fire]

Has anyone explained how hardware checks combat piracy? I'm just curious because i cannot for the life of me connect the two.

 

[Azrak]

They said they removed the check from the "entitlement check" which is separate from the "piracy check".
"Entitlement check" here means "vendor lock check". Kind of like how Nvidia refuses to allow Physx to operate in a system with an AMD card.

 

[Gorankar]

Has anyone explained how hardware checks combat piracy? I'm just curious because i cannot for the life of me connect the two.

It would really only hinder the more casual pirates.
It was never really about piracy, it was about Facebook requiring their VR peripheral to play VR games sold on their store.

This is a face saving move. Or perhaps they have realized just how tiny the VR market is at the moment and would prefer not to alienate it.

 

[Axehandler]

Still doesn't change my stance...

The already ONCE said they wouldn't do this. and did.

 

[DF-1]

They only did this because when they tried to fully lock it the ReVive developer opened it up so that not only the people who bought the games can play on any VR headset, but the people who pirated the games could too.

 

[TorxT3D]

oculus/facebook have gone back on their words over and over again. whos to say they wont put the drm checks back in later.

this is just pr backpedaling, trying to save face

 

[Mav451]

Kinda sad that this is what it's come to. Oculus before the acquisition... and since then.

The irony was seeing the negative reaction to it by my friends, on Facebook statuses hahah.

 

[steakman1971]

I think this is a save-face move. They received a shit ton of negative feedback about this. They also said they were not going to do it, then did it. I think the founder is probably a decent guy - but very naive.
I'm not even sure if I blame FB for the changes - the acquisition brought them a CEO, marketing, sales, and the whole load of corporate crap that goes along with it. I bet that he has been brought into a room and been scolded over some of his comments. I've worked for a few corporations - the crap is usually knee deep. The truth gets distorted (I don't even think this is intentional half the time - people just don't follow up and drink the KoolAid).
Oculus did give a lot of the exclusives money/resources. I'm not defending it, but I guess they felt this gave them exclusive access. It would have been better if Oculus, HTC, etc could have created a standard body (something like OpenGL) - if every vendor would chip in some resources and agree to some standards, the consumer and the fledgling VR industry benefits. Forced fragmentation is a loss for everyone. I wish they would have looked back at the days of 3DFX/Verite/etc - it's almost the same story.

 

[Axiomatic]

Occulus realized that market saturation is not at the point where they can stay afloat financially and stand on a soap-box at the same time. At least we know someone has the long vision at Occulus.

 

[dr.stevil]

Wonder if it was hurting their sales? Who in their right mind, Rift owners included, would buy ANYTHING from the oculus store when you're locked into that platform for life? At least with Steam, you can use any HMD you want. Sort of a dumb position for oculus to put themself in with the market so incredibly small.

Still doesn't change my stance...

The already ONCE said they wouldn't do this. and did.

yup likewise

I would NEVER buy an HMD from Facebook after all of this non-sense. OPENVR ftw

 

[TheSmJ]

I wish they would have looked back at the days of 3DFX/Verite/etc - it's almost the same story.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: VR needs a truly hardware-agnostic 3rd party (which Valve is not) to come in with their own API open for all hardware manufacturers to use. One possibility is Microsoft rolling their own API into DirectX just as they had for the 3D accelerator market in the late 90's. Once developers catch wind of that I suspect the vendor specific APIs of today will die out over the following few years, and HMDs will be benchmarked against how well they support this new API.

 

[CEpeep]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: VR needs a truly hardware-agnostic 3rd party (which Valve is not) to come in with their own API open for all hardware manufacturers to use. One possibility is Microsoft rolling their own API into DirectX just as they had for the 3D accelerator market in the late 90's. Once developers catch wind of that I suspect the vendor specific APIs of today will die out over the following few years, and HMDs will be benchmarked against how well they support this new API.

I expect Microsoft to do this once HoloLens is ready to take advantage of it. A DX12 variant of Minecraft with native AR/VR support would be a kickass way for MS to sell their HoloLens and instantly get developers excited about building software that works on all these platforms.

 

[qwidmeyer]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: VR needs a truly hardware-agnostic 3rd party (which Valve is not) to come in with their own API open for all hardware manufacturers to use. One possibility is Microsoft rolling their own API into DirectX just as they had for the 3D accelerator market in the late 90's. Once developers catch wind of that I suspect the vendor specific APIs of today will die out over the following few years, and HMDs will be benchmarked against how well they support this new API.

Too bad that path would require a Windows based OS, unless something has changed recently.