Oculus No Longer Lets Customers Move Purchased Software To Non-Oculus Hardware (boingboing.net) 78
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.
PC master race! (Score:4, Funny)
Totally open platform with no restrictions, except for Windows 10 spyware, Oculus DRM, Origin DRM, Blu-ray DRM...
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Re:PC master race! (Score:5, Insightful)
The big difference is that the 0.01% of DRM haters were a drop in a bucket of Sony customers but they are pretty much *all* the clients Oculus has at the moment.
Outside from the early adopters who have pre-ordered the device, developers and some journalists nobody else has Rift. And these are the people who are getting hosed - first by getting the SDK closed, Linux/Mac versions cancelled, then shipping being delayed, the preorders not being honored/devices given to retail first, now the DRM BS.
Pissing off your only and very vocal customer base while there is a competitor with a better product is a seriously daft move.
You have been royally fucked ! (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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You go, girl! Show that straw man who's boss!
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I don't think you can sue over a company trying hard to commit corporate suicide, at least unless you are a shareholder.
*bullet burn* That was a close one. (Score:3)
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.
Re: *bullet burn* That was a close one. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's not forget the Linux users who kick-started the project, and then got told they were dropping Linux support later.
Good products, but shady management is probably ruining the company
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Facebook is shady? Who knew.
Re:*bullet burn* That was a close one. (Score:5, Interesting)
You made the right choice. Having used both, the Vive is a much more fun and rewarding experience. Room scale makes *all* the difference :)
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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, walk
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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 avai
Re:*bullet burn* That was a close one. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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
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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.
Any official word from Oculus yet? (Score:1)
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 t
Re:Any official word from Oculus yet? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually Oculus admitted that they added checks to "curb piracy and to protect the integrity of their platform":
http://motherboard.vice.com/re... [vice.com]
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OHAI 3dfx! And fuck you.
Re:Palmer Suckey (Score:5, Funny)
Palmer Luckey: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further."
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The thing is, it is very unlikely that it is Palmer who is making these decisions. He is only the founder and the public face of the company, but does not hold any executive position in the company.
These are decisions made by the Oculus C-level execs and Facebook to protect their walled garden app store. The HMD is pretty much only a prop to rope you in into selling you more stuff through the store.
Of course, that doesn't absolve Palmer from responsibility for what he has said. He shouldn't be promising thi
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Well, hindsight is always 20/20. When Oculus started, focus on the sitting user with a controller sounded like a very sane first step. There were no good large area tracking solutions available for $100-$200 (the cheapest "pro" starts around $2000-3000 just for tracking). Remember STEM? That was supposed to be the solution.
The concept of "room scale" consumer VR didn't exist until after about 2 years after Oculus has been committed to their system already. I am sure they would have gone with it if there was
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Palmer is probably not behind this, but nevertheless, it's a deathknell for Oculus. The people that they NEED to drive their platform are now going to do the opposite and ensure that no one ever buys Oculus hardware.
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Palmer Luckey: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further."
"Emperor Zuckerberg is not as forgiving as I am."
Oculus is worse than microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
* Only supported OS is Windows
* Always connected to the internet, constanly spying on you
* Now this
Re:Oculus is worse than microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, MS loves UNIX standards. Like when they decided to use \ as folder delimiter, just to be different. And instead of using about any-fucking-thing else, they had to pick exactly the escape character. The Devil himself was envious of their ingenuity, which was eclipsed only many years later, with the launch of IE6.
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DOS was basically a CP/M clone, and you couldn't run UNIX on anything smaller than a fridge at the time. You can't really blame them for a CP/M carry-over when CP/M was the dominant business operating system at the time.
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they had to pick exactly the escape character.
The great thing about the escape character is that there's an escape character for it.
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Like when they decided to use \ as folder delimiter, just to be different
It uses "\" to be the same, not just to be different. "\" is used because "/" was already being used for command line switches, This was inherited from DOS, which inherited it from CP/M, which inherited from VMS. Lots of the stuff in NT that might seem strange to you, has been inherited from VMS as well (Because Cutler designed both).
Funny thing is that Unix uses "/"because ">" which separated directories in Multics, was already used for redirects.
Windows NT has historically had a POSIX subsystem, though
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What did you expect? Apple doesn't currently ship computers with video hardware capable of running VR.
That said, fuck facebook, fuck Oculus, and fuck Palmer Lucky sideways with a bandsaw.
Glad I bought a vive.
How fitting (Score:2)
This simplifies the choices. (Score:5, Interesting)
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
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For you, or for the audience to the World's Funniest?
It seems to me that walking around while distracted and blind could easily lead to all kinds of unfortunate consequences.
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During the setup you mark your safe space, whenever you get close to the boundaries it will put up a grid. You can also turn on a camera which will show you an outline of objects. It works well, no unfortunate consequences thus far.
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Very informative, thank you. :)
And so it begins... (Score:2)
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.
Re: And so it begins... (Score:1)
Not like, Redhat.
The thing seems to be, you either have contractual protection, such as the GPL, or you get fucked.
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We should have seen this coming when Facebook bought them. Competitors threaten Facebook's power to datamine VR users and we cannot have that now, can we?
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Well, they certainly have been sketchy since Facebook bought them. I'm glad I never committed to that.
Congratulations Occulus! (Score:1)
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.
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Language changes. You're 130 or so years behind on English is would seem.
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Language changes, but sometimes such changes are purposeful attempts at propaganda, and should be called out for that. And trying to get ignoring Mickey Mouse Protection Act associated with robbery at high seas is definitely such a case.
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I'm pretty sure the Berne Convention of 1886 predates mickey mouse propaganda.
Kickstarter "Investing" (Score:2)
So how is that $2.4 million you "invested" in a company you get no return on and have no control over working out?
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At least the backers who paid for the development headsets are getting a free consumer version.
Facebook's app store implodes (Score:2)
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... (Score:2)
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.
Linux? Yes! I mean no. I misspoke. (Score:5, Informative)
Evidence of poor management... (Score:1)
I told you so. (Score:1)
I saw this coming the moment they were sold to Facebook. Nobody believed me though....
Alternative (Score:2)
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.