Oculus Rift update designed to remove Vive compatibility backfires, enables piracy

Jos

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Last month the folks at LibreVR released a little tool called Revive, billed as "proof-of-concept compatibility layer between the Oculus SDK and OpenVR" that basically allowed Rift exclusives to be played on the Vive. It was confirmed to work with Lucky’s Tale and Oculus Dreamdeck with more titles coming in the future.

Revive basically bypassed code checks for the Oculus Rift hardware but the games themselves still needed to be acquired legally. That is until a recent Oculus app update took steps to break cross platform compatibility, only to have the move backfire on them. Now, an updated version of Revive not only brings back the ability to port titles again, but also bypass the Rift's DRM in the process, opening the door to piracy.

"I really didn't want to go down that path," Libre VR wrote on Reddit. "I still do not support piracy, do not use this library for pirated copies." They also tell Motherboard that if they can find a way to port Rift games without bypassing its DRM they'll do so.

The release of the Oculus patch to stop users playing officially purchased Oculus games on the HTC Vive goes against a statement by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey a few months back on reddit, saying that players could mod games in order to play them on "whatever they want" as long as they buy the games from Oculus' online store.

Facebook appears to disagree. While it’s true games would sell more copies if they were platform independent, exclusives exist for the purpose of luring people onto one platform or another. Unfortunately with VR still being in its early days, exclusives don’t help the industry as a whole -- most people still need to be sold on the whole VR idea and they sure aren’t going to be buying two headsets that do mostly the same.

Oculus says the update wasn't about targeting Revive in particular but to protect content and developers over the long term. It remains to be seen how they’ll respond to Revive’s latest DRM bypassing hack. Revive currently works for VR games using the Unreal Engine, support will be extended to those using the Unity Engine soon.

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Just going to piss everyone off looking at buying a VR headset. There are so many similarities in terms of hardware there is little reason to go for one headset over the other. I was considering the Oculus but now maybe I'll get the Vive instead. Only two or three of those games on Oculus looked interesting anyway.
 
You won't see me investing in this type of gaming until the gaming library because worth it and when the hardware is more affordable. Right now it honestly doesn't even seem reasonable to spend $600 on something like this.
 
Total ownage.
This is what happens when you're bought out by Facebook. The contract includes selling your very soul to the Devil.

Everyone needs to buy a Vive.
 
Yep .... just another good reason to wait until you can get one as a prize in a box of cereal! I wonder how many people are already kicking themselves in the tail over this little "undocumented feature"?!?!?!!
 
Vive games are better anyways because of the room-scale and the controllers (yes the Oculus will have controllers, but they aren't mandatory last I heard).
So Oculus (Facebook) is just shooting itself in the foot this early on...
 
Vive games are better anyways because of the room-scale and the controllers (yes the Oculus will have controllers, but they aren't mandatory last I heard).
So Oculus (Facebook) is just shooting itself in the foot this early on...
It's still personal preference though, some people dont want to have to use a large space and walk around while playing VR, some would rather just sit and play
 
It's still personal preference though, some people dont want to have to use a large space and walk around while playing VR, some would rather just sit and play
The Vive does support just sitting down, the moving around will be based on the game. Which is where this hack comes in to allow Oculus games (sitting down VR games) to be played on Vive like that.
 
Oh, this BS has infected VR companies too?

I guess I'm getting a Vive instead then, whenever prices on VR kits drop.

Console exclusivity it stupid enough, but this is just ridiculous.
 
I'm so glad Oculus cancelled my order, just got my Vive Headset and yes, there aren't many games yet but the thing is pretty awesome even with the small content available right now.

I'm sure when PS releases their headset, many games will begin to come out.
 
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