ZeniMax wants to stop Oculus from selling VR headsets
26 replies, posted
[QUOTE]Video game publisher ZeniMax Media Inc., which earlier this month won a $500 million verdict against Facebook Inc.’s (FB.O) Oculus virtual reality unit for unauthorized copying of computer code, has asked a federal judge to block Oculus from using the code in its products.
ZeniMax made its request for an injunction in papers filed on Thursday in federal court in Dallas. It was the same court where jurors on Feb. 1 issued the verdict against Oculus and its founders Palmer Luckey and Brendan Iribe.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]If granted, the injunction could limit the number of games available for sale for Oculus' Rift VR headset. Such a move would be a blow to a product still in its infancy and on which Facebook has made a big bet for the future.[/QUOTE]
[URL]http://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-lawsuit-idUSKBN1622S4[/URL]
Oh boy, not again.
FTA:
[QUOTE][B]If granted, the injunction could limit the number of games available for sale for Oculus' Rift VR headset.[/B] Such a move would be a blow to a product still in its infancy and on which Facebook has made a big bet for the future.[/QUOTE]
Misleading title, no? It's apparently going to hamper software and games developed for the Oculus. The article doesn't appear to have anything specifically saying that sales for the VR headsets should be stopped.
[QUOTE]Oculus has already made the disputed code available to companies that develop games, and it is embedded in many of the games available for use on the Rift, as well as Samsung Electronics Co's (005930.KS) Gear VR, a smartphone-compatible device developed through a partnership with Oculus.[/QUOTE]
Damn, after Facebook will they go after Samsung too ? And the game developers ? If you are developing for Rift you may start asking yourself will you even be able to sell your product. They want to single-handedly burn the entire Oculus idea to the ground it seems.
[QUOTE=AntonioR;51868683]Damn, after Oculus will they go after Samsung too ? And the game developers ? If you are developing for Rift you may start asking yourself will you even be able to sell your product. They want to burn the entire Oculus idea to the ground it seems.[/QUOTE]
Or get a cut of the sales from the library that uses the affected code.
Since it's not clear in the article, it'd be interesting to know exactly what this disputed code did and if it could be patched out to be in compliance again.
[QUOTE=snookypookums;51868676]Misleading title, no? It's apparently going to hamper software and games developed for the Oculus. The article doesn't appear to have anything specifically saying that sales for the VR headsets should be stopped.[/QUOTE]
Took the sensationalist headline from engadget, anyways: title fixed. ( edit: guess I missed my chance for title edit )
It sounds like it will just kill off the store front and not stop sales of headsets. Which wouldn't be a bad thing considering how its a closed platform thats just hurting the vr industry. It would force devs to put their games on steam and stop oculus from pushing thier exclusives bull crap.
[QUOTE=dark soul;51868981]It sounds like it will just kill off the store front and not stop sales of headsets. Which wouldn't be a bad thing considering how its a closed platform thats just hurting the vr industry. It would force devs to put their games on steam and stop oculus from pushing thier exclusives bull crap.[/QUOTE]
So you'd rather have shittier games due to lack of funding (or no games at all) but available to everyone day 1, rather than amazing AAA games with millions of funding with a few months of timed *store* exclusivity? that you can bypass anyway and play on the Vive using a simple plugin/hack? :why:
And are you aware that Steam is a store just like Oculus Home is, with its own share of games that are only released on Steam?
Your post sounds like something out of /r/pcmasterrace with their hateboners.
[QUOTE=Orkel;51869031]So you'd rather have shittier games due to lack of funding (or no games at all) but available to everyone day 1, rather than amazing AAA games with millions of funding with a few months of timed *store* exclusivity? that you can bypass anyway and play on the Vive using a simple plugin/hack? :why:
And are you aware that Steam is a store just like Oculus Home is, with its own share of games that are only released on Steam?
Your post sounds like something out of /r/pcmasterrace with their hateboners.[/QUOTE]
Valve and HTC are providing VR devs with funding as well and that's not even counting upcoming things like fallout VR, RE7 VR, and Ace Combat 7 VR. AAA quality games might suffer a bit but they will rebound quickly as more people develop for the platforms.
[QUOTE=Svinnik;51869080]Valve and HTC are providing VR devs with funding as well and that's not even counting upcoming things like fallout VR, RE7 VR, and Ace Combat 7 VR. AAA quality games might suffer a bit but they will rebound quickly as more people develop for the platforms.[/QUOTE]
also the fact that the valve/htc vr funding deal [URL="https://www.vg247.com/2016/06/17/valve-offers-vr-developers-funding-to-avoid-platform-exclusive-deals/"]doesnt lock the game to the vive for ??? months[/URL]
[QUOTE=Orkel;51869031]So you'd rather have shittier games due to lack of funding (or no games at all) but available to everyone day 1, rather than amazing AAA games with millions of funding with a few months of timed *store* exclusivity? that you can bypass anyway and play on the Vive using a simple plugin/hack? :why:
And are you aware that Steam is a store just like Oculus Home is, with its own share of games that are only released on Steam?
Your post sounds like something out of /r/pcmasterrace with their hateboners.[/QUOTE]
IIRC, Valve is also funding devs, any you don't even need to be exclusive to the Vive or steam, you can release on anything.
edit: God damn, I post and get ninja'd by 2 people.\
Also, I'm surprised that Oculus still exists after that lawsuit.
Not to mention that nothing is stopping oculus from funding the development of regular games. Consider now that if oculus wanted to develop (or fund development) of a Vive game, there is no legal barrier preventing them from doing so.
Obviously they would never do that because it undermines their position as a the primary competition for vive, but since both headsets are now 95% compatible with each-other's games, developers shouldn't be thinking it as developing for stictly one platform or the other. I wouldn't call it easy to play vive games on a rift or vice versa, but its definitely an option.
Imagine a future where the market for headsets is a varied as it is for monitors or mice. Making software that [I]only[/I] works for a single brand of mouse is then a limitation, not an advantage.
[QUOTE=dark soul;51868981]It sounds like it will just kill off the store front and not stop sales of headsets. Which wouldn't be a bad thing considering how its a closed platform thats just hurting the vr industry. It would force devs to put their games on steam and stop oculus from pushing thier exclusives bull crap.[/QUOTE]
This "exclusivity is bad" and "kill all stores and put everything on Steam" attitude doesn't stop to amaze me, especially when you remember that the foundation of Steam as a store was the exclusivity of Valve games there. Not to mention it is grown in such a behemoth that new stores can barely compete.
[QUOTE=Intoxicated Spy;51869093]IIRC, Valve is also funding devs, any you don't even need to be exclusive to the Vive or steam, you can release on anything.
edit: God damn, I post and get ninja'd by 2 people.\
Also, I'm surprised that Oculus still exists after that lawsuit.[/QUOTE]
As far as I remember, Valve's funding basically gives them their Steam sales money in advance (here's 500k to develop the game, pay us back when you sell the game worth 500k on Steam. If your game doesn't sell worth 500k we won't ask for the lost money back). Oculus straight up gives them that 500k with the condition of timed exclusivity.
Though I remember HTC has started funding Vive games as well, not sure what the conditions to those are.
[QUOTE=Wii60;51869091]also the fact that the valve/htc vr funding deal [URL="https://www.vg247.com/2016/06/17/valve-offers-vr-developers-funding-to-avoid-platform-exclusive-deals/"]doesnt lock the game to the vive for ??? months[/URL][/QUOTE]
It's been "confirmed" via previous examples that Oculus's exclusivity clause is 1 full year.
[editline]24th February 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=Lolkork;51869153]Oculus' timed exclusivity deals help vr, there would be a lot fewer good vr games without it.[/QUOTE]
You have any good examples of paid non-demo VR games funded by Oculus that are good?
Superhot is the only one that comes to mind for me.
[QUOTE=AntonioR;51869124]This "exclusivity is bad" and "kill all stores and put everything on Steam" attitude doesn't stop to amaze me, especially when you remember that the foundation of Steam as a store was the exclusivity of Valve games there. Not to mention it is grown in such a behemoth that new stores can barely compete.[/QUOTE]
What amazes me is that people think that having a closed platform that's exclusive to one headset is good for VR. The argument that the steam store situation and Oculus Store is nonsense. Steam never locked their software to work with only their hardware. If the Oculus Store wanted to really compete with steam they would support the most headsets possible, but they don't care about that. They only want to push their headset and give their competitors a disadvantage. No one would be against the store front having exclusive if it didn't only push their own hardware.
[QUOTE=dark soul;51870214]What amazes me is that people think that having a closed platform that's exclusive to one headset is good for VR. The argument that the steam store situation and Oculus Store is nonsense. Steam never locked their software to work with only their hardware. If the Oculus Store wanted to really compete with steam they would support the most headsets possible, but they don't care about that. They only want to push their headset and give their competitors a disadvantage. No one would be against the store front having exclusive if it didn't only push their own hardware.[/QUOTE]
I never said exclusivity is good, I wanted to point out Valve is not a saint in that department like people make them be, let's not forget how it all started. It is easy for them now to act as some kind of saint when you are the market leader. They have the store, ridiculously dedicated user base, the infrastructure, a secure position on the market, they don't need to do shit anymore to be competitive.
On the other side, even though Facebook has money, they are no one in the video game world. They are entering the market from zero and they need to be aggressive. Just like EA is with Origin, if they weren't selling their own games there exclusively that store would be completely irrelevant. In the end it's all business and not cancer research. Imagine if Microsoft released Halo also on PS2 in 2001, there would never be another Xbox console.
Yeah and I'm pointing out that they don't really care about trying to compete with steam, if they did they would support the Vive to get a larger consumer base.The whole point of the Store is to push the Oculus hardware exclusively and give it an advantage. Oculus isn't making exclusives to push the store, their making them to push their hardware. The only way this would be comparable to steam is if Valve came out with their own Monitor/keyboard/mouse and only allowed steam to run games on that specific hardware.
Again, it is only store exclusivity, not hardware exclusivity. [B]AND it only applies to Oculus-funded games.[/B] If a Vive user wants to play an Oculus funded game on the Oculus Store, all he has to do is install a code snippet and bam, play everything. Or he could wait until the limited exclusivity is over and buy it on Steam afterward. A lot of games on the Oculus Store can be bought on Steam because they are not funded by Oculus.
[editline]24th February 2017[/editline]
[url]https://uploadvr.com/jason-rubin-vr-exclusivity-open-platform-never-created-one-company/[/url]
[QUOTE=Orkel;51870630]Again, it is only store exclusivity, not hardware exclusivity. [B]AND it only applies to Oculus-funded games.[/B][/QUOTE]
because they tried and failed to lock it down to their headsets. revive (vive -> oculus emulation software) easily got around it and made any oculus game easily piratable at the same time so oculus had no choice but to remove the hardware drm.
[url]https://uploadvr.com/confirmed-oculus-removes-drm-restrictions-blocking-revive-hack/[/url]
Oculus is a active threat to open VR and potentially able to cause the suicide of the vr market if they pull more stunts like that.
[QUOTE=Wii60;51871163]because they tried and failed to lock it down to their headsets. revive (vive -> oculus emulation software) easily got around it and made any oculus game easily piratable at the same time so oculus had no choice but to remove the hardware drm.
[url]https://uploadvr.com/confirmed-oculus-removes-drm-restrictions-blocking-revive-hack/[/url]
Oculus is a active threat to open VR and potentially able to cause the suicide of the vr market if they pull more stunts like that.[/QUOTE]
quite the active threat by supporting multiplatform web vr and khronos
[editline]24th February 2017[/editline]
as if Valve is any better, selling hardware that only their API is allowed to run on
would you buy a monitor that no commercial OS developers were allowed to use, one that only runs on linux?
[QUOTE=Orkel;51870630]Again, it is only store exclusivity, not hardware exclusivity.[/QUOTE]
I'm sorry Orkel but this statement is just...wrong.
Let's assume it is only a store exclusivity for a moment:
The Oculus store only allows apps using Oculus APIs, which only work with Oculus headsets.
Does that not make it a hardware exclusivity too?
-snip, didn't realize they were referring to the games and not the plastic headset-
[QUOTE=bitches;51871230]would you buy a monitor that no commercial OS developers were allowed to use, one that only runs on linux?[/QUOTE]
can commercial os developers not use the vive and can the vive not run on windows
What an awful argument
[QUOTE=gk99;51871728]can commercial os developers not use the vive and can the vive not run on windows
What an awful argument[/QUOTE]
I'm referring to API developers, not OS. It's called an analogy.
The Vive is operated through the "OpenVR" API. Valve controls this API in every way. They call it "Open"VR because they, in theory, work with other VR hardware vendors to support other devices than the Vive under a unified API.
Their support for the Rift headset has always been terrible, and still is. It's a very buggy and unpleasant experience, and is why I only buy VR games from the Oculus store whenever they are offered on both Oculus and Steam.
It isn't reasonable to demand that Oculus not develop their own API to better serve their own customers. The Oculus API does not directly run on the Vive because they do not have Valve's cooperation. Gabe himself insists that Oculus instead use OpenVR, which would give away Oculus's control of their own hardware to Valve.
The alternative is to say that Oculus should spend their own money developing games for both APIs, which would not be necessary if Valve did not so insist that they [I]own[/I] the VR software API driving [I]all [/I]headsets. Instead, Oculus has, for the greater part of the last year, supported the modding community tackling unofficial support for Rift API games.
If you need any further examples, Oculus Medium is software that comes free with all Touch controller purchases, yet is still sold on the Oculus store explicitly for Vive users to buy.
Moving forward, they continue to support a [I]multi-company[/I] VR standard API: Khronos.
[QUOTE=bitches;51871934]Instead, Oculus has, for the greater part of the last year, supported the modding community tackling unofficial support for Rift API games.[/QUOTE]
Except for that one time they decided to add DRM to the Oculus API and then only removed it when the community backlash became too great and the devs behind Revive broke their DRM to the point that piracy was easily possible, right?
[QUOTE=1/4 Life;51872035]Except for that one time they decided to add DRM to the Oculus API and then only removed it when the community backlash became too great and the devs behind Revive broke their DRM to the point that piracy was easily possible, right?[/QUOTE]
What I said wasn't wrong.
Back at launch, one of the few titles ReVive worked with was a Rift launch title: Lucky's Tale. ReVive hacked in support to interface the Rift API with OpenVR in a way that only worked for a few specific games (at the time). Lucky's Tale was developed on Oculus's budget, and right at launch not expecting the modding community to hack support so quickly, Vive users playing Lucky's Tale was literally a case of piracy.
The store hadn't yet planned to sell games to both headsets in the way it now does, and so Lucky's Tale was simply given to all Oculus store accounts: a cost subsidized into Rift headset purchases. Vive users did not pay for the game. Oculus implemented a hardware check, the community rightfully freaked out, and Oculus removed the check before working to change their store to assign product keys based on first-use device IDs... not even to mention the shady entitlement the ReVive developer demonstrated by fully bypassing Oculus's DRM solution with a full crack.
Since that point, they've been selling games explicitly for users of both headsets, and even express plans to make it easier to perform that kind of modding.
All of their actions, for the greater part of the past year (as I said), have been to the benefit of modders and the VR game production industry.
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