Serious Sam Dev offered shit-ton of money for Rift exclusivity
The Oculus Rift was intended to be an open, consumer-friendly VR headset that would make VR gaming practical. They had a lot of cool people involved and a good philosophy. Then they were bought out by facebook. Which everyone knew was going to be a complete shitshow, because how in the fuck could that possibly go well?
Valve actually gave a ton of their VR research to Oculus for free because they were a well-meaning company with the right idea. After the facebook buyout, when it was clear that they’d no longer be open and consumer-friendly, Valve designed their own VR headset (built by HTC), the Vive.
Now Oculus, who built their VR gear on Valve software/technology/research, is trying to fuck over Valve (and all other entrants to the VR market) and consumers by bribing third party companies to make their games exclusive to the Oculus.
Valve is trying to create the OpenVR standard, where anyone who comes into the VR headset market can have their headset work with every game. You can play any Valve game, or any steam game, made for VR with any headset. Oculus is attempting to lock people down to the Oculus store only (even to the point where when you play multiplayer on an Oculus store game you’re forced to play with only other Oculus store version owners), and to make sure that no other VR headsets will work with the Oculus store.
And now they’re using those facebook deep pockets to go to all the companies developing VR products to make them only work on the Oculus. That sort of exclusivity is extremely anti-consumer. It fractures a budding VR market that needs to be open and easily accessible. Fracturing the VR player base into different games and different stores depending on your particular hardware makes the industry even less appealing for developers because you’re targeting fewer potential consumers. They’re actually increasing the likelihood that the whole VR movement will fail so that if it doesn’t, they’re the dominant player. And even if it doesn’t kill the movement entirely, it certainly makes it less consumer friendly.
Yes, I know this sort of thing already exists on consoles. And it’s really shitty there and people shouldn’t put up with it. But PC gaming has never had that sort of forced exclusivity. And we won’t stand for that bullshit.
No one should get a rift. The price difference between the units is minor when you consider the Vive already has working room-space VR, which is really the most transformative experience, and when the Rift puts it out it’ll probably cost an extra $150 for the cameras and controllers anyway. So you’re talking about a $50 difference when you’ve probably spent $1500+ on the PC and headset anyway.
Is it worth buying hardware from facebook, which is already proven to spy on you, who are trying to fragment and control the VR market, who are paying lots of money just to deny gaming experiences to a fraction of the market, and will do god knows what with all those facebook VR users once they get ahold of the market over the company that has been one of the most consumer-friendly companies in the world and has done so much for PC gaming? To save $50? For fucks sake.
And if you think “well, I’m better off getting a Rift because then I can play rift-exclusive games and everything else too”, then you’re supporting this business practice and punish the company that’s cool enough to be open at everything, so you’re being really selfish and short sighted.
Don’t buy hardware from facebook. Because we knew shit like this was going to happen, and it’s just the start of it.