Oculus Rift exclusivity protection leads to a VR piracy arms race | Hacker News Reader

Oculus Rift exclusivity protection leads to a VR piracy arms race

arstechnica.co.uk

I am definitely holding out for HTC Vive, just on principle. It became much easier a decision when I checked out their amazing demo. I'm pretty sure Oculus will fall far behind in the race after an initial and short lived period of appearing to win the VR race. Facebook isn't a VR company. No VR product will do well with something like Facebook trying to contort and leverage it to a completely different purpose.

The Vive is crazy amazing. We've been working with the Dev version and the Pre for months now, and I have nothing but good things to say about it.

What's the purpose of a "VR company" supposed to be? It's social apps, not games, that will propel VR into the mainstream. And that's Facebook's specialty.

Right, because people will spend hundreds of dollars on specialty hardware to do "social apps"

The most popular apps for the iPhone are social (three of which are owned by Facebook).

How are they going to benefit from VR headsets? (Remember, not only you need rather expensive headset itself, but the computing power too!)

What? You don't want advertising "dark patterns" piped directly into your cerebral cortex by way of a completely immersive interface?

My initial experience setting up the Vive as been disappointing.

- The software crashed several times

- There was no audio and then randomly there was audio (without me changing things)

- I had to go buy two giant six foot tripods for the motion sensors

- There are several large wires coming off the headset which plug into a box which plugs into the PC

- The HDMI cable is extremely short (and a longer one can cause issues).

- The Steam GPU test said my GTX480 could run it at high quality (which surprised me, but it ran the test fine)

- The display never turned on (just remained black) while it was tracking correctly on screen

- The first few attempts it didn't even show up on screen, just kept crashing.

I troubleshooted the thing for two days and gave up assuming I need to buy a better PC (I'm assuming their test is busted). I think Oculus and Palmer Luckey/Carmack have put a lot more effort into shipping a product that actually works.

I'm more willing to hack something to work than most people and this was still a pain/mess of wires.

Vive's software will get better. Corporatocracy only gets solved via bankrupcy.

I think the test may have bugged out. The minimum recommended spec is significantly higher than what you have.

I just got the Rift today, have had the Vive for a couple of weeks. Both have their pros and cons, but in all honestly, the Rift is way more polished and comfortable to wear. Once they get the hand controllers, it will definitely be better than the Vive. But it's still early days, I have a feeling the 2nd generation Vive will outdo the Rift.

Really? When giving demos myself and others seem to be able to get the Vive off and on more easily, the Oculus seems to leave marks on your face more often (because of the fit), and I find the light leaking from the nose area very distracting.

I'm also concerned about the durability of the Oculus. Being cloth covered it seems to pick things up. I'm also worried that once the fabric gets a tare it'll all start coming off.

I had a similar disappointment when first setting up the Vive, but after playing with it for an hour all was forgiven. It's certainly got some quirks but I'm very happy with it as a whole, and it will only get better.

Coming from Linux/Mac the last >decade, using Windows again has been disappointing. Many of these software issues are because of Windows 10 more than anything. My USB randomly dies, my own USB DAC randomly gets shuffled around with the Vive DAC so the mics get swapped or don't work at all, it crashes/bluescreens, it installs massive updates totally saturating my internet without any way to pause them, it constantly asks me to fill out surveys. I could go on.

Honestly I can't even blame Valve/HTC for this, I only blame them for not launching with SteamOS support on "Day 1" as they said. Any day now... (mumbles stuff about Valve Time.)

As for the rest, unfortunately that's the best of breed right now. Oculus is no different. Yes, there are wires (precisely one triple wire from the headset). Yes, you need the tracking sensors (on the bright side, Lighthouse wires only run to the AC outlet rather than your PC). Yes, you need a high-end videocard. When you're extending your HDMI cable, make sure to get an active HDMI cable rather than a passive one. People have extended theirs by over 50ft with no issues.

I'm assuming you haven't gotten your Rift yet (otherwise most of these wouldn't be a surprise). Hope it's a better experience for you! I'd upgrade the videocard while you wait, though. :)

Sounds like you are you are running out of USB resources it's your hardware not the OS. Try disabling XHCI this happens quite often when you have allot of USB 2.0 devices plugged in into USB 3.0 only chipset. Balancing them out between the chipsets that provide the USB ports (most motherboards have 2-3 additional USB hosts besides the PCH) can also sometimes solve it. A better solution is usually bundling the non-USB 3.0 devices on a dedicated hub.

I don't have that many devices: The Vive, an audio DAC, a keyboard, mouse, and a wifi stick. The motherboard is solid (Asus Z170-A). I tried moving various devices between different kinds of ports (2.0, 3.0, 3.1) and front vs back, not much difference. Many of the issues happen whether the Vive is plugged in or not.

I think it's a driver issue. Part of the problem I noticed (before I got the Vive) is that the keyboard is also a USB hub and sometimes the machine completely locks up if I try to use it before Windows is fully booted.

Another issue I ran into is when I installed the Vive bluetooth driver, the Vive HMD camera stopped working (also runs over the USB hub). I've read a few other threads where people ran into this issue. Weeeee.

That's enough if you have 2-3 USB 2.0 devices on a USB 3.0 only host it's enough to screw it up. I got a few ASUS mobo's that all have the same issues.

If you have USB2.0 breakout ports use them for the legacy devices, if not use a good USB hub.

oh my god thank you so much. UGHH so dumb.

Hrm, I'll try reshuffling a few more times. Thanks for the suggestion.

No offense, but your GTX480 is more than likely the cause of your visual issues. I hear you on mount space (I initially used bookshelves in my room like their preview video, then wall-mounted them which isn't ideal for everyone), but your claim that Vive hasn't shipped a working, polished product is pretty disingenuous.

Beyond that, what VR doesn't need as an ecosystem isn't fanboying (which your post comes off as, have you even tried the CV1 yet with your setup?) it needs its users to condemn actions like the ones taken by Oculus that weaken it as a whole. VR software is well and good for short demos, but the current catalog is small, of poor to mediocre quality, and generally too expensive for that quality. Users are going to remain on the fence (which is actually a positive for Oculus, with the release of Touch later on it'll reach feature parity with Vive's room-scale stuff and make it an easier sell) and smart studios are going to continue to wait before wasting any money on high-end VR development on PC.

Finally, all of this has finally convinced me that if you're interested in developing or investing in VR gaming the details on the PS4K and Playstation's VR roll-out at E3 are going to indicate how VR really fairs in its early years.

I think it's a little unfair to call 'fanboying' - I bought both devices the rift just hasn't arrived yet.

No doubt it probably is the GTX480, but their software test for VR capability is broken then. Maybe the rift will come and have similar issues, but for right now I'm only going off of the article I read where Palmer talked about how it's critical to get the first interaction right. This is something that the Vive did not (at least in my case).

I'll have a new build when the 1080 is out, but for now there's not much I can do.

Sure didn't take Facebook long to exert it's walled-garden protectionism on Occulus.

VR is a format not a platform. This move by Occulus is really shortsighted.

It's even more inclusive than a format. It's a new medium!

Pardon me but I see it as a glorified monitor/input device. I do realize there is a qualitative difference but the point is, neither the monitor or the mouse I currently use have any exclusive titles and I would be hard pressed to pay $600 for the privilege. So, Vive it is, assuming they don't pull this mess.

That's also a fantastic point.

  At the time, Oculus said the update wasn't targeted at the workaround, and was instead trying "to curb piracy and protect games and apps that developers have worked so hard to make.

Curbing piracy is not their fucking job. Their job is to provide a piece of hardware that I, a developer, can talk to over APIs to show the user running my code stuff. Their job is making hardware at a price point that covers their staff growth and innovation while shipping as many units as possible. Their job is making sure that users don't get sick using their hardware.

This kind of shitty heavy-handed behavior is what is slowing down AR and VR tremendously. This nascent industry needs to return to its hobbyist roots--there isn't even a golden goose worth killing yet. Jesus fuck.

Nah, that want to have their app store and exclusives and all that shiny software money.

Which is why I won't buy an Oculus.

I haven't tried either Oculus nor Vive, but Vive seems soooo much better from what ive seen so far ...

I don't have a horse in this race, but, is there any reason to believe Vive won't have DRM too? I mean... Steam is like the biggest DRM software ever made (although they've made it work well).

To me Steam is the antithesis of DRM, to be honest (I am quite a bit of a fanboi though)

It does so much things for me. I no longer have to worry about CD's or whatever. All my games are in one place, install pretty much as soon as I want (50mbit fiber), are always up to date, I never have to fiddle with goddamn keys - click install, wait a few minutes, click play and that's it! Some games have Steam Cloud, so my saves are there, my settings might be there too. And don't start me on Steam Overlay! I've got a few hundred friends, clock (THIS IS SO RIDDICULOUSLY NICE TO HAVE), a web browser. It does streaming. It does screenshots. It does remote desktop. Guides.

It takes my issues and solves them for me. Maybe that is some Stockholm Syndrome. It's been years since I had any issues with Steam-as-DRM (Or just Steam, really)

But fucking hell, look at uplay or origin or any other cancerware corporate trash that does nothing but fuck with you.

I don't really see Steam/Volvo locking down VR. It appears that they provide an API for other hardware to work. (At least thats what cursory googling says!)

Keep in mind that those value-added features (friends list, save syncing, etc) are all doable without the actual DRM component. In fact some games choose not to bundle SteamWorks DRM so their exes are not encrypted.

GOG Galaxy[1] is an example of a client that is completely DRM-free, but still offers many of those features.

I use Steam a lot and buy quite a lot of games from it, though I'd not consider it the antithesis of DRM. They do still use DRM - they just make it a better experience.

[1] https://www.gog.com/galaxy

The Vive APIs are open. They're not connected to any Steam DRM (which I believe is optional -- and in any event, Valve doesn't nail developers down to exclusives; you're free to sell your games elsewhere, if you want).

My guess is that Facebook's big advantage boils down to the sheer number of bodies they have available to make a platform, while Valve consists of a small team and a bunch of developers. Valve's non-management culture makes long-term focus hard. Facebook can mandate focus through their heirarchy.

Also, the people at Facebook are not stupid; this is fixable if they take the right steps. They probably don't even have to do anything at all now; just ignore the issue and it will sink below the community's outrage threshold.

But if I was a company stuck with an exclusive on the Oculus, I'd be screaming at Facebook for a pile of cash right about now.

[I have the sense that the Oculus DRM change was decided by some PM-like person at Facebook with little experience in security, or PCs as a gaming platform, or the market in general. I'll bet there's an internal shitstorm at Facebook that's resulting in new orifices being drilled into certain persons. If they decide to double-down on the DRM or try shut down the software shim in question through legal posturing, then I will make popcorn].

Which part of Steam is DRM?

Any game you purchase and install through Steam works without Steam (unless it depends on SteamWorks, VAC, or any of the other Steam services).

Basically any game you can buy from a "No DRM!" shop like GOG that also sells the same version on Steam will be equally DRM-free.

From what I can tell the majority of games on Steam still use CEG (Custom Executable Generation) - the DRM aspect of Steamworks.

Before the Greenlight-explosion, PCGamingWiki kept a pretty up-to-date list on titles that were DRM-free[1]. It was a small percentage of titles even then.

Now it's hard to say in a post-Greenlight world just how many titles use CEG. We can largely extrapolate and assume it's similar numbers. Though because so many Greenlight titles are indie I'd guess it's actually a lower percentage.

Still, I'd bet that most titles are still using CEG in some capacity. I'd like it if Valve made that information available on the store page pre-purchase, but unfortunately they don't.

One side-note: GOG does have an advantage over Steam even when Steamworks DRM isn't used. That is that the installer file can be copied freely between machines. Steam doesn't allow this without an internet connection. So for archival purposes, the GOG version is much more "free".

[1] http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_Big_List_of_DRM-Free_Games_...

It seems there's a big conflation between DRM (things that actually restrict how you can use your digital goods) and per-customer builds (things that identify you as the owner but don't necessarily restrict usage, like watermarks).

The way I understand it, CEG works by signing the binary to a specific Steam account for when Steam is used. It does not prevent any portability or introduce access control for when Steam is not used, right?

That is, if I'm offline or just have a backup of the game install without Steam, CEG has no effect on me (assuming the game's integrations with Steamworks are not a requirement for the game to function).

At least Valve/Gaben has gone on record on several occasions to say that the digital assets are structured in such a way that they'll continue to work even if Steam/Valve disappears (dies or what have you). It might have been a couple of years, but I'm assuming this is still true.

Edit: Btw, just to be clear, I constantly rely on this functionality. I play tons of games that I buy on Steam while I'm offline (mostly during travel and such). If I needed to be online for my purchases to work, I wouldn't be using Steam anymore.

>The way I understand it, CEG works by signing the binary to a specific Steam account for when Steam is used.

I don't know the technical specifics, but I'm sure that's true. However, I'd argue this is still an implementation of DRM as it goes beyond just watermarking. Offline mode works because it previously downloaded your authorizations from Valve, and those are cached offline for a period. But there's still a key and lock system in place that needs to be met. That is, if you were to copy your game install folder for a title that uses CEG, you would have problems running that executable.

Titles without CEG would still work, assuming there's no other issues like missing registry keys, %APPDATA% entries, etc... (one of the reasons a DRM-free installer is important to me -- improved portability).

I admit Steam DRM is fairly unobtrusive, and its offline mode works way better than it used to a few years ago.

>At least Valve/Gaben has gone on record on several occasions to say that the digital assets are structured in such a way that they'll continue to work even if Steam/Valve disappears (dies or what have you).

Just to clarify, is this the same quote of "If Steam ever goes under, we'll release a patch to remove the DRM"? Because I've been following and trying to track down that pernicious quote for years, and have never once found a credible source on the matter. It's always "archived post of forum moderator", or "tier 1 support supposedly said". But never a credible source from the company, in the Terms of Service, or anything that would hold up. I'm pretty convinced at this point people only pass it around because it's a comfortable lie.

I'm not sure if that's the same quote you were going for, however. How the assets are structured seems like it could be a different issue.

>If I needed to be online for my purchases to work, I wouldn't be using Steam anymore.

As I understand, you still need to go online for the initial run, correct? And also if there's been any updates/patches I believe.

> That is, if you were to copy your game install folder for a title that uses CEG, you would have problems running that executable.

I don't believe this is true. The "backup game content" flow is fairly solid. Only time you'll run into issues if you try to import it into another online Steam account.

> Just to clarify, is this the same quote of "If Steam ever goes under, we'll release a patch to remove the DRM"? Because I've been following and trying to track down that pernicious quote for years, and have never once found a credible source on the matter. [...]

I've seen variations of it in a few places. It wasn't "we'll release a patch", it was more "your games will continue to work even if Steam disappears." I was just listening to an interview with Gaben on The Nerdist (circa 2013ish?) and I believe he said that there as well. The first of the two parts.

I mean this isn't hard to validate. Go offline, see if your games continue work. It's not like EA's Origin or Sony's always-on stuff.

> As I understand, you still need to go online for the initial run, correct? And also if there's been any updates/patches I believe.

If you're running from a backup copy, you don't need to go online for the initial run. If you want to download updates/patches from Steam, then yes you need to be online to do online things.

Thanks for the info.

Most people say the Oculus Rift headset is much better than the Vive headset, but that the controllers for the Vive are much better since Oculus hasn't released Touch yet. Although people who have tried both have indicated the Touch controllers are better, at least for certain applications.

Uhm, anecdotes != data.

I've heard that most people say the Vive is better than the Oculus by far.

That remains an anecdote, as (anecdotally) I've heard the exact opposite ;).

  > Uhm, anecdotes != data.

Which you then go on to counter with your own anecdote.

Oculus is funding game development through their publishing arm to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. I could sympathize with a desire to keep some of that software catalog exclusive to their hardware as a way of promoting the hardware and recouping that development investment. They might also feel this is a longer term, platform play and don't want to cede control of the VR store front experience (and revenue) to Valve.

I don't know that I agree with Oculus's move here but I think there are defensible reasons why Oculus might want to preserve hardware exclusivity on some or all of their titles.

VR Doesn't need a special storefront or any of that bullshit. Just sell the god damn hardware.

I'm so sick of companies trying to carve out their walled gardens. Fuck them all.

I suspect the hardware is very low margin; Palmer Luckey has publicly said as much. I doubt that Facebook would have been interested in owning a low margin hardware business that at least for the first few years will sell to a (very) niche audience if there wasn't a plan for additional revenue channels. A storefront provides such a revenue source as well as a curated experience when and if VR breaks into the mainstream.

>Oculus is funding game development through their publishing arm to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

To build a walled garden that only hurts the user.

Fuck. Occulus.

Not that I'm very happy with Oculus right now, but:

>Curbing piracy is not their fucking job.

Of course it is. Oculus Home is a storefront. They sell games and piracy cuts into that business. It's no different than Steam using DRM.

>This kind of shitty heavy-handed behavior is what is slowing down AR and VR tremendously.

Maybe, but VR wouldn't be here in 2016 if Oculus hadn't kicked off the whole thing. They hired the talent, drummed up the interest, and set the best practices. But now we have three strong competitors (Oculus, Valve and Sony) releasing VR headsets. That's far better than the alternative.

I'm not trying to be an apologist here, but you need to keep perspective on this.

They really did do a spectacular job in bring VR back into the public conciousness after the... failures of the 90's, and full kudos for that.

As a researcher (visual discomfort / simulator sickness), sometimes I just want to replicate an issue I am seeing in one application on another headset: controlling applications to only work on your HMD is a serious impediment to this and makes my work way harder than it needs be!

Curbing piracy is fine, but with heavier solutions like this, everyone loses in the end.

I don't disagree! I was disappointed by the Facebook buyout, but this update really hurt my opinion of Oculus as a company. I hope they rectify it.

It's no different than Steam using DRM.

It's hugely different at this point. For VR, the issue isn't piracy and profits. For VR, the issue is mindshare. If you're prioritizing lost profits due to piracy at this point, you're putting the cart before the horse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBaOpfSL2YQ

Steam is already a mature ecosystem in a mature medium, dealing with mature ecosystem problems. VR is definitely not there yet!

And Oculus, at the beginning (with the DK1), shipped a no-bullshit SDK with native code you could develop with. They did so with a minimum of other nonsense, licensing, and so forth.

They aren't the only vendors with this problem--Meta, Epson, and other folks in the AR space have purposefully gimped their platforms (esp. BT-200) citing "piracy" as the reason to lock developers out of their hardware or software.

I'm keeping perspective just fine on this: the fact is that practices have shifted from open platforms to closed gardens to make development "easier" and, more importantly, to try and moved to walled gardens before there's really anything to even fucking plant.

I think they see their job as encouraging investment. I share your perspective, but some people are reassured when they see effort put into making a platform more hostile to license-infringement.

Does anyone have experience with open source vr (OSVR)? I think it is being developed by the gaming peripheral company Razer. It's $299 and I was wondering how it stacked up to the other offerings.

http://www.osvr.org/

I was really struggling, trying to figure out which headset to get. They just decided for me.

Same. Just canceled my preorder, though this was less of a factor than Facebook's invasive privacy policy and the shipping delays that favored retailers over day-one (even hour-one) preorder customers. Straw that finally broke the camel's back.

I know it's somewhat naive to say in the days of Windows 10 and such, but if they're going to make money selling hardware, sell hardware. I'm not paying $600 to be some digital serf while they track my eyeball movements and sell the data to anyone willing to pay. But even then, had they just shipped without a 3+ month delay, they'd already have my money, rather than my enmity.

"The majority of these games would not even exist were we (Oculus) not funding them."

Bad sign. Usually, game platform vendors don't have to pay developers to use their platform. When they do, it usually means the platform is in trouble. Microsoft tried paying developers to develop for their phone, but it didn't help.[1]

[1] http://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-pay-out-100000-get-d...

Not true at all. Both MS and Sony pay developers to target their console platforms, especially for launch titles.

Unless they publish them they don't pay them directly, they do give them very favorable terms.

The lab I am working in has a Vive instead of a Oculus, and I am glad for it now. The headset is better, the demos are better and I don't have to deal with constant interoperability issues.

Any bets on whether Carmack will stick around much longer? Will he finish and release his Racket code before leaving? Will he go back to id, start a new company, or take up Musk's offer to work on rockets again? I can't imagine this sits well with him...

If John hasn't changed and Oculus is true to their intention of why and how they brought him onboard (or how the public has been told), I sure hope John's voice would be instrumental in resolving this debacle quickly.

I'm not saying it's the right thing but I'm also not shocked they have done this. If you read (even the summary) of the OVR SDK they are super super clear about them not wanting you to use it on Non-Oculus hardware.

potentially opening VR software up to piracy as well as hardware freedom.

You can clearly see the bias in this phrasing, because it could also be written with more emphasis on the freedom part:

"opening VR software up to hardware freedom as well as potentially piracy"

To be fair, the potential for piracy is the news part of this story, as the previous hacks already provided hardware freedom. It's entirely legitimate for Ars to phrase it the way they did without any bias being present.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com