Valve funding VR projects, exclusivity-free, with pre-paid Steam revenue
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https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4odsce/ive_sent_gabe_...
If you need context:
Oculus has been offering funds to VR devs in exchange for limited time exclusivity to the Oculus Store. This wouldn't be such a stink if the news didn't immediately follow Oculus Store DRM adding checks for the Oculus headset hardware. So, a game bought through Steam can play on either a Vive or a Rift depending on support put in by the dev. But, a game bought on the Oculus Store is blocked from running on a Vive.
IMHO, the conversation about this topic is very muddied between the four issues of funding, store exclusivity, DRM and hardware blocking. But, AFAICT, the PC gaming openness advocates are clearly OK with Steam DRM and mostly fine with funded, temporary store exclusivity. However, the hardware block is a serious issue. (At least in it's intent. In practice, it was immediately worked around.)
That being said, GOG has gotten great, and their download client has been getting more and more robust.
It's definitely 'DRM' - its just a good DRM that tends to not get in the way of the users.\
If I have a game on GOG or Steam, I'm more likely to use Steam, unless I'm traveling and might be Internetless.
Honestly, I wonder if they may have suspended GOG Connect during the GOG Summer Sale. Everything is still up at gog.com/connect, but nothing's available.
That's no different from what you'll get in non-Steam games. You cheat, you get banned.
Quite a number: http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games
but the vast majority of the store is DRMmed.
Currently everything needed is reverse enginered so you can actually download games using open source tool, but I pretty sure this is forbidden by Steam EULA. Even if we all know Valve will unlikely enforce it it's still gray area you don't want depend on.
The fact that you need a client to download your game is not DRM, but it is inconvenient I suppose. DRM comes in when you cannot distribute your purchased game freely, and you're limited to a set number of PCs or installs.
Still disagree? Let's look at GoG, the standard DRM-free game store. You need to login before you can download your games, correct? Would you call that a form of DRM? The difference between logging in and downloading a client is negligible in this day and age imo.
If you don't agree with any of the above, then I'm afraid that the way you think of DRM-free gaming is only achievable through piracy.
I personally find Steam, buggy, ugly, intrusive and effectively spyware that is logging and tracking god knows what. I feel very uncomfortable installing it on my machines and in general having to go through software A to get to software B makes a lot of people uncomfortable.
By contrast, logging in confines the the website to tracking my activity on the website itself - which they probably can do with a cookie anyways...
The only difference between Steam and GoG is that GoG runs software A on their servers and in your browser, whereas Steam runs software A on your machine in the custom-skinned browser they give you.
Any security or privacy ramifications of the two different approaches are quit irrelevant to a discussion of whether it constitutes DRM in the generally accepted sense of technical measures to prevent you from copying, sharing, etc. digital content that you already have in your possession. It's not DRM to require some authentication before they'll serve up the download to you. DRM is what gets in the way after the download.
You can have open source DRM (for example hardware enforced schemes).
First, the success of VR is an existential risk for Oculus. This is not true for Valve; Valve just doesn't want to be left behind (at least at a business level, I have no doubt their engineering organization wants to continue to be the tech leader).
Second, they are very concerned about whether people have good VR experiences, because the well has been poisoned by people's memories of 90s VR, Cardboard, concerns about motion sickness, overhype, headsets looking dumb, etc.
Third, they're a fairly small organization, and they already have to support engagements with GPU vendors, OS, as well, as getting their hardware built and supported. Having to support other hardware on their platform (especially as there is a race to the bottom between HTC, Razer, etc) is a huge additional burden. They do have financial resources from Facebook, but you can't just throw money at an engineering org, you have to scale carefully.
So to make VR is successful, they have to make sure that people have good experiences, but they have a small team. Buying exclusives makes perfect sense for them: it's a way to leverage Facebook's financial resources, and since the titles are exclusive they can focus on making those titles work as well as possible on a SW/HW stack that they own.
VR headsets on the PC are just another device like your keyboard, mouse and monitor. I haven't heard of an LG-monitor-exclusive game before, so why should it exist for VR?
It's different on consoles.
Firs there was DRM and now the insistence on exclusivity. For some reason Oculus seems to have forgotten their promise of an open ecosystem, and I hope it's not some Facebook influence Palmer is unable to fight against, and if that's case, I hope Carmack isn't getting pissed. Remember, John is the driving force behind GPL'ing all the engines/games at id software. It's reasonable to doubt any future GPL id software release since John left.
Between the Vive providing an arguably better experience (at a hefty price) and Oculus alienating PC gamers left and right, I have no idea what's going on in their management department. It looks like the wrong people got control.
I'm exclusively a PC gamer and I'd even argue that this is false. Exclusives are bad for the industry and bad for gamers in general. It doesn't matter which platform you can afford/desire.
Even PSVR might be coming to PC. Many Xbox games are coming to PC. The industry seems to be turning its back on exclusivity. What does Facebook do? "Naaaa, we can make exclusivity work."
When industry leaders are aborting a strategy, it isn't a good strategy. What Facebook is doing makes sense only 5 years ago.
I totally agree that for gamers it's a loss. Most skip games on that other platform, but some grudgingly buy an Xbox or Playstation just for one game.
Another very stupid tactic is making PC gamers wait like Rockstar does with GTA. This is especially bad given the history of the GTA games and them being PC first back in the day.
Don't they have both have very similar specs and hardware (ignoring input for now)? Also, the whole point of drivers/SDKs is to abstract hardware differences away so software can work on a variety of hardware. It doesn't strike me that they are so different the drivers/SDKs can't cope with the differences. Given Revive lets Vive users play Oculus locked down games and both the Oculus and Vive are supported on Steam it's clear their hardware differences isn't a huge deal.
Zuckerberg mentions the number in this stream, I think it was around 700 or so employees, but can't remember for sure: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/137176-watch-mark-zuckerberg...
Valve has some of the most valuable franchises (Dota 2, Team Fortress, Portal etc) around and are under-utilizing them, not to mention they operate the largest PC gaming distribution platform.
They can definitely set the terms of that kind of partnership.
Yeah, I'm playing the world's smallest violin for Facebook, of all companies. THEY ARE TOO SMALL!
In general I don't like exclusivity, but I don't downvote for a well-intended, thoughtful contribution. I do think you ignore the more obvious motivation of them wanting a larger cut of the price.
Why is it now locked down?
I'll use vim and you can wave your arms around like Cumberbatch-era Sherlock with your mumble-powered magic hat and we'll see who's the fastest!
I just wonder why, with his stance, he doesn't apply just one string: a sort of "non-exclusivity clause" where the devs agree not to sign any game exclusivity contract.
It's basically an interest-free loan which doesn't need to be paid back if the project is a failure (i.e. fails to "earn out" its advance). Quite generous, assuming Valve isn't taking any more than their usual cut of the Steam revenue as part of the arrangements.
I remember when I had to decide on a Samsung monitor over an Asus monitor because Samsung had the exclusives I wanted.
Wait...that didn't happen because that would be insane.
I was really excited about VR when Oculus was still a kickstarter project. The Facebook acquisition killed some of that excitement. However, what really killed it for me was learning that it wasn't just another PC peripheral, but that these things have their own stores, etc. Until I can connect a VR headset and play a game I bought anywhere with it, I will stay away from this. I understand that some things don't work due to technical limitations like Vive's room tracking, but that's not the issue here.
I knew then that it wouldn't take long for them to bring their shitty business practices to the VR table.
There's a lot of experimentation happening right now, and it's probably going to be a while until we know the minimum subset of hardware that's required to make an immersive game.
It's just to lower adoption of anything outside of the limited Oculus store environment.
To speak to your example, no monitor manufacturer is funding the development of games to play exclusively on their monitors as monitors are largely a commodity at this point.
There was a massive drama incident about it on /r/vive about this as well.
this has same base PC, just displayed differently. It is another layer of complexity compared to displaying it on LCD screen, but not THAT big. games can be relatively easily developed to work well for both platforms, and many will be. this is about content locking and competition between companies.
Most of the (fairly reasonable) statements Oculus has made about its practices are ignored, dismissed, or called outright lies. Actual developers have tried to explain that Oculus's behavior isn't evil, designed to split the VR community, etc., but they are called liars, accused of doing damage control, or are somehow paid off by Oculus.
The reality is that Oculus has 100% funded the development of certain games, and contributed engineering talent and best practices based on their VR research. These include Chronos, Edge of Nowhere, The Climb, and others - titles at major developers that would not have otherwise existed. In return, those games must be sold through the Oculus store. However, the studio (i.e., Insomniac, Crytek, etc.) maintains ownership of the IP. Any future game built by those studios (including sequels) can be sold anywhere, using the VR expertise they otherwise wouldn't have.
Oculus also offers development grants to independent developers. An indie that is starved for cash and may otherwise need to release a game early to recoup their investment now has the option to spend extra time on the game. In return, the game must be released first on the Oculus Store; afterwards, it can be released on Steam or anywhere else.
Many call this "buying exclusivity" - but thus far, every developer that has taken advantage of this has admitted that they were farther away from release than appeared to the public, were running low on cash, and/or needed the assistance that Oculus could provide.
Also, most people don't seem to realize that Valve's offer of pre-paid royalties is just another kind of store exclusivity. Developer won't host their app outside of Steam until the advance is paid off, as those non-Steam royalties don't count towards the pre-pay.
Accepting the pre-pay also forces them to use the OpenVR SDK, which means they cannot host the game on the Oculus store.
Valve isn't altruistic. They merely have a more sophisticated strategy and a technology (the OpenVR SDK that can wrap the Oculus SDK) that allows them to position themselves as taking the high road while they focus on boxing out a competing software platform.
Seems like trying to buy exclusivity to me - unless Serious Sam has some reason to distort the offer.
--
I want to clarify some of the inaccuracies about our relationship with Oculus. Oculus did approach us with an offer to help fund the completion of Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope in exchange for launching first on the Oculus Store and keeping it time-limited exclusive. Their offer was to help us accelerate development of our game, with the expectation that it would eventually support all PC VR platforms. We looked at the offer and decided it wasn’t right for our team. At no time did Oculus ask for, or did we discuss total exclusivity or buyout of support from Vive. We look forward to supporting Rift and Vive.
--
Whether you choose to call that "buying exclusivity" or a genuine "offer to help fund the completion of Serious Sam VR" to an independent developer depends entirely on one's bias and preconception.
An established indie like Croteam doesn't need the help and declines. A group in a more precarious financial position may see a lifeline; a smaller team may see an opportunity to grow a game in ways they couldn't previously afford.
The dogma that all exclusivity is bad, even if it's for a limited time, may actually harm developers or lead to weaker releases that sell more poorly (which in turn hurts the developers).
Look at what the Studio Lead for Giant Cop had to say about it[2]:
"We were always planning to release on one platform first,” Hale said. “We have chosen to make that platform Oculus because we’re a small team and making a video game is a huge risk. You’re basically fronting money for a product that isn’t going to pay you anything back for years. For us, it really came down to the fact that we needed a partner. Having Oculus support us and make us a part of our marketing process significantly increases our chances of making Giant Cop a success for the community, and for the people dedicating their time to build it.”
Read the entire article. This does not sound like buying exclusivity. It sounds like trying to help small developers minimize the massive risk associated with being a VR pioneer.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4nxpnq/fuck_facebook_...
[2] https://uploadvr.com/giant-cop-speaks-oculus-exclusivity/
I think it's very obvious Occlus is flexing it's big corporate muscles to buy out their way into the market. They want to be the platform for VR, and if that means paying money to buy games and force everyone into buying Occulus, that's what they will do.
On the other hand, it's also obvious that some developers do not mind. Devs are not PC gamers. They also want their game to sell, make profit, and be successful. If Occulus is offering them the money they need, and they believe that the Occulus platform is well positioned to win the VR fight, then why not take the money.
As a consumer, you'd want to buy the VR headset that is most appealing to you in term of price and technology, and let's you play most games. So obviously, a lot of the community actually think the Vive is a better headset, that can give you better experiences. That's why a lot of people are mad that some games won't come to it. Similarly, as an early adopter, you don't want to pick a side, you want to buy and have it all. So any strong arming of game exclusivity is just a detriment to consumers.
I think I just summed it up as it is, you can decide how to feel about it, but you can't change the above facts. The motivation behind all this is money and success. None of it is about passionate individual with infinite free time, that want to create awesome experiences. All of it is about people with passion but responsibilities, with the need to make money out of this, any way they can.
I believe that Valve grasps (and somewhat embodies) this specific culture. Oculus probably is being led by gaming industry executives who don't get that openness always won in the PC gaming market, and that this time is no different.
source?
1. I have no idea if Valve took any VC funding. I think Gabe Newell was pretty well-off already from his Microsoft gig.
1. I'm still not sold on that VR is the future of gaming. I do agree that exclusivity will hurt more than it can help. Similar to the way Telsa opened their patents because the adoption of electric cars by the populace is better for their business than protecting their IP.
2. It makes sense that Valve is investing so much in this because it's just another excuse to not make video games anymore. RIP HL3. ;)
EDIT: oh, the down votes. Heaven forbid there be any sarcasm on HN.
It's not the future of gaming. I don't think anyone believes it is. There are far too many types of games which are fundamentally inappropriate for a VR headset.
However, it is a part of the future of gaming. Probably a big part, especially as more interesting control peripherals are developed. It's already amazing for basically any type of game where a joystick / HOTAS setup is appropriate.
Still, I think for first person-gaming experiences, VR is the future, and that for the next generation of gamers who will likely grow up experiencing first-person gaming in VR first, the idea of anything else will seem pretty silly.
Being able to merge exercise and escapist fantasy is a big win for me.