"Fully open platform"? Games from the Oculus Store can no longer be run on someone else's equipment

^{Palmer Lucky}

Just five months ago, Palmer Lucky promised that users will be able to play the games purchased in the Oculus Store, "on anything." And now the company Oculus comes in complete contradiction with the words of its founder. After the last update, the Oculus Store began to check that the Oculus Rift device was connected to the computer.

Thus, the work of the software Revive (Libre VR), which provides compatibility between the Oculus SDK and OpenVR, is blocked, allowing you to run Oculus Store games on other virtual reality helmets, namely HTC Vive.

Here is what CrossVR itself, the developer of Revive, says :

“So, I tested the new update and can confirm that it breaks the support of Revive.

Judging by my preliminary research, Oculus added a check that the Oculus Rift helmet is connected to their Oculus Platform DRM. And although Revive manages to deceive the application that Rift is connected, it cannot deceive the real Oculus Platform.

Since only the Oculus Platform DRM has undergone a change, this means that none of the Steam games or other games have been affected. Only games that go to the Oculus Store and use the Oculus Platform SDK. ”

From the point of view of Oculus, the isolation of competitors makes sense, because in the Oculus Store catalog there are free games that are developed and distributed specifically for the purpose of promoting Oculus Rift. Initially it was not supposed that the owners of HTC Vive could play them either.

It seems that with the help of Oculus Rift, the company is trying to promote the Oculus Store as the main directory of VR games, and if it does, then the Oculus Store can be opened for other equipment. As the Steam example shows, then this store will bring in more profits than the virtual reality helmets themselves.

What can I add? “Fully open platform with no restrictions, except for spyware Windows 10, Oculus DRM, Origin DRM, Blu-ray DRM,” the sarcastic remark sounds sad one of the Slashdot users.