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The place to get VR Games, exclusivity, openness...

Kireriko
Sightseer
So, exclusivity. I've seen some discussions on it in various places thanks to the recently released Fallout 4 VR and LA Noire but I haven't seen it discussed here much... I personally don't know what to feel about it. Exclusivity can create some pretty good titles thanks to the developers getting more funding and support. It brings better polish for whatever VR system the game is developed for. But I also recognize that it blocks out a big part of the overall userbase of VR systems. I think it's even more ridiculous when a VR game is exclusive on the same platform, PC. In the end exclusivity is only there to make a consumer buy one VR headset over the other, or be bound to one store. It splits the userbase and I don't like it. I'm perfectly fine with titles being store exclusive. I just don't like when software that can be easily made playable on even more VR systems, are not. 

Let's say Oculus opens up their storefront to more VR headsets, what will happen? Opening up their store might reduce some sales of the Oculus VR system but it will also increase sales of them since more people will be exposed to the Oculus ecosystem. The Oculus Rift is also cheaper then the Vive so people will still buy it. WMR headsets are getting cheap but their tracking isn't as good. They will sell a lot more games, making their storefront more popular. Which is ultimately what they want? I don't think they are getting a lot of money from headset sales. They can still make store exclusive titles made for the Oculus Touch but at least they wont outright block other headsets from their store. 

Now onto Bethesda and Rockstar. Why do these big developers block/don't support half the VR userbase? I don't think they care much about profit since there isn't much to be had... Obviously they don't care about exposure because that they already have. They aren't exactly being paid more money like Oculus exclusives so they don't really have an incentive to keep it exclusive. SteamVR using OpenVR and all, it's easy to make a games usable on all VR headsets so why make it exclusive? Why only support one system?

If you forget about La Noire for a bit, Steam is the most open storefront and I believe it will be the place to get games if you want better compatibility with future headsets. If the game exists both on Oculus and Steam I will buy the game on Steam. Why shouldn't I? Even though Oculus stays in the game by offering some good discounts, I will still wait for a big sale on Steam to buy games, like the coming winter sale. As time goes on there will be a lot more headsets on the market and Steam will most likely support those headsets, gaining more users with different headsets. By the time Oculus actually opens up their storefront to more VR headsets, if ever, Steam will have increased its lead as the nr1 place to go to buy VR games.

Then we come to SteamVR, which is also a lot more open then Oculus Home/dash, atm. Users can actually create their own environments, controllers and add their own objects etc. The possibility of adding in extra tweaking into the SteamVR overlay is also quite nice. Like OpenVR-AdvancedSettings and InputEmulator. Wouldn't it be nice to change SS without restarting, to customize controls, change play-space size and so on all in Dash? Oculus Tray Tool in Dash? Yes please. Oculus Dash feels more smooth while SteamVR is a tad laggy but SteamVR offers a lot more user customization.


TLDR: I like openness and customizability. Will Oculus ever become more open? What do you think about exclusivity, whether it be an entire store exclusive to one headset or individual titles being exclusive that could easily support more headsets? Should we be fine with exclusivity just because we bought into a closed ecosystem? Thoughts?
13 REPLIES 13

falken76
Expert Consultant
I honestly see no problem with exclusive titles.  Was Sonic not exclusive to Sega and Mario Exclusive to Nintendo?  They were both contenders in the category of "video games".  That's how I see this entire thing.   VR is still a subcategory under the category of "video games" to me.  Vive and Oculus are their own products made by different entities.  If they put up money to design a game, I see no problem with them deciding for whatever reason to not release that title on any specific platform.

As far as Oculus becoming more open?  I doubt it, that seems like Steams thing. 

I don't know how we're supposed to view VR.  I see my rift as a Console, and games that don't work with it as incompatible.  I don't consider it a walled garden, I didn't buy the system that a game I wanted was made on just like Consoles going as far back as I can remember.  My view is I'm fine with it.

Anonymous
Not applicable
Well I'm not sure about Rockstar and LA Noire but Bethesda have been part-funded to bring Fallout 4 to the Vive. I can only assume that Rockstar have had similar funding, I can't see why they would halve their potential customers otherwise. Plus the hard locking spoke volumes in that case too.

Kireriko
Sightseer
The Rift, WMR and Vive are not like Xbox, PS3 and PC. All it takes to play Oculus Rift exclusives is a workaround called Revive. If a game uses OpenVR, like L.A. Noir, i'ts easy to support every headset. You don't have to spend time reworking the game code and optimize the game for each system.. It took one day to mod a Vive exclusive to work on other VR headsets. So no, I don't really see my Rift as a console.

Oculus, open, hah! why did I even think the thought. 

Yeah, they probably did get some funding like that. Though, it's silly that someone can mod out the exclusivity in one day.

I'm sure Rifters have loved exclusives... I haven't had my Rift for that long though so I'm fairly new to everything. I just don't think headset locked exclusives help VR grow. I'm fine with store locked exclusives. And if Oculus opened their store they would get a lot more sales. More money put into VR games = Bigger, better titles. But sure, we get some pretty big titles already with Facebook money but what if the smaller indie studios got more money?

Anonymous
Not applicable

Atmos73 said:

Vivers have had to live with exclusives since Oculus introduces them and Rifters have loved it. As soon as bigger titles come to Steam and Vive Rifters don’t love it. 

Karma is a bitch.

Thank you Bethesda I’m loving FO4.



I might end up buying Fallout 4 VR but why on earth have they not implemented hands into the bloomin thing..? But Fallout 4 VR when it first launched suffered from issues that would never have made it past the Oculus Submission process, I'm still much happier buying games from the Oculus Store because you're not going to end up with buggy crap.

I also find it quite amusing that everyone was expecting Bethesda and Zenimax to hardware lock both Doom VFR and Fallout 4 VR and it didn't happen (although I personally believe that Doom VFR was launched with a SteamVR exploit which was hurriedly patched out of Fallout 4 VR, they did this with Doom VFR just to test the water) and everyone was expecting LA Noire to support both headsets but Rockstar have hardware locked the Rift out lol 😄 😄 😄

I personally don't have a problem with headset and store exclusives, all 3 major headset manufacturers have either fully funded or part-funded development of several games and deserve to reap the rewards.

Mr_Creepy
Rising Star
I think store exclusivity is fine, but I don't like games being hardware exclusive. I'm going to have to limit games bought on Home as I'm pretty sure I'm getting another VR brand in the future and all games bought on Home will be lost.

Northbee
Explorer

snowdog said:

I might end up buying Fallout 4 VR but why on earth have they not implemented hands into the bloomin thing..? But Fallout 4 VR when it first launched suffered from issues that would never have made it past the Oculus Submission process, I'm still much happier buying games from the Oculus Store because you're not going to end up with buggy crap.

I also find it quite amusing that everyone was expecting Bethesda and Zenimax to hardware lock both Doom VFR and Fallout 4 VR and it didn't happen (although I personally believe that Doom VFR was launched with a SteamVR exploit which was hurriedly patched out of Fallout 4 VR, they did this with Doom VFR just to test the water) and everyone was expecting LA Noire to support both headsets but Rockstar have hardware locked the Rift out lol 😄 😄 😄

I personally don't have a problem with headset and store exclusives, all 3 major headset manufacturers have either fully funded or part-funded development of several games and deserve to reap the rewards.



I
actually bought Fallout 4 VR but I had to refund. Man, so many problems...
The main menu is slightly floaty, I got bad stutter, white flashes in
the intro, pop-in of entire buildings on the right in my fov, bad
scaling, weird positioning of pip boy, stars that are not at the
proper depth, the Vive trackpads don't translate well to the Touch
stick and so on. Even Vive players are complaining
about the controls but it's more a problem with having a trackpad, hah :X.
It's easy to miss-press. I don't think hands feel as good on the Vive
controllers so maybe that's why they haven't implemented it, I don't know... Hands are a must with Touch and I feel like you loose a lot by not having em.


To be on topic; I agree with the Creepy Mister in that I don't like hardware exclusives. But then again I think VR hardware is going to look so different in 5 years that we might have to go through some workaround program anyway in order to play these older titles. So even if we buy a CV3-4 we might have to use a workaround to play Lone Echo. Waht do I know.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Mr.Creepy said:

I think store exclusivity is fine, but I don't like games being hardware exclusive. I'm going to have to limit games bought on Home as I'm pretty sure I'm getting another VR brand in the future and all games bought on Home will be lost.



Nah, you'll be fine as long as CrossVR doesn't get run over by a bus or something 😮 😄 😄 😄

Northbee
Explorer
snowdog said:

I might end up buying Fallout 4 VR but why on earth have they not implemented hands into the bloomin thing..? But Fallout 4 VR when it first launched suffered from issues that would never have made it past the Oculus Submission process, I'm still much happier buying games from the Oculus Store because you're not going to end up with buggy crap.

I also find it quite amusing that everyone was expecting Bethesda and Zenimax to hardware lock both Doom VFR and Fallout 4 VR and it didn't happen (although I personally believe that Doom VFR was launched with a SteamVR exploit which was hurriedly patched out of Fallout 4 VR, they did this with Doom VFR just to test the water) and everyone was expecting LA Noire to support both headsets but Rockstar have hardware locked the Rift out lol 😄 😄 😄

I personally don't have a problem with headset and store exclusives, all 3 major headset manufacturers have either fully funded or part-funded development of several games and deserve to reap the rewards.



I
actually bought Fallout 4 VR but I had to refund. So many problems...
The main menu is slightly floaty, I got bad stutter, white flashes in
the intro, pop in of entire buildings on the right in my fov, bad
scaling, weird positioning of pip boy, stars that are not at the
proper depth, the Vive trackpads don't translate well to the Touch
stick in this instance and so on. Even Vive players are complaining
about the controls but it's more a problem with having a trackpad :X.
It's easy to miss-press. I don't think hands feel as good on the Vive
controllers so maybe that's why they haven't implemented it? 


To stay on topic; I agree with Mr.Creepy in that I'm not a fan of hardware exclusivity. But what are you gonna do. Revive will hopefully keep working. 


BeastyBaiter
Superstar
One of the main reasons I game on PC is so I don't have to deal with all that exclusive and no backwards compatibility nonsense. If I feel like loading up The Witcher (2007) on my shiny new PC, that isn't a problem. That copy I bought all those years ago still works just fine. I don't have to rebuy it or hunt around ebay for a 10 year old PC to run it on. Similarly, I don't have to worry about a game not working because I have a Logitech mouse instead of a Microsoft mouse. But there are a few companies trying to take precisely that approach with PCVR. I firmly believe exclusives for particular VR headsets are doomed to fail as a business model. The PCVR market is too small and PC gamers are PC gamers because they don't put up with that crap. Fortunately for headset makers, there is a better way to push hardware.

One way to push hardware is to bundle it with some major games. These games need not be exclusive to that headset but by being "free," they absolutely incentivize buying one over the others. We can see this with Robo Recall and the Rift. You can buy it for your Vive for $30, or get it free with the Rift. Similarly, the Vive is offering FO4 VR for free with it. That's how it should work. Unfortunately, in addition to the "free" part they also made it run like absolute garbage on all but the preferred headset. That is a problem and it will come back to bite them.

I'm sure Bethesda made a ton of money on FO4 VR, but how much do you think they'll make on the next one (assuming there is a next)? This is doubly true in a year or two when everyone replaces their Vives only to discover FO4 VR is no longer playable. This was a short sighted move that will come back to haunt them. It's still early in that particular example, so there is time to correct the error. I'm not sure they recognize it as a mistake though.