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Is Oculus/Facebook slowly killing the Rift Store?

RuneSR2
Grand Champion

Just saw this discussion among Rift developers - where Oculus/Facebook no longer seems to want to help promote their software, hurting developers by reducing sales:

 

https://forums.oculusvr.com/t5/Developer-Dashboard/Promotions-Tab-is-Empty/td-p/837496

 

One developer wrote: "Hope that this is an ongoing issue, but from 2021 although am checking almost daily i haven't seen any promotion to get approved for rift sales. Is this an issue that others are facing or is it just me?"

 

Other dev answered: "Same here. I think they are trying to slowly kill the rift store 😞" - "Our revenues have dropped quite a bit without promotions."

 

Quite worrying if true, and it does seem quite true - there are no promotions any more in the Rift Store, even the On Sale category has been removed. 

 

Might also explain why Oculus first promoted the arrival of Stride and Gnomes & Goblins in the now also removed "Coming Soon" category, but suddenly these games were gone (and now the whole category is gone). No explanations given. Btw, both games work flawlessly using native Oculus drivers when purchased in the Steam Store, and there're are tons of much lower quality Rift games in the Rift Store than these two games. 

 

Oculus only updating the Rift Store once a week (Friday or Thursday) is a very bad sign. 

 

Games like A Wake Inn (devs use CV1 in all thir making of vids) and Nauu The Lost Eye (even supports native Oculus drivers) are (high) quality games both made using the Rifts, but a nowhere to be found in the Rift Store - that's worrying too. The Rift Store would have been an optimal place to launch these games, maybe combined with a Steam launch - like we're often saw in 2018-2019. 

 

Rift-S will also be discontinued in Spring 2021 - that's more or less right now (but it's still for sale in the Store). 

 

The signs are many. 

 

Still Oculus has promised to support PCVR for a long time - and also promised Lone Echo 2 for PCVR owners, thus it's not all bad:

 

"We’re going to focus on standalone VR headsets moving forward. We’ll no longer pursue PC-only hardware, with sales of Rift S ending in 2021. That said, the Rift Platform isn’t going anywhere. In fact, we’ve seen significant growth in PC VR via Oculus Link, and the Rift Platform will continue to grow while offering high-end PC VR experiences like Lone Echo II and Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond well into the future."

Source: https://about.fb.com/news/2020/09/introducing-oculus-quest-2-the-next-generation-of-all-in-one-vr/

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

13 REPLIES 13

Anonymous
Not applicable

No surprise with all the focus going on the Quest platform and social aspect.

I think they have at the least abandoned native PC-VR for the time being.

Sad for the developers. I wonder if Lone Echo 2 will get abandoned? Maybe not based on that last quote. Medal of Honor was great glad I was able to get it on the Steam Store. Going to have to do another play through here soon.

 

Also major releases like Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, and Population One, appearing on Steam were kinda great red flags to me. Meaning Oculus has begun letting their exclusives go, now at launch time - not after like a year or so which was the case for Mage's Tale (Mage's Tale is indeed listed as an Oculus exclusive in the Rift Store). Population One is totally made for the Quests, even if it originally was a high-end Rift CV1 title. 

The Population One move could of course also be seen to secure a larger multiplayer base. 

 

I know Oculus representatives have talked about letting more exclusive games available on Steam - maybe we'll see that happen later. That could be positive for reducing walled gardens and letting more PCVR enthusiasts experience some of the greatest VR games. 

 

I doubt Lone Echo 2 will be abandoned, we also got Medal of Honor like Oculus promised. But after Lone Echo 2 I doubt we'll be seeing more PCVR from Oculus - unless we get that high-end Quest hmd that Facebook has been hinting at, like a $600 high-end Quest hmd... 

 

 

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

If the plan is that all future Quest headsets work with Steam, then the question is whether 2 PCVR stores are necessary.

 

I know the same people who've always touted the death of Oculus PCVR will continue to do so for ever more, but running down the Rift store front is a different issue in my opinion and one that is possibly true.

 

Quest needs a dedicated stand-alone storefront but it really only needs one PC store, so the question is whether Steam is the preferred option for both users and for Oculus.

 

Provided performance innovations like ASW are implemented in Steam titles (i.e. Oculus mode) then what else is at stake? Profit from software sales is probably heavily skewed towards native Quest titles now so having Steam as the PC store probably doesn't impact financially in the same way that it would have done a couple years back. but what it does do is attract buyers to the headset, knowing that they have a dual mode headset with lots of software available for either mode.

 

It also doesn't impact on Facebook's goal of account sign-ups as that comes with the headset regardless of PCVR store. If PCVR had really taken off then things would be different, the percentage take from software sales would be a big factor. As it is, yeah, use Steam.

RuneSR2
Grand Champion

Also I don't think Oculus will totally kill the Rift Store - too many have purchased games and apps in there - even moving everything to Steam and give out new keys would not be ok. 

 

A unified Quest and Rift Store might not be that bad - Steam also has many games which certain requirements, so mixing Quest and Rift games would probably be no big deal. Many Quest owners have already bought Rift games too. Merging might be a good solution. 

 

Interesting what will happen - and of course we may see that new games and apps to a much higher degree only launch on Steam. 

 

Btw, the old "On Sale" category is still alive - it's just been hidden - but it's still right here ❤️

 

https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/section/1578364258944223/#/?_k=j294rj

 

Unavngivet234.jpg

 

 

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

OmegaM4N
Expert Trustee

Mobile Vr games are cheaper to make hence a bigger profit margine for the devs and FB, plus the cherry on the cake is they are only avalible from one mobile store on one mobile brand, no third party store cutting into those profits, so no competition..........so you don't need a crystal ball to tell you were FB are going with their VR Platform, dump the cost of declining legacy rift store and push the mobile brand for max profit and control, i mean say give it 2 years then see just how many Cv1 and Rift s will still be working and actually buying games on the rift PCVR store at that point.

 

CV1/Vive-knuckles)/Dell Vr Visor/Go/Quest II/ PSVR.

Could be - but I've spent more than $2000 in the Oculus Rift Store, and I do plan to use that software for a long time - Revived or not, lol 🙂 

 

Or maybe I should hurry completing Chronos and Mage's Tale and Wilson's Heart ... and so many other games 

RuneSR2_0-1615746335501.png

 

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

There will always be a legacy mode (sticking my neck out there), where purchased games will continue to work.

You don't need a store to do that, just a functioning library.

 

Edit: in the mean time I just heard the v27 beta PC software has made big improvements to Microsoft Flight sim performance so I'm going to check that out now! PCVR for Oculus headsets is here to stay.

Zenbane
MVP
MVP

I just checked the Rift Store, and it looks like business as usual to me. I see Spotlight apps being advertised, in addition to New Releases. We already know from the last conference that Oculus is pushing everyone to build to Quest's platform primarily. So it is possible that Oculus is pulling back on "advertising" resources for new PCVR Titles. However, if Oculus was planning on killing it off entirely, then they would simply stop allowing new submissions.

 

And perhaps that will happen in the near future. I'm not too worried about it though. As I've said many times, there are so few strict PCVR titles that are of true AAA caliber anyway. And if you're not a Flight SIM enthusiast, then that list shrinks even smaller. There's still no real market for strict PCVR, as it appeals to such a tiny niche market.

 

Personally, I'm happy with the direction that Oculus is taking. Especially since we're already getting talks of a Quest Pro, Quest 3, and Quest 4.

https://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-quest-3-4-zuckerberg-the-information-interview

 

I can still load up SteamVR and the Rift Store whenever I get the urge to play some strict PCVR titles. But considering I've played nearly everything worth playing, and nothing new and compelling is released on SteamVR in any sort of regular cadence (especially compared to pancake AAA games), I certainly don't feel as if I'm missing out on anything.

 

Onwards and upwards!

Yeah, I just looked too and I don't notice a change. I have a suspicion Facebook don't have strong incentives to maintain a store but do have incentives to maintain PCVR functionality. Dual functionality is a huge reason for people to buy Quests compared to stand-alone only, or PC only headsets.

 

Other companies have got to do the same to compete but I think the retail price of Quests disguises how difficult (i.e. costly) that is to do. Positioning competitor headsets as 'premium' is the other option but then they really have to be stand-out premium... which in turn means expensive... which in turn means fewer sales.

 

I just watched VR Flight Sim Guy's YT vid of the effect of the v27 beta update on MSFS with a Q2 and it pretty much demonstrates what choice people are faced with when buying a headset. And I'm sure even sim enthusiasts take into account the ability to do stand-alone VR with the same headset when spending their cash.