cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

"reality" check- Rejected Without Oculus Citing Reason

happycheesemast
Honored Guest
After investing time, money and creative energy to develop for the Gear VR I have discovered a mysterious publishing process. Some time ago my Gear VR app was rejected without reason. I was going to let it go as I pivot, but I just wanted to let other devs know "what's up."

I have published for IOS,OSX,Windows,Amazon,Google, and Nook and never got a lack of communication like this. The Apple OSX team would call you on the phone and ask for you by name to help products get published. Can you risk future commercial Gear VR development when wholesale rejection without citing reasons-- technical, design, strategic, quality-- is possible? I cannot. Getting access to users at least is one way to get feedback. (There is also the cost of developing for the Gear as an opportunity cost. The cost of not developing for another platform.)

I don't mind a garden wall, but I can't spend months developing for the Gear VR to find the garden wall so secure that I cannot be afforded reason/s as to why I'm left out. How can I validate new investments in Gear VR development if I get howling winds, crickets chirping, and tumble weeds for a response from my first submission.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It's their party; they can do what they want. So can developers. They should at least take the word “support” out of submission communication. You've got head mounted display companies popping up like weeds now. Can Samsung and Oculus afford to treat developers like this? Oh wait, Samsung, why not. Oculus with 2 billion in the bank. Yes. They can. Okay I am a little sore. But there are so many exciting things happening in the industry and options for development, that I'm not mad. Porting is easy with Unity.

I'm not arguing that my game “should be” in the Oculus store (It should. 😉 ), as much as I am saying simply that developers that spend money for expensive hardware, jump through all the rings of fire to get their apps running on this very specialized hardware/in a specialized store with a very limited audience (currently) deserve at least to know why a proposed app is rejected. Customers could (through sales numbers and reviews) give some feedback, but without access to them...

Final thought: Indies, develop away, but proceed with caution as far as expectations for publishing to Gear VR store. And Oculus, you could at least make your rejection letters less "glib." [HOWDY. DON"T GO AWAY MAD, JUST GO AWAY. REGARDS, OCULUS] was the gist of it.
12 REPLIES 12

ricard2798
Honored Guest
I totally agree and understand your predicament, because am in the same set of circumstances. i have spent months working on a game for gearvr. I have won game jams with the app, even have it posted on sideloadvr, with not only perfect rating, but over 400 downloads.. and when i try to share my app on gearvr, totally for free as a demo to the oculus community, i get slammed with a rejection for no reason!!!! I mean, my app is optimized, runs at a high frame rate, has easy to read menus, etc...
i have never seen such a way of mishandling developer relations like this. luckily, i do this as a hobby, but if i were to do this as my sole sour of employment, i would be very concerned. Sorry to hear about your experience, but rest assured, this seems to be something of an emerging trend at oculus... perhaps i need to focus more on developing for the vive... not only have they supported me with hardware, but their team is extremely responsive 😞

nosys70
Expert Protege
for companies (facebook, oculus) that have been accused to steal good ideas, you should watch if they did not simply reject your work to simply reintroduce their own paying version later....

motorsep
Rising Star
So, care to post a screenie of your game/app?

Perhaps it will all make sense when everyone sees what kind of product you've been working on. You'll get feedback and Oculus perhaps will pay attention to this thread.

ricard2798
Honored Guest
This is a small video of the previous revision of my game. my current version looks a little better, but its very close to this (planet earth looks a lot better, and there is a black whole swirling around the maze level. I know it can improve, but it think that getting feedback (as opposed to a door slammed on my face with no response) was in order.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxCgCesleR8

happycheesemast
Honored Guest
The garden wall is a rich gets richer idea. There is no problem here, but it's not for me. It might be for me if I were you, but it's not for me. Maybe you work for a large company with an established mobile brand. You might be an indie sleeping with someone from the Oculus developer relations team. (That could work against you if you're a bad lover. Go slowly.) Sincerely, I have no problem with either situation. Good for you. Good for Oculus.

It's just not for me. In the case of the former, I'm a smaller than small company. If it were any smaller, it would not exist. In the case of the latter, I'm married (and a goody two shoes).It doesn't matter how good or bad my game is in regards to this issue. It just makes sense that other folks realize what's up. Oculus is the rich pretty girl at the party. She might dance with you. Just don't mortgage your house to get a nice car to impress her. Keepin' it real. Besides, I know an very nice obese girl named Cardboard that is taking yoga classes and getting super sweet looking.

Do we need a bazillion games on a platform? Let's get the best, and make free or toss the rest. Pay your ticket and takes your chances. Good luck. The pretty girl said no to me. Be handsome and rich. Pretty girls always cheat on you...oh, sorry got lost in the metaphor.

darkangel6415
Explorer
I read this and it made no sense, I went out to party and got wasted and smoked a lot of stuff then all of a sudden it made sense. but anyways sorry to hear can always side load vr it

happycheesemast
Honored Guest
No hard feelings. I'm glad you understood-- stoned or not.

The garden wall: I often wondered why companies let anyone and everyone publish. But, I will say that half the musical stars we know as musical stars would have never made it on shows like The Voice. But there they are, super stars laughing to the bank. Whatever.

motorsep
Rising Star
There could be obvious reasons - poor quality or something that goes against agreement.

You haven't provided links to screenshots / videos of your app / game. If it was rejected, you should really just prove Oculus wrong, show media from the game and let it (and users who will follow you) speak for itself.

After all, many games got on Steam in a similar fashion.

happycheesemast
Honored Guest
My intent is not to "prove Oculus wrong." I do not, for the most part, feel "wronged" by this.

My post is informative. The message is, The Garden Wall IS VERY VERY HIGH, not that Oculus is unfair. I think a garden wall, is a fine idea, and I understand why Oculus might not want to make the "garden wall" idea super public. They would miss out by developers being too cautious. I also understand that apps can be rejected for strategic reasons-- like a similar app from a bid developer is coming out. That stinks, but it could happen. It's their party.

My game is not that bad. Play testing resulted in laughter and much fun being had by all who tested it. It doesn't matte how good it is or how bad it is. It does not change the fact that Oculus is looking to only publish the very best/safest content. That sounds like a good idea to me. Just let people know a bit more. And let people know why they are rejected.

Yes, make sure that you are aware of the reality of the situation. Oculus never said that it was a wild west store like other stores. In fact, I recall that they said it would not be. Again, the other issue is, of course, that they will not let you know what you did wrong. What are you supposed to do with that? Again, not mad. I just have to move on. (Not giving feedback is a policy.)

As far as breaking best practice policies, let me say that if Oculus published the nightmare that is Temple Run VR, then based on that logic they should publish everything. People download that game a lot from the Oculus store. Also, they break their own policy with a volume control attached to the user view. Who cares, though.

Oculus is being far too cautious in my opinion.The onus is big now, people's first VR experiences will either make or break the industry. This is what they know. Peace to Oculus. Develop away fellow developers, just don't necessarily expect a happy ending. Enjoy the ride there. If you enjoy making a VR game, make one. Submit it to Oculus. Maybe they'll change their policy. Maybe they already did... Who knows...