
Growing Rift Between Valve and Oculus - T-A
http://uploadvr.com/valve-shared-vr-oculus/
======
errantspark
Been working on VR side projects for 3 years now, I've built against the DK1,
DK2, CV1 and the Vive and I have to say there's zero question in my mind that
Oculus is FAR behind the curve. The Vive was love at first sight, the Oculus
was quite the opposite.

The Vive is stunning, not only because room-scale VR is fantastic. (I don't
share the opinion that the future rests solely with room scale, there's plenty
of stuff to do in VR sitting down) but also because Valve just seems to have
it together more than Oculus. The Lighthouse system is brilliant, it's a much
more elegant solution than what Oculus has. The Oculus platform is gross, I
don't see any advantages to using it from the consumer side, as far as I can
tell it only exists to lock people into a particular ecosystem.

I understand why they did it, similarly to Origin or the Epic Games Launcher,
but seriously? Steam won. I find it incredibly frustrating having to futz
around with other platforms. Do they seriously think that I'm going to add all
my Steam friends on the Oculus platform? That's ridiculous. I'm very doubtful
that the platforms will get a userbase outside of the people who are FORCED to
use them because they want a particular exclusive.

To top it all off it takes 3 USB ports to run the Oculus (4 if you want the
controllers) vs the Vive's one.

~~~
tk32
It's so satisfying watching them get their just desserts after betraying their
Kickstarter backers by taking the Facebook money and then going back on all
their words about keeping the platform free for everybody. Meanwhile that
acquisition kicked off a race among the other big players which Valve appears
to be winning while having the best features. I mean, Valve isn't perfect, but
they're a lot better than Facebook. Things seem to have worked out for the
best for once.

~~~
shasheene
One thing worth noting is all Kickstarter backers get a _free_ Oculus CV1 from
Facebook (that's of course in addition to the DK1 they received after backing
in August 2012).

That decision takes away a lot of the "betrayal" of the Facebook acquisition -
for backers it's an incredible return on investment (that was unlikely to
happen if it weren't for Facebook)

~~~
justratsinacoat
I don't share your conviction that ROI is far more important than any ethical
consideration. I seem to recall the KS pitch was full of aspirational language
about a democratized future of VR spearheaded by a close-knit team of diehards
who wouldn't fall prey to Big Whatever.

You're suggesting that the majority of backers will be mollified by an
artifact of the very forces that Oculus promised to avoid; I'm sure some of
them will be.

~~~
comex
Not sure you recall correctly. I checked the Kickstarter [1], and I didn't see
anything along those lines in the video, the description (which doesn't seem
to have been modified, per archive.org), or the first few updates. If Luckey
talked about that, I think it was somewhere else.

[1] [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-
rift-...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-
into-the-game/description)

~~~
1stop
The video you linked has competing companies all taking about how good it will
be to integrate (valve included)... you are right there is no line like "it
will be an open platform" but they heavily imply it will be an open platform

------
cma
The worst part is Oculus sold customers on something more open than they
delivered. Now if you buy from their store your purchases are locked to their
headset, and if you ever buy anything else in the future.

Oculus/Palmer said they didn't care if you modded their games to work on third
party headsets, just they weren't going to provide support themselves; instead
they went out and broke it intentionally.

>If customers buy a game from us, I don't care if they mod it to run on
whatever they want. As I have said a million times (and counter to the current
circlejerk), our goal is not to profit by locking people to only our hardware
- if it was, why in the world would we be supporting GearVR and talking with
other headset makers? The software we create through Oculus Studios (using a
mix of internal and external developers) are exclusive to the Oculus platform,
not the Rift itself.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/3vl7qe/palmer_lucke...](https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/3vl7qe/palmer_luckey_on_twitterfun_fact_nintendo_doesnt/cxr6rid)

>As I already said in my first reply, I don't care if people mod their games
as long as they are buying them.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/3vl7qe/palmer_lucke...](https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/3vl7qe/palmer_luckey_on_twitterfun_fact_nintendo_doesnt/cxr935z)

>Glad there are some sane people out there. [said to someone saying it was
only an issue of support]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4etddh/this_is_a_hack...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4etddh/this_is_a_hack_and_we_dont_condone_it_oculus_on/d24srvs)

~~~
__david__
Interestingly, he abruptly stopped posting on Reddit about a month ago [1]. I
wonder if he lost some internal battle on this issue…

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/user/palmerluckey](https://www.reddit.com/user/palmerluckey)

~~~
the_rosentotter
There was a weird feature about Oculus at Facebook some months ago, where it
was sort of hinted between the lines that Luckey and Zuckerberg didn't get
along all that well. They even had to photoshop to get them into the same
picture.

Found it: [http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/09/oculus-rift-mark-
zuck...](http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/09/oculus-rift-mark-zuckerberg-
cover-story-palmer-luckey)

~~~
bitmapbrother
I read the article and never got that impression. If anything, he was grateful
to facebook for not only purchasing the company, but also believing in his
vision.

~~~
ss248
It's not the case. Iribe just sold everyone out.

He made 5 minute (like literally) decision all by himself. Everyone (Palmer,
Carmack, Abrash) heard about Facebook acquisition after the deal was already
set. It was already to late for them to do anything at that point.

It might as well be, that everything they said after was just a part of
facebook damage control operation.

~~~
gnarbarian
I don't think Iribe had the latitude to do that at the time. From what I
understand Palmer owned most of the company still at that point.

He would have had to get signoff from at least a majority of owners before
just doing it.

~~~
ss248
"Palmer owned most of the company"

Not really. Even before that whole kickstarter campaign he was just a founder.

Roughly, the deal was: Palmer giving full power to Iribe, Iribe helping Palmer
with investors/kickstarter.

~~~
cma
Iribe gave the company a loan bigger than the entire Kickstarter goal before
the Kickstarter launched: I'm guessing he had a bigger share.

------
istorical
The discussion around Vive vs Rift and Valve vs Oculus is getting more and
more emotionally clouded and "good guys vs bad guys" with each passing week.
People are letting their own frustration around Oculus' poorly managed launch
and non-existent PR affect their perspective on the situation. The fact is
that although Oculus is adopting somewhat of a walled garden approach, people
entirely overlook that Valve maintains a virtual monopoly on PC games
distribution. Sure they aren't as powerful as iOS app store or the Google Play
store, but Valve wants the same thing as any other player - to be in a
position where you can't avoid selling your content through their channel and
to take a big cut of all the sales. Those who attack Oculus for trying to be
the one who gets the cut are deluding themselves. Apple, Google, Valve, they
all already do this. Further, Oculus doesn't make any money on hardware right
now, what can a person expect them to do? Just operate without any intention
of ever making a profit?

The PC gaming community online can be extremely toxic and idealistic, entirely
ignoring business realities.

~~~
pekk
It is grossly deceptive to say that Steam has a monopoly on games distribution
when a vast number of the games on Steam are also distributed by other
channels. I can't name any "Steam exclusives," which is more than I can say
for Origin etc.

Frankly it's absurd to psychoanalyze Steam, saying that it wants to do what
other companies are doing, and not to recognize that if it wanted to do those
things it could easily do so.

~~~
istorical
It's not a de jure monopoly, it's a de facto monopoly. When a gamer thinks "I
wanna buy this game", 90% of them go immediately to Steam.

It's a monopoly in the sense that it's practically financial suicide for a
games developer to NOT sell their game through Steam. Whether or not they
really "have to" is besides the point if the reality is they'll not make a
positive return on their game if they skip out on selling on Steam.

A few big publishers like EA avoid this by creating their own alternative
stores and just hoping gamers will deal with it and install Origin, but most
games studios have no choice but to accept that they're going to lose 30%
because the reality is gamers expect to be able to buy any game on Steam.

~~~
rpgmaker
It's pretty much the same situation that book publishers find themselves in
with Amazon. Valve just hasn't shown its scumbag side yet.

------
jc4p
I have an Oculus CV1, I had the DK2, and I've been making VR side-projects
using their SDK for a couple years now. I'm really disillusioned about Oculus
as a platform, though. I didn't even consider buying the HTC Vive because I've
been riding the Oculus train for a while and had faith in them as the future
of VR, but come on.

I really wish I could know how Carmack feels about this.

Sidenote: for what it's worth, I haven't used my Oculus since the first week I
received it. It was supposed to work with glasses (the DK2 does) by shipping
with different foam faceplates that can change how far off my face it is (my
glasses fit in the Oculus, it's just that the lenses are so close to my eyes
that my glasses scratch them) but they silently took that off the "What's in
the box" months before shipping.

~~~
potatolicious
Ditto, I was one of the DK1 backers so got the CV1 for free.

I haven't used it much past the first week - only to demo to friends and such,
really. I have some disillusionment about it also - it seems like Valve
VR/Vive is getting a lot more dev support.

Having tried the Vive also, I think delaying the Oculus motion controllers was
a critical error. It turns out the motion controllers really open up a lot of
use cases, whereas a "simple" HMD-only feels particularly limiting in
comparison.

The Rift is substantially more comfortable than the Vive - the Vive I felt was
extremely front-heavy to an extent it actively distracted from the experience.
That said, the idea that Oculus Rift "works with glasses" is a statement
that's at most 30% true. My glasses are pretty small but while the HMD is on
it crams my glasses literally up against my eyeballs - my eyelashes literally
brush against the lenses of my glasses while blinking. After using the Rift my
glasses are covered with eyelash/eyelid/eyeball(?) smudge marks. It's
tremendously annoying.

The backing off of the "switchable glasses faceplate" promise is
disappointing.

And honestly, there just isn't much content. Most of the content are tech
demos.

Lucky's Tale is a really interesting vindication of the idea that platformers
can work in VR - but it's also just not very compelling by itself.

Ditto Eve Valkyrie - the technology is tremendous and you can't help but get
that "Battlestar Galactica come to life" glee when you first launch in your
fighter... But the gameplay is just not varied or deep enough to hold you for
longer than a couple of hours.

Between the discomfort of the HMD and the lack of content, there just isn't
much motivation to dive back in.

~~~
cma
I also got CV1 for free from being a Kickstarter. Having a Vive, the Oculus
CV1 is just a paperweight right now.

Even when Touch finally comes out, it has been under so much secrecy and so
many NDAs that I'm thinking it might have significant issues.

~~~
lux
Not sure how much I'm allowed to say, but I've been working with both
controllers for a while and honestly really prefer Touch over Vive's
controllers. They have way more expressiveness, which means we're often
running into things we want to do with Touch that don't easily translate to
Vive's trigger/squeeze/thumb combo. A basic example, you can do rock paper
scissors with Touch. Not perfectly since you still have a controller in your
hand, but it totally works.

It's a huge plus for Vive that it has motion controllers on launch, but if
Touch comes out by end of 2016, half a year's difference isn't much time in
the grand scheme of VR and I bet most of the Vive exclusives will be cross-
platform then too.

~~~
cma
Vive doesn't have any real exclusives. You can already play most of the stuff
on Rift with an MIT licensed Razer Hydra driver adapter that Valve released
for free. Valve are treating headsets more like monitors, Oculus is treating
them like a gaming console.

You have to dig in a menu and click a "scare toggle" to even run third party
software on Oculus. On GearVR they don't even have the toggle. It will only
run Oculus store apps _.

_ and apps that you have signed to your individual device, making them
impossible to distribute broadly

~~~
lux
I'm aware and don't mean exclusive in that sense, just in the sense of being
officially released on the platform. Many of the same games be released on the
Rift once the touch controllers are out, negating the controller availability
difference.

That said, Vive's tracking will still be the better of the two, as well as
their cord length. I do wish the controllers were slightly more evolved
though... :P

------
shmerl
What a shame. Rift started as a crowdfunded open project and ended up as a
disgusting lock-in.

 _> Frequently secured through digital rights management (DRM ) technology,
this functionality is typically standard for digital download stores._

Not really. There are enough DRM-free ones. I don't care about games that are
released through some exclusive DRM-infested stores, but what's more worrying
is that hardware itself is probably tied to those stores. I.e. can you use
Rift with games for example released through GOG?

In this sense Vive isn't better now too, since it requires SteamVR (because no
one else implemented OpenVR so far).

~~~
errantspark
As far as I can tell none of the vendors are pursuing that sort of aggressive
vendor lock. You can distribute binaries through whatever method you wish and
have them work with either the Vive or Oculus. The DRM issues stem mostly from
content released on the Oculus Platform.

Your point about SteamVR and the Oculus Platform being roughly equivalent is
true but I think about it in a similar context to drivers. Both platforms
provide an API that you can build against, though personally I have been using
SteamVR/OpenVR with both the Vive and the Oculus and I haven't touched the
Oculus platform save a couple tests because building against OpenVR let's me
use both the Oculus and the Vive.

OSVR is the real shining light of hope in this ecosystem but as of now it just
provides a layer on top of SteamVR/OpenVR/Oculus/etc requiring you to run
those services in the background.

~~~
shmerl
_> OSVR is the real shining light of hope in this ecosystem but as of now it
just provides a layer on top of SteamVR/OpenVR/Oculus/etc requiring you to run
those services in the background._

Yes, unless someone will implement OpenVR and whatever Rift is using
(OculusVR?) in a fashion that won't be tied to using either Steam or Oculus
services, the hardware will be tied to them. And it still didn't happen yet.
It's the reason I didn't buy either of them yet. I find such concept of
hardware tied to a service to be completely bizarre.

------
ohitsdom
Really cool tech, but kind of a depressing start to this young industry.

I feel like desktop apps are making huge strides in being cross-platform, both
in attention from developers and the lower development effort required thanks
to a myriad of software platforms and tools. It's just sad to see games still
clinging to "exclusives" as if that's a positive thing.

~~~
davesque
Well, when you get a big player like Facebook involved...

~~~
pekk
It's strange, though, because Facebook wasn't in the games business like this
before, so they did have a choice of what approach they were going to take.
There's no real reason they couldn't have come out swinging for open
standards, for example.

~~~
davesque
True, although Facebook is still a massive company. At a certain point, it's
extremely hard to keep the hard-nosed business types out of the game and
they're going to have a more closed-minded approach to things.

------
bitmapbrother
The winner will be decided by third party support. Oculus can continue with
their DRM shenanigans, but in the end it's all going to be irrelevant. The
third party developers will always exceed what Oculus or Vive put out in
quality and quantity. And right now, according to Steam, Vive seems to have
the majority of the third party developer support.

------
some-guy
Oculus / Vive / PSVR are all "consoles" in a way, and that as competition
becomes more and more fierce, profitability on hardware will go down over
time. By staying a closed platform, if Oculus can deliver on their hardware
while selling software on their platform.

What's different about consoles though is that, at least in Oculus and Vive's
case, the software looks to be fairly compatible with one another (hack-
blocking aside by Oculus). What I don't understand is, if it's trivial to run
Oculus software on other hardware platforms with hacks, why wouldn't they want
people to buy their software if it can run on other platforms as well? Is it
brand protection? They can't make large margins on their headset forever.

~~~
mtgx
I think Valve is trying to create an open platform for VR, so at least you
could use Vive or some other device (probably not Oculus, though) that works
with Steam VR games. It also makes no sense for Valve to allow anyone else
that doesn't abide by those standards to use the Steam store (including
Oculus).

~~~
cma
Yes, all the stuff the SteamVR overlay is built with are public APIs that
competing stores can use to make their own overlay (including notification
popups during games, etc.). You can make a competing store in a tab alongside
steam, or replace the Steam VR overlay entirely:

[https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr/wiki/IVROverlay_Over...](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr/wiki/IVROverlay_Overview)

------
seanwilson
I'm not a fan of lock-in at all but if Oculus don't make money selling the
hardware and can't expect a high chance of sales from their store then how are
they suppose to make money? Is their whole business model based on purchases
from the Oculus store?

Competition is good. I don't like how Oculus is trying to create their own
locked in ecosystem but I don't like how some people only want to buy things
from Steam either.

~~~
nol13
Virtual ads, obv.

------
bni
Rift has two major advantages that made me choose it:

1\. Doesn't require to hang stuff on walls, a single sensor beside the monitor
is enough. For me dedicating a room to VR is out of the question.

2\. It has built in headphones. Yes they look "cheap" on pictures, but when
you actually use a VR headset that goes on and off a lot you appreciate the
convenience. Sound is also VERY good in them.

I don't get the blind Facebook hate and Steam fanboyism. Remember Steam is a
35% taking monopoly on PC gaming. If anything that monopoly needs to be dealt
with.

------
ben_jones
As much as I'd like to see an "underdog" win the VR wars I think the Space
race to market is a very small part of the battle. Facebook will be able to
market non-gaming apps much better then gaming companies, imo, and so don't
necessarily have to be first, just eventually get close to parity (which is
inevitable).

------
highCs
Got a bunch of real questions: do you know if VR is growing? Does people like
the experience? How long are the user sessions?

~~~
dave2000
Hey, come on, 3D was huge and the glasses you have to wear for this don't make
you look as silly and are totally not going to give you headaches or make you
sick, plus there'll be even more content for this, and because of the
standards you can just buy any hardware and choose from thousands of great,
great games.

