A new update to the Oculus Home platform, driver version 1.4, breaks the community created cross-platform enabling RIVIVE modification. RIVIVE allowed owners of the HTC Vive to play Oculus home exclusive titles like EVE: Valkyrie and Lucky’s Tale without owning an Oculus device.
It appears, according to CrossVR’s research as posted to Reddit, that the latest Oculus Home Update adds a new DRM check that checks whether or not the users Oculus headset is connected to their online platform. While RIVIVE is able to spoof the presence of a headset locally, it does not communicate with Oculus’ servers meaning there is no current way to circumvent the new DRM present in driver 1.4.
Here is the full post from CrossVR:
Some users like StarGateCommand have speculated that this new DRM scheme could be part of a long-term plan onthe part of Oculus to fracture the market.
Personally, I am all for open standards in VR, as the medium is so new and there are so many different competing standards I can’t help but worry that millions of people will invest in platforms that could be dead within a couple of years. As it stands right now, this early on, Oculus is kind of the defacto “VR Company”. For non hardcore / enthusiasts users surely the name Oculus carries more weight than VIVE, Google Cardboard or OSVR. Here is hoping that in the long run VR developers can decide on a set of open standards or we could quickly see the death of a number of platforms as exclusive games become walled off behind one VR platform or another.
What are your thoughts on VR exclusivity and walled gardens when it comes to emerging technologies like Virtual Reality?