9 ms·
The actual source email is shorter than any of the articles in the citation chain. https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4odsce/ive_sent_gabe_newell_an_email_
by corysama 10y ago
The actual source email is shorter than any of the articles in the citation chain.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4odsce/ive_sent_gabe_newell_an_email_asking_for_valves/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Vive/comments/4odsce/ive_sent_gabe_...
If you need context:
Oculus has been offering funds to VR devs in exchange for limited time exclusivity to the Oculus Store. This wouldn't be such a stink if the news didn't immediately follow Oculus Store DRM adding checks for the Oculus headset hardware. So, a game bought through Steam can play on either a Vive or a Rift depending on support put in by the dev. But, a game bought on the Oculus Store is blocked from running on a Vive.
IMHO, the conversation about this topic is very muddied between the four issues of funding, store exclusivity, DRM and hardware blocking. But, AFAICT, the PC gaming openness advocates are clearly OK with Steam DRM and mostly fine with funded, temporary store exclusivity. However, the hardware block is a serious issue. (At least in it's intent. In practice, it was immediately worked around.)
- mmanfrin 10y agoNowadays, I try to buy most games on GOG. However, Steam 'DRM' is less DRM and more SDK. It assuredly adds value (compared to things like uplay or origin which are honest-to-god DRM schemes). Steam/Valve aren't perfect, but they do provide good service and I trust them to try to do the right thing more than most other game publishers. That being said, GOG has gotten great, and their download client has been getting more and more robust.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Fej 10y agoIt is still very much DRM, no matter how much people are okay with it.
- icelancer 10y agoThis is simply false. An SDK is not DRM. They offer optional DRM but the platform itself is not managing rights inherently.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sangnoir 10y agoIn practice, how many games opt out of the DRM, and for would one still be able to play those games should their steam accounts be cancelled?
- cosarara97 10y agoI'd call their drm opt-in, not opt-out.
- mastax 10y ago> In practice, how many games opt out of the DRM Quite a number: http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games but the vast majority of the store is DRMmed.
- ekianjo 10y agoStill no linux version for GOG galaxy though.
- madeofpalk 10y ago> However, Steam 'DRM' is less DRM and more SDK It's definitely 'DRM' - its just a good DRM that tends to not get in the way of the users.\
- orbitingpluto 10y agoGOG had a promotion where they would add (some of the) games that you already owned on your Steam account to your GOG library. Hopefully they continue that. If I have a game on GOG or Steam, I'm more likely to use Steam, unless I'm traveling and might be Internetless.
- ocdtrekkie 10y agoYeah, GOG Connect is pretty awesome. I got half a dozen DRM free copies of games I have on Steam. I guess most of the ones they introduced initially were temporary, but they claim they'll add more over time, as they can make arrangements with developers. Honestly, I wonder if they may have suspended GOG Connect during the GOG Summer Sale. Everything is still up at gog.com/connect, but nothing's available.
- thejosh 10y ago"good" drm where if they decide to ban you for whatever reason you cannot access the games you have "bought".
- PhasmaFelis 10y agoThat's not true. The only way to get VAC-banned is to cheat in online games, and it only affects the game you cheated in and--for Source or GoldSource games--a few other multiplayer games that use the same engine. Source: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7849-RADZ-6869#vacgames https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7849-RAD... That's no different from what you'll get in non-Steam games. You cheat, you get banned.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- mikejmoffitt 10y agoSteam itself doesn't force DRM on a developer. As an SDK, it provides a very easy DRM platform to choose to use. They offer it, but it doesn't have to be utilized.
- Cyph0n 10y agoIndeed, this is a common misconception for some reason. There are many games, especially those from indie developers, where Steam simply acts as a light wrapper for launching the game. You can literally copy the game files from your Steam folder to another PC and it would work fine.
- SXX 10y agoIt's not misconception. Requirement to setup some proprietary software just to download your games makes Steam DRM no matter if it's enforced after download or no. Currently everything needed is reverse enginered so you can actually download games using open source tool, but I pretty sure this is forbidden by Steam EULA. Even if we all know Valve will unlikely enforce it it's still gray area you don't want depend on.
- Cyph0n 10y agoI'll have to disagree, as I think you're taking the concept of DRM way too far. The fact that you need a client to download your game is not DRM, but it is inconvenient I suppose. DRM comes in when you cannot distribute your purchased game freely, and you're limited to a set number of PCs or installs. Still disagree? Let's look at GoG, the standard DRM-free game store. You need to login before you can download your games, correct? Would you call that a form of DRM? The difference between logging in and downloading a client is negligible in this day and age imo. If you don't agree with any of the above, then I'm afraid that the way you think of DRM-free gaming is only achievable through piracy.
- optforfon 10y agoHow are logging in and installing someone's software even remotely similar? I personally find Steam, buggy, ugly, intrusive and effectively spyware that is logging and tracking god knows what. I feel very uncomfortable installing it on my machines and in general having to go through software A to get to software B makes a lot of people uncomfortable. By contrast, logging in confines the the website to tracking my activity on the website itself - which they probably can do with a cookie anyways...
- jsprogrammer 10y agoI thought Oculus was funded as an open device? Why is it now locked down?
- J_Darnley 10y agoFacebook. They bought it so that can have a display which guarantees ad views and consumer tracking.
- jrockway 10y agoThat seems very unlikely to me. Nobody is going to put on a VR headset to kill time at work, which is what Facebook is. (There was an article posted here recently that says most videos posted on Facebook have subtitles instead of sound, because people won't even put headphones on while using Facebook.)
- GuiA 10y agoThe idea isn't that people will put on a VR headset to kill time at work- their goal is for people to be wearing a VR headset at work in the first place.
- dave2000 10y agoWell obviously nobody's going to be doing that.
- saiya-jin 10y agojust you wait... if pitched properly, with higher resolution (so gen2 at least) and office apps developed with VR in mind it can bring added effectiveness (although probably impossible to wear 8 hours daily).
- jessaustin 10y agoYeah facilities managers will love it. They won't even have to buy cubicles anymore, because with VR we won't notice we're packed cheek-by-jowl at long tables.
- sjburt 10y agoI think Oculus's attitude is actually fairly sensible for the position they are in.. First, the success of VR is an existential risk for Oculus. This is not true for Valve; Valve just doesn't want to be left behind (at least at a business level, I have no doubt their engineering organization wants to continue to be the tech leader). Second, they are very concerned about whether people have good VR experiences, because the well has been poisoned by people's memories of 90s VR, Cardboard, concerns about motion sickness, overhype, headsets looking dumb, etc. Third, they're a fairly small organization, and they already have to support engagements with GPU vendors, OS, as well, as getting their hardware built and supported. Having to support other hardware on their platform (especially as there is a race to the bottom between HTC, Razer, etc) is a huge additional burden. They do have financial resources from Facebook, but you can't just throw money at an engineering org, you have to scale carefully. So to make VR is successful, they have to make sure that people have good experiences, but they have a small team. Buying exclusives makes perfect sense for them: it's a way to leverage Facebook's financial resources, and since the titles are exclusive they can focus on making those titles work as well as possible on a SW/HW stack that they own.
- SXX 10y agoBy now Oculus VR is clearly larger organization than Valve and likely only small portion of Valve works on anything VR-related. So I just not sure you can call them "small" anymore.
- usrusr 10y agoHow much of the Vive is Valve and how much is HTC? Valve was very lucky to find a hardware partner content with not trying to establish their own content delivery platform.
- mpeg 10y agoCan hardly call it luck when Valve runs the largest PC game content delivery platform in the world. They can definitely set the terms of that kind of partnership.
- 10y ago
- TwoBit 10y agoAFAIK the hardware block was only partially worked around. It doesn't let arbitrary Rift apps work on Vive.
- Jarwain 10y agoHe says no strings attached. I just wonder why, with his stance, he doesn't apply just one string: a sort of "non-exclusivity clause" where the devs agree not to sign any game exclusivity contract.
- scanr 10y agoI wonder if the 'strings attached' is that the 'pre-paid steam revenue' needs to be paid back if the game doesn't make the money back on steam.