Oculus Is Hurting VR's Development By Supporting Walled Gardens, Closed Ecosystems

from the tear-down-the-wall dept

Facebook's Oculus Rift was originally expected to lead the virtual reality charge and become a shining example of "VR done right," but a bungled launch and a series of sloppy public relations missteps have ensured that won't be happening any time soon.

The company generated a tidal wave of ill will after production issues delayed Oculus pre-order ship dates by two months or more. That was compounded by some overly broad terms of service language, and an Oculus decision to sell some headsets at Best Buy before pre-order customers had received their own headsets. Combined with a lack of "room scale" support (the ability to move freely in space using handheld controllers) out of the gate and a general nervousness about Facebook's snooping tendencies, Oculus has effectively given the HTC Vive a huge PR advantage as VR begins to slowly claw its way towards mainstream adoption.

Oculus isn't helping matters much this week with moves that indicate Facebook and Oculus are very much keen on embracing walled gardens, DRM, and closed ecosystems at a time when VR very much needs the exact opposite to thrive.

As it stands, Oculus Rift owners can play non-roomscale games designed for the Rift via the SteamVR store. In contrast, HTC Vive customers can't play games designed for the Oculus Rift, since Oculus and Facebook have decided to lean heavily on exclusives out of the gate. To play Oculus games, many Vive customers had taken to using third-party software known as Revive. But in a recent post to Reddit, Revive developers say Oculus and Facebook have deployed an update that stops the workaround in its tracks:

"From my preliminary research it seems that Oculus has also added a check whether the Oculus Rift headset is connected to their Oculus Platform DRM. And while Revive fools the application in thinking the Rift is connected, it does nothing to make the actual Oculus Platform think the headset is connected. Because only the Oculus Platform DRM has been changed this means that none of the Steam or standalone games were affected. Only games published on the Oculus Store that use the Oculus Platform SDK are affected"

Oculus is denying that the software update was specifically targeting Revive, only telling a number of different news outlets that the update was necessary to help curb piracy. Most of the comments to the media imply that shucks -- hacks like Revive just occasionally break during the course of software updates:

"We take the security, functionality and integrity of our system software very seriously and people should expect that hacked games won’t work indefinitely as regular updates to content, apps and our platform may break the hacks."

However, Revive developers say the update isn't checking to see whether or not software was legitimately purchased, but whether or not the Oculus headset itself is connected and being used to experience that content. To get around Oculus' update, the Revive developers have been forced to issue their own update that bypasses all DRM and ownership checks in order to work, something the developers say isn't the path they wanted to take and makes piracy easier than before:

"LibreVR has some concerns about hacking into purchase-protecting DRM in order to get around the Rift's hardware exclusivity. "I am worried about whether I'm helping piracy by implementing this workaround," he said. "When possible I'd like my workaround to help developers generate more revenue, not hurt that revenue." On the other hand, LibreVR also added that "pirates will always find a way to work around DRM, [so] I don't think my effort significantly contributed to that."

So at the end of the day, Oculus' latest decision to lock down its ecosystem not only pissed off the userbase, it contributed to a cat and mouse arms race that may actually ramp up the potential for piracy. Where's the benefit again?

Oculus' fall from grace among the VR faithful has been accelerated at times by company founder Palmer Luckey, who has been mercilessly hammered over at Reddit for repeatedly flip-flopping on claims regarding the headset. For example, this is what Luckey said about the ability to use different titles on different headsets last December:

"If customers buy a game from us, I don't care if they mod it to run on whatever they want. 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."

Except the company's behavior has focused on the exact opposite: Oculus and Facebook (or predominantly Facebook) pretty clearly believe that a closed door, walled garden approach to VR development is the path forward. The problem is that with a high cost of entry, the VR development community is already struggling for mainstream adoption; VR is very much in the 1.0 era and very much in a period of experimentation, and many (including Valve) believe that more open, cross platform development will help ensure a broader, happier overall userbase. From the overall negative timbre of the VR community right now, Oculus appears intent on learning this the hard way.

Filed Under: drm, oculus rift, revive, vr, walled gardens
Companies: facebook, oculus

No, Virtual Reality Won't Make Us Fat, Stupid Slaves Of Mark Zuckerberg

from the fear-is-the-mind-killer dept

With the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift prepping for launch over the next few months, the public has only just begun to be inundated with a sound wall of virtual reality media coverage. And while that's great if, like me, you've been waiting for functional, non-vomit-inducing VR since childhood, those unnerved by the idea of strapping a $600 plastic and metal headset to their face for hours will react poorly. The folks that believe games make us violent, Google makes us stupid, and cell phones make us antisocial are going to have an absolute field day demonizing VR. Usually, never having tried it.

Right on cue, the backlash began in earnest this week. Countless news outlets and Twitter users circulated this photo of Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg demonstrating Samsung Gear VR Headsets at the Mobile World Congress this week in Spain. It is, admittedly, very white, very male, and not particularly flattering: But the Washington Post was one of numerous outlets to somehow read entire universes of meaning into the photo, breathlessly insisting it was mystically precognitive in nature, offering a glimpse into our "creepy" and "dystopian tech future":

Zuckerberg has said that, in his vision for the future, these virtual experiences will be fundamentally social. But the photo suggests something quite different: Hundreds of people share a physical space, but no perception, no experience, no phenomenological anchor. The communality of a conference (literally from conferre, 'to bring together') is thrown over for a series of hyper-individualized bubbles. And you’re reminded, from Zuckerberg’s awkward semi-smile, that the man who owns the bubbles also owns what’s in them. That controlling virtual reality, in other words, is only a step from controlling reality itself.

Ooh, scary! I'm not necessarily a fan of Zuckerberg or his tone-deafness during the recent global net neutrality fracas, but the Post's "digital culture critic" seems more than a little confused by what VR is, and what was happening at the event. As folks like Ben Kuchera were quick to point out the event was mostly harmless, with audience members being greeted with a surprise cameo by Zuckerberg after they took off their headsets. Audience members actually reacted with "gasps of excitement" at glimpsing a t-shirt clad billionaire. Nerdy white dudes being nerdy white dudes, sure. But 1984 this wasn't.

When people unfamiliar with VR see someone in a headset, many immediately picture the fat hovering people in Pixar's Wall-E, happily guzzling sugar water while anesthetized to all greater meaning. But while many spent the week deriding VR as a Zuckerberg-controlled big brother enslavement tool, most of the people that have actually tried VR realize it has amazing potential as a tool for creation, expression and connectivity for artists, story tellers, journalists, and musicians. Again, once people actually try VR, it doesn't take long to see the potential.

Yet all week the photo had a bizarre, hypnotizing effect on the media that overshadowed this fact. Fusion, for example, became oddly transfixed by the heaviest man in the photo, magically equating his daily caloric surplus with the idea that VR will somehow make us all miserable:

If you were to choose an attendee in the crowd who most represents You, it would be probably be this man. Here you are, six years from today: Unsatisfied, dour, a VR headset crammed onto your face. Your belongings are at your feet, your computer balances on your lap, your identifying lanyard hangs from your neck. You are watching…something? It doesn’t matter. You hate it.

That's some rich analysis, yo. The existential fear of VR from the Luddite wing of the American electorate is palpably bizarre. The Atlantic, for example, published a piece of moody dystopian fiction based entirely on the heavyset man in the photo. The piece is set years in the future -- after we've all apparently become fatter, sadder and notably less productive thanks to Zuckerberg's villainy.

It apparently needs noting: putting on a VR headset doesn't magically prevent you from eating kale, doing yoga or going for a run. If you're chubby outside of VR, you're still chubby with a headset strapped to your head. That's not somehow VR's fault. At the same time, if you've actually watched some of the developer demos for games like Budget Cuts, you'd realize VR gaming can be a very physical and social experience. Still nerdy as hell, granted. But VR is not, contrary to this week's press narrative, somehow synonymous with servitude and muscle atrophy.

We've been over this before at Techdirt countless times. Each and every time a new technology emerges this same narrative bubbles forth: "this new technology is going to make us less social than ever and usher forth a terrifying future where nobody interacts!" XKCD highlighted quite well a few years ago how this idea is neither accurate nor new, and it's getting downright boring: Does VR have some major PR obstacles to broader adoption? Absolutely. The initial cost of entry is significant, given to do VR "right" you need a quality headset (the Oculus Rift is $600 at launch and the HTC Vive will be $800) and a higher end PC with a beefy graphics card (around $1000-$1500) capable of powering it. But what will begin as a high-end playpen for art, porn and video gaming will quickly evolve into adoption at schools, universities and homes everywhere -- especially as the technology matures, its uses expand, and prices drop.

Sure, until VR tech can be shrunk down and integrated into contacts or glasses we'll all look downright stupid wearing VR headsets. It's just a fact. But if you're dismissing an entire technological revolution for appearance's sake, the problem would be yours, not virtual reality's.

Filed Under: innovation, mark zuckerberg, moral panics, virtual reality, vr

Apple Bans Non-Graphic, VR Representation Of Ferguson Shooting For No Coherent Reason

from the would-you-please-make-some-sense dept

Apple's ridiculous, inconsistent and incoherent app store approval process is now a thing of legend. The company has long banned apps simply for being able to access other, vaguely-controversial content, whether that's a dictionary (because some words are naughty), or comic book and e-book readers (because, occasional booby references). But Apple's also been known to ban apps critical of Apple products, games with Nazis in it, DUI checkpoint apps, and anything with a confederate flag in it (even if historically accurate). Basically, Apple governs its app store approval process like a puritanical child in the throes of an epic acid trip, and conversations trying to decipher company intent goes accordingly.

Apple's latest ingenious app store approval ban? Virtual reality journalism. Graphic artist Dan Archer thought it might be cool to build a 3D representation of the Ferguson shooting to help people better understand precisely what happened. Note there's no graphic content whatsoever; the app simply shows a 3D representative of the crime scene, 3D models of Michael Brown and Darren Wilson and their alleged locations, and lets the user simultaneously peruse publicly-filed evidence, witness testimony, and published radio chatter: Note that in and of itself a VR exploration of what happened isn't specifically controversial, and it's a very handy tool in trying to better understand the details of the story. Yet Archer received a phone call from Apple, explaining cryptically that his app would not be allowed on the store because its "scope was too narrow":

"According to the phone call I received, Ferguson Firsthand was disallowed because it “refers to a very specific event, and therefore its scope is too narrow.” I was encouraged to try again with an app that is “topical, but not focusing on any one single incident or topic.” Ferguson Firsthand, in its current state, would need to be “changed so significantly for it to be approved.” The representative was unable to clarify whether an app that reported on multiple, nationwide allegations of police misconduct would better fit the recommendations she had mentioned."

As with previous bans, getting Apple to transparently and more precisely illuminate the exact problem with the VR app was utterly unfruitful. In a companion piece over at Medium, Archer quite-correctly notes that the continued reliance on arbitrary, non-transparent gatekeepers is the last thing the soon-to-explode virtual reality market needs. Sure, those that can afford the $500 for the upcoming HTC Vive or Oculus Rift (not to mention a high-end graphics card) will likely be slightly less-reliant on gatekeepers for content access, but having Apple determine what qualifies as an acceptable journalism tool on less expensive smartphone VR platforms is a scary proposition:

"Leading VR headsets in the market still cost hundreds of dollars (despite becoming a decimal point or two cheaper in the last decade) and a powerful PC to run home experiences. Google cardboard, the SDK that allows journalists to port a game engine experience into VR, was designed to work brilliantly with smartphones, but in light of my phone call with Ms. Apple, almost half (44.1%, according to June 2015 data published by Comscore) of that market share in the US was effectively being cut off."

Archer also notes that Apple's decision directly contradicts its own over-arching principles for its own guidelines:

"Thank you for developing for iOS. Even though this document is a formidable list of what not to do, please also keep in mind the much shorter list of what you must do. Above all else, join us in trying to surprise and delight users. Show them their world in innovative ways, and let them interact with it like never before. In our experience, users really respond to polish, both in functionality and user interface. Go the extra mile. Give them more than they expect. And take them places where they have never been before. We are ready to help."

Or, try to do exactly that and get your project blocked for no coherent reason.

Filed Under: app store, arbitrary, ferguson, journalism, news, rejections, vr
Companies: apple

DailyDirt: Boys Don't Make Passes At Girls Who Wear Augmented Reality Displays On Their Heads...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Smartphones and tablets are popular devices nowadays, but what's going to come next? Smartwatches or smartglasses or smartshoes? Besides Google Glass, there are a bunch of wearable computers on the market already. So far, the smartglasses haven't quite caught on, but maybe they just need a bit more time for people to get used to the interface. Here are just a few examples of smartglasses that you can buy if you want a glimpse into the "future" of electronic gadgets.

• The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset could be free someday (now $300), subsidized by a VR game subscription or with advertising (or both), perhaps. Oculus Rift CEO Brendan Iribe predicts that the hardware could become cheap enough that the device could be given away or bundled with software services. [url]
• The Recon Jet is a pair of sunglasses that's also a wearable computer. It's a bit bigger and heavier than Google Glass, and it puts its heads up display in the lower right corner of the user's field of vision -- so that it doesn't make the user look towards the sun and because research has shown that looking down is easier than looking up. [url]
• GlassUp is another wearable heads up display that costs about $400 and pairs up with a separate mobile device so that it doesn't use much power on its own. GlassUp puts its heads up display info near the center of a wearer's field of vision -- and early adopters can get a discount by supporting its Indiegogo campaign. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: augmented reality, gadgets, glasses, heads up display, headsets, hud, smartglasses, vr, wearable computing
Companies: glassup, google, oculus rift, recon