Oculus Quietly Removes DRM Checks, Reopens Door For Rift-Exclusive Games On HTC Vive

Oculus just made a change to its software which removes a controversial “feature” that it added last month. The company has disabled its DRM that checked to make sure that Rift hardware was actually connected to a PC before games purchased and downloaded from the Oculus Store could be played.

This DRM in effect killed workarounds like Revive, which allowed owners of the HTC Vive to play software originally designed to run on an Oculus Rift. Oculus today confirmed the removal of the DRM check. "We continually revise our entitlement and anti-piracy systems, and in the June update we've removed the check for Rift hardware from the entitlement check," said Oculus in a statement emailed to Motherboard.

"We believe protecting developer content is critical to the long-term success of the VR industry, and we’ll continue taking steps in the future to ensure that VR developers can keep investing in ground-breaking new VR content."

CrossVR, Revive’s developer, seems cautiously optimistic about Oculus’ change of heart, writing via reddit, “I don't think they changed their stance on exclusivity, but they're at least willing to meet us halfway by letting us mod our games. I'm delighted to see this change and I hope it can generate a lot of goodwill for Oculus.”

This change of heart by Oculus matches more closely with vision of company founder Palmer Luckey. “If customers buy a game from us, I don't care if they mod it to run on whatever they want,” said Luckey back in January. “As I have said a million times, 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, not the Rift itself.”