Valve funding VR projects, exclusivity-free, with pre-paid Steam revenue
For those new to VR drama, be aware that VR has become infested with the kind of dogma, fandom, agenda setting, and selection bias that once was limited to game consoles. At this point, Oculus could give their headsets away for free and certain people would complain that Facebook is using unfair business practices to create a monopoly.<p>Most of the (fairly reasonable) statements Oculus has made about its practices are ignored, dismissed, or called outright lies. Actual developers have tried to explain that Oculus&#x27;s behavior isn&#x27;t evil, designed to split the VR community, etc., but they are called liars, accused of doing damage control, or are somehow paid off by Oculus.<p>The reality is that Oculus has 100% funded the development of certain games, and contributed engineering talent and best practices based on their VR research. These include Chronos, Edge of Nowhere, The Climb, and others - titles at major developers that would not have otherwise existed. In return, those games must be sold through the Oculus store. However, the studio (i.e., Insomniac, Crytek, etc.) maintains ownership of the IP. Any future game built by those studios (including sequels) can be sold anywhere, using the VR expertise they otherwise wouldn&#x27;t have.<p>Oculus also offers development grants to independent developers. An indie that is starved for cash and may otherwise need to release a game early to recoup their investment now has the option to spend extra time on the game. In return, the game must be released first on the Oculus Store; afterwards, it can be released on Steam or anywhere else.<p>Many call this &quot;buying exclusivity&quot; - but thus far, every developer that has taken advantage of this has admitted that they were farther away from release than appeared to the public, were running low on cash, and&#x2F;or needed the assistance that Oculus could provide.<p>Also, most people don&#x27;t seem to realize that Valve&#x27;s offer of pre-paid royalties is just another kind of store exclusivity. Developer won&#x27;t host their app outside of Steam until the advance is paid off, as those non-Steam royalties don&#x27;t count towards the pre-pay.<p>Accepting the pre-pay also forces them to use the OpenVR SDK, which means they cannot host the game on the Oculus store.<p>Valve isn&#x27;t altruistic. They merely have a more sophisticated strategy and a technology (the OpenVR SDK that can wrap the Oculus SDK) that allows them to position themselves as taking the high road while they focus on boxing out a competing software platform.