What actually happens when we get games On-Sale on Steam and request Home keys?

[CrashFu]

I always see people saying, "Oh hey this game is 50% off on Steam, and the developers will give you a key for Oculus Home!", but I can't help but wonder what the connotations / consequences are when we take advantage of these deals..

For starters, when a game is purchased on sale on Steam, how is the developer's cut affected?  Say a game is 50% off, do both the developer and Valve take 50% less than they normally would, or is the profit loss weighted more towards one than the other?

And it seems like developers are just free to hand out Oculus Home keys however they want;  when this happens does Oculus get compensated in any way, or are they just being total nice-guys here,  knowing full well that Steam is doing these unbelievably huge sales on BRAND-NEW VR games just to keep people from buying them on Oculus Home?

Some people seem to think it's a good thing to deny Oculus any profit, because they're bitter over the Rift's launch and Oculus' policies and want to "teach them a lesson" or "vote with their money" or whatever, but I remind you this is the company that single-handedly established virtual-reality AS AN INDUSTRY in the first place where previously it was just an amusement park attraction and a rich-persons' novelty and a far-off fantasy for the rest of us, and they're doing more now to fund the growth of that industry and promote the medium to the world than anyone else involved.  Plus, if VR game developers themselves are getting caught in the cross-fire, is it worth sticking it to Oculus at their expense?   The way I see it, starving Oculus AND game developers of the profits they need to recoup their investments isn't going to teach Oculus a lesson, it's going to make the world think that VR is an unprofitable gimmick, and probably drive VR developers to stop releasing games on Steam if Oculus are the only ones getting them a fair price for their work..

Anyways, sorry to get so preachy, but I think more people need to consider these things when deciding where (and for how much) they buy their VR games, but if you're really on a budget, I don't think many people would fault you for grabbing things on sale wherever you find them.

Maybe I should put my money where my mouth is and go buy Oculus Home copies of games I already have on Steam ... Subnautica is easily worth double its price anyways, right? :tongue: 

Any developers or Oculus staff around who can shed some insider knowledge on how all this stuff really works?

[Keylo415]

CrashFu said:

I always see people saying, "Oh hey this game is 50% off on Steam, and the developers will give you a key for Oculus Home!", but I can't help but wonder what the connotations / consequences are when we take advantage of these deals..

For starters, when a game is purchased on sale on Steam, how is the developer's cut affected?  Say a game is 50% off, do both the developer and Valve take 50% less than they normally would, or is the profit loss weighted more towards one than the other?

And it seems like developers are just free to hand out Oculus Home keys however they want;  when this happens does Oculus get compensated in any way, or are they just being total nice-guys here,  knowing full well that Steam is doing these unbelievably huge sales on BRAND-NEW VR games just to keep people from buying them on Oculus Home?

Some people seem to think it's a good thing to deny Oculus any profit, because they're bitter over the Rift's launch and Oculus' policies and want to "teach them a lesson" or "vote with their money" or whatever, but I remind you this is the company that single-handedly established virtual-reality AS AN INDUSTRY in the first place where previously it was just an amusement park attraction and a rich-persons' novelty and a far-off fantasy for the rest of us, and they're doing more now to fund the growth of that industry and promote the medium to the world than anyone else involved.  Plus, if VR game developers themselves are getting caught in the cross-fire, is it worth sticking it to Oculus at their expense?   The way I see it, starving Oculus AND game developers of the profits they need to recoup their investments isn't going to teach Oculus a lesson, it's going to make the world think that VR is an unprofitable gimmick, and probably drive VR developers to stop releasing games on Steam if Oculus are the only ones getting them a fair price for their work..

Anyways, sorry to get so preachy, but I think more people need to consider these things when deciding where (and for how much) they buy their VR games, but if you're really on a budget, I don't think many people would fault you for grabbing things on sale wherever you find them.

Maybe I should put my money where my mouth is and go buy Oculus Home copies of games I already have on Steam ... Subnautica is easily worth double its price anyways, right? :tongue: 

Any developers or Oculus staff around who can shed some insider knowledge on how all this stuff really works?

I agree with you 100% man, the only problem is that people think that steam is perfect.

[Vetkin]

I mainly buy on steam because I don't want to be locked out of all my games in the future if I choose to purchase a non-oculus headset. I'd actually prefer to have them all on Home for convenience, so I really appreciate it when developers offer Home keys for Steam purchases. I'm curious who the cost is attributed to also.

In the discussions for every Steam VR game that is offered on both stores, there seems to always be a thread for people asking about cross-use keys. One of the great things about PC gaming is that we've never really had to worry about what hardware we were using when it came to playing older games, unlike consoles. I'm disappointed that this may no longer be the case due to the walled off nature of Oculus Home.   

[CrashFu]

Vetkin said:

I mainly buy on steam because I don't want to be locked out of all my games in the future if I choose to purchase a non-oculus headset. I'd actually prefer to have them all on Home for convenience, so I really appreciate it when developers offer Home keys for Steam purchases. I'm curious who the cost is attributed to also.

In the discussions for every Steam VR game that is offered on both stores, there seems to always be a thread for people asking about cross-use keys. One of the great things about PC gaming is that we've never really had to worry about what hardware we were using when it came to playing older games, unlike consoles. I'm disappointed that this may no longer be the case due to the walled off nature of Oculus Home.   

There's really no guarantee that everything on Steam will ALWAYS keep up with the Oculus SDK / runtimes / whatever though, just like there's no certainty that Oculus and Valve won't eventually learn to get along.  Let's hope that when Touch controls come out, it motivates both parties to cooperate with each other more.


Also,you can't really say that PC gaming is infinitely backwards compatible;  many games that were developed for older operating systems don't run properly (or at all) on modern systems without being modified for re-release or going through some kind of wrapper..  even some of the stuff on GoG.com suffers from horrible performance issues, even though they're games that would probably run on the average smart-phone's hardware. 😕    (The troubles I had with Fallout 2, I tell ya)

[JED44]

It would be interesting to see what kind of cuts are used for Steam sales, though overall I would say this is all a double sided coin. Steam may be offering discounts on certain games to compete with OH, but I have also seen games that have been at a set price on steam for a while that OH is trying to charge full $60 game price for (E:D and PCars for instance) 

I also think its a bit unfair to paint Oculus as the victim in this situation, considering they are competing tooth and nail in their own way as well, such as paying devs for exclusivity to keep certain VR games off steam or anywhere else for that matter. 

It's pretty much just typical competition. Devs are also free to not take the exclusivity check and sell on any platform they want. 

Personally as it stands I don't like the idea of getting locked out of my content, so I am going to buy VR games in a way that is not detrimental to me. it has less to do with sticking it to Oculus then it does with my personal convenience and preferences.  

There are many companies including Valve that are also contributing heavily to the development of VR, so in the end I am going to put my money where it is most convenient and gives me the most benefit.   

[Elhrairah]

With the recent 180 degree flip flop by Oculus on DRM - I won't spend a cent in Oculus Home. All my purchases will be via steam and I'll request the OH key from them directly - what happens behind the scenes is on them. Oculus Home will go the way of the Microsoft Store quickly - which is what they deserve for their bait and switch.

But no, Oculus does not deserve to be rewarded for this stupid decision. They deserve to lose money over it, and they will.

[bigmike20vt]

I am afraid as long as other headsets are not able to buy titles off OH i will not be buying anything unless it is in a firesale.
This is nothing to do with getting my own back, and indeed I am not even sure this is oculus' fault - it could just as easily be valve/htc not helping it getting fully supported.... its all guesswork who is at fault for what I can tell.... Something had to be done about the hack tho... either putting the "free" stuff behind a paywall or doing what they did. It was not fair on playful or, whoever developed all the other stuff, for it to be free.... what if playful wanted to SELL luckys tale to vive users?

but the simple fact is, I do not want to get locked into an ecosystem, I went with oculus this time around because, well, reasons not relevant here but gen 2 consumer HMDs who knows???

And I am not prepared to lose my entire games collection.

[CrashFu]

JED44 said:

I have also seen games that have been at a set price on steam for a while that OH is trying to charge full $60 game price for (E:D and PCars for instance) 

This, I'm afraid, is a wholly inaccurate statement. Oculus Home isn't charging more than Steam for either of these games; they're just specifically selling the Elite: Dangerous Commander Deluxe Edition and Project Cars: GotY Edition for the same price as they are on steam.

If you want to criticize them for not offering the cheaper BASIC versions of the games alongside the deluxe editions, that would be a fair criticism.  (it's a move I'm curious about, at the least.  Is this a "we only offer premium experiences" statement, or do they just want to keep the store page uncluttered until they get more UI stuff implemented, or does Oculus Home just currently lack the functionality to handle DLC content altogether?)

Personally as it stands I don't like the idea of getting locked out of my content, so I am going to buy VR games in a way that is not detrimental to me. it has less to do with sticking it to Oculus then it does with my personal convenience and preferences.  

There are many companies including Valve that are also contributing heavily to the development of VR, so in the end I am going to put my money where it is most convenient and gives me the most benefit.   

 If you're afraid of getting locked out of your content, why do you think Steam is any better? If anything happens to your steam account or prevents you access to it, anything you don't already have installed is gone, and anything you get for SteamVR isn't going to work outside of Steam and the Vive EXCEPT when the Developers and Oculus are gracious enough to give you a free second copy... after which you repay them by saying you won't pay the developers full price unless you have to and will never give Oculus money under any circumstance?  Dude, that's cold.

And what exactly HAS Valve done for the VR industry, anyways? They've done virtually nothing to introduce VR to anyone who isn't already familiar with it, aside from putting a bland front-page ad on their own platform, which is really only used by serious gamer types to begin with.. even though they have almost limitless financial resources with which they COULD be promoting the medium outside that niche market.

Are they funding VR content development (or "paying for exclusivity" as you call it) the way Oculus is? From what I see, they just give developers a platform to sell on... and then immediately cheapen their games just to steal business from Oculus.  Do you even realize how DISASTROUS it is for a game to sell at 50% so close to release? Let me break it down for you:

First off, those first few months after release are generally a developer's ONLY chance to sell a game at full price at all (unless they're big-name AAA's who could sell a boxed turd for $60 and get away with it), because the only people who don't wait for sales on games these days are the ones who absolutely HAVE to have the game ASAP.  Selling a game at 50% well within the time frame that people are willing to pay 100%? that's a substantial loss of potential profit.

Secondly, once somebody has seen a game on steam sale, the chances of them buying it at above that price become INCREDIBLY low.  It's a psychological thing, we associate paying higher than we have to for something to be "getting ripped off" or "taking a loss" even if that was the original, fair price for it.  So most people who see this sale but don't buy it at this time are going to purposely AVOID the game until the next 50% sale comes around, and who knows how long that could be?  Even if they buy it eventually, it's that long that the developers have to wait for a return on their investments, during which time these are people who could have been establishing a community for the game, recommending it, giving it exposure... instead it's just sitting on their wish-list.

But third, and most importantly, PC Gamers judge the success and VALUE of games based on how soon they go on sale and for how great of a discount.  Wildly successful games and popular AAA franchises almost never have more than a 20% sale for many months after release, usually not until the holiday season if they're launched early in the year. When a game goes 50% after only a month or so? It's considered a signal that a game has significantly under-sold, that it's seriously lacking in quality compared to games of its original price, and that the developers are now desperate to get ANY return at all on the money they wasted developing it. IE it's a death sentence for the game and its developers.

But Valve were willing to throw VR game developers under the bus like this just to spite Oculus. Game developers who took a HUGE risk developing games for this uncertain new medium in the first place, while countless other developers are watching to see if VR is profitable enough to bother developing for at all. THIS is the scandal the VR community should be talking about, instead of overreacting to every little thing Oculus does and looking for any flimsy excuse to call them failures or villains.

Like I said before, most people aren't going to fault you for taking advantage of a "Two copies of a game for the price of half of one" sale; that's a hard deal to resist, especially with so many other great VR games jockeying for your wallet's attention... but DON'T pretend to not know the ramifications of your choice, or play ignorant to the harm Valve is doing to this industry in their desperation to squeeze a short-term profit out of it.

[CrashFu]

bigmike20vt said:

but the simple fact is, I do not want to get locked into an ecosystem, I went with oculus this time around because, well, reasons not relevant here but gen 2 consumer HMDs who knows???

And I am not prepared to lose my entire games collection.

You mean, the only eco-system you're okay being locked into is Steam, because you're already locked into that one and most of the games you own already exist on your steam account? Or is there some reliable third-party place to buy and get support for VR games, besides Oculus Home and Steam? 

I really don't understand this excuse of "Well if I don't get a Gen 2 Rift how will I play games I buy now on Oculus Home?"

First off, you're assuming that YEARS from now when Gen 2 devices actually exist, you're suddenly going to have the overwhelming desire to go back and play these early cross-platform VR games again, long after you've finished them..

Secondly, you seem sure that you won't just.. y'know.. keep your 1st-gen Rift.  Think they'll sell for that match after those 4k, extra-wide FoV, eye-tracking, god-ray-less and wire-less gen 2 devices of our dreams are available?

Third, you're assuming that Oculus STILL won't support other HMDs on their platform (or Valve still won't support the Oculus SDK, either way) by then, not even after Touch comes out, BUT on the other hand you assume that Valve will provide lifetime support for the Rift hardware and keep ALL SteamVR games faithfully updated with the latest Oculus SDK versions?


This theoretical situation where the games you buy are not permanently accessible to you is so unlikely and so avoidable, and even if it does come it won't be happening for years.  Unless you already have your mind made up to trade that Rift in for something else ASAP, you shouldn't let such an irrational fear stop you from enjoying the most awe-inspiring and highly-polished VR games on the market in the mean-time.

[bigmike20vt]

? sorry but the above is just wrong.  Right now, if i buy a game compatible with the rift AND VIVE on steam it will work on the rift and on steam.

if i buy the same game on OH, RIGHT NOW it is not compatible with the vive.  I have no issue with store front exclusive games but store front exclusive platforms... no thanks.

if that changes - and as i said i am not necessarily assigning blame here - I will re-evaluate. this is my right as a customer.

and you suggesting i wont play games in 2 or 3 years time - which is my guess for next gen vr.....  Sorry but you cant assume that for me!.  I have lots of games which i still play now which are way older than that. I fully expect to still be playing pCARS and AC then.  

(assetto corsa is already a couple of years old!)

Now I AM hoping that the vive 2 will be backwards compatible with vive 1, and oculus rift 2 with oculus rift  CV1 and this is a bit of a stab in the dark, but, all I can do is prepare as well as I can based on the facts I have today.

The FACT is right now my steam pCARs runs on the rift and on the vive... so does time machine VR, so does elite dangerous, and so will Adr1ft and eve V when it launches  foir vive etc etc etc.

can you promise me this is the case with the OH versions?