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Is it time for Meta/Oculus to rethink the DRM structure?

PITTCANNA
Visionary

So as a single user i am not affected as much, but given the state of current geo-political tides and the general trends, it is visibly apparent that the current structure was never suited for a device like this.

 

https://www.roadtovr.com/russia-meta-facebook-instagram-quest-ban/

 

 

Last week Reuters revealed that Meta was taking a temporary stance on how it’s addressing hate speech on Facebook and Instagram. The report maintained that users in many of the former Eastern Bloc countries who called for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion wouldn’t be considered a breach in terms of service. It was later clarified that only users in Ukraine would be exempt, and not the wider list of surrounding countries.

Now both Facebook and Instagram have been banned outright in Russia, with the country cutting those services off to some 70 million users in response to Meta’s now fairly obvious stance on just who it supports in the conflict. Meta messaging app WhatsApp hasn’t been specifically included in the ban, although that has the distinct possibility of changing fairly soon.

 

Honestly this only punishes users, and therefore if facebook is blocked in your country it essentially blocks you from ever accessing your games again.

 

But the limitations are further than that.

  • Schools - now want to embrace a tech - obviously i agree some programs for the quest are not school appropriate -  but there has been no educational program for a device like this - I remember when schools had some programs to promote computer use - and had oem discs (I still to this day have word, excel, windows xp, labview, and matlab free copies from college)
  • Business's - Obviously i agree a vr arcade is not under this as they should pay for each seat - but the business oculus going away until 2023 to what i presume project cambria - this will be a void in those who had previously thought about it
  • Single users - Honestly these users are shafted (even if the family app share is a convoluted mess) - Why shouldn't a single user be able to enable a guest pass system to a friend (if families are allowed kids and partners) 
  • Off-line mode - internet can go down or you take it to a place of no wifi - it makes using apps hard, at least with steam  you can play games offline with local saves.
2 REPLIES 2

kojack
MVP
MVP

Steam has a similar issue. Valve has already blocked all payments to Russian developers and Gabe threatened to cut off Russian gamers.

Buying from Valve, Sony, Microsoft, Epic all have risks if your country gets banned too. Even if they offer an offline mode, there are usually restrictions (like needing to be online in order to activate offline or many games needing to start online at least once before they can be changed to offline. Steam Support also says offline can be deactivated if you don't shut down Steam cleanly, like if you turn off your PC or force quit Steam)

 

Just the other day the PS5's Gran Turismo 7 single player mode went down for two days because it requires an internet connection to run and they took down the servers for maintenance. If Sony was blocked in your country, no more GT7, even single player.

 

Whenever possible I buy from GOG, so I get DRM free games. As long as I have the download backed up somewhere, I never have to worry about offline modes, accounts, GOG staying available, etc. (Usually not an option for VR, not much on GOG, I'm talking mainly about non-VR)

 

Author: Oculus Monitor,  Auto Oculus Touch,  Forum Dark Mode, Phantom Touch Remover,  X-Plane Fixer
Hardware: Threadripper 1950x, MSI Gaming Trio 2080TI, Asrock X399 Taich
Headsets: Wrap 1200VR, DK1, DK2, CV1, Rift-S, GearVR, Go, Quest, Quest 2, Reverb G2

dburne
Adventurer

Why in the world punish Russian Developers or Gamers?

Pretty sure the vast majority of the Russian people do not support what is currently going on.

Punish the government, not the people.