Oculus’ new DRM protection actually makes piracy easier

Oculus’ latest attempt to block cross-platform play has inadvertently made piracy easier, Ars Technica reports.

An Oculus Runtime update on 20 May 2016 blocked the popular fan-made software Revive, which allowed HTC Vive users play Rift-exclusive games.

Revive allowed Vive users to purchase games from the Oculus Store and enjoy them on their VR headsets, despite Oculus’ attempts to create an exclusive platform for its VR titles.

Oculus said that the update was implemented to curb piracy, but it had the opposite effect instead.

LibreVR, the developer of Revive, released an updated version of the software on 21 May 2016 which circumvents the DRM protection altogether, allowing users to play Oculus Rift games on their Vive headsets once again, this time without having to necessarily purchase the game.

Exclusives versus cross-platform

“The problem is that Oculus added the check for the Rift being attached to your PC to the actual DRM. They now use the same function to check that you own the game and that you have the headset,” said LibreVR.

“I can’t disable one check without disabling the other one too. Previously these checks were separate and the DRM would only check whether you owned the game.”

Revive is aimed at allowing all VR headset owners to enjoy the wide selection of virtual reality games available on multiple platforms.

This move by Oculus seems to conflict with Palmer Luckey’s statements on Reddit earlier this year:

“If customers buy a game from us, I don’t care if they mod it to run on whatever they want. As I have said a million times (and counter to the current circlejerk), our goal is not to profit by locking people to only our hardware.”