Update: Oculus have released a statement to us that disputes the claims made by the individual claiming to be a VR game developer, saying: “We regularly offer developers financial grants to help fund early development of new titles to accelerate development or expand the scope of the game. In some cases, we exchange funding in return for launching on the Oculus Store first, with the expectation that the game will go on to launch on other platforms. In the case of Croteam, at no time did we request that they stop development for other platforms, and we look forward to seeing Serious Sam be successful across the entire VR ecosystem.”
Original Story: Oculus Rift exclusivity deals are reportedly happening, despite the company’s previous comments that they would only fund games and wouldn’t dish out cash to secure them.
In a Reddit post titled “Fuck Facebook, and fuck Oculus,” a user claiming to be a developer on Serious Sam VR outlined how Facebook had offered the game’s publishers Devolver Digital a “shitton of money” to bring the game exclusively to the Oculus Rift, a VR device that the social network owns. The user, who according to UploadVR is Level and Game Designer Mario Kotlar, wrote: “They tried to buy Serious Sam VR as well. It wasn’t easy, but we turned down a shitton of money, as we believe that truly good games will sell by themselves and make profit in the long run regardless. And also because we hate exclusives as much as you do. Dat shitton of money tho…”
Kotlar’s comments run in contrast to a previous statement made by Oculus VR co-founder Brendan Iribe, who said in an interview with Gamasutra in August 2015: “Oculus Studios is not out to buy exclusivity; they’re out to fund full games for the Rift.” Though the identity of the Reddit user claiming to be Kotlar hasn’t been verified, it isn’t out of the realms of possibility that his statement is correct. With the likes of SuperHot and Killing Floor all being swooped up under the Oculus Rift banner, many HTC Vive owners are growing increasingly frustrated by these business tactics, as Facebook and Oculus continue to divide VR gaming on PC.
Serious Sam VR.
Kotlar (or at least the Reddit user claiming to be Kotlar) followed up on his initial comments, adding: “Please don’t hate on other devs too much, I’m sure some of them didn’t have financial alternative but to accept such a deal in order to even see their games finished. In such situation, anyone would have done the same.” He then said that the Oculus employees had been “nice” to his team, continuing: “We’re not against oculus, and we definitely don’t want to throw them under the bus in any way. After all, they were nice to us, they sent us dev kits for free and provided some support. We’re just against exclusivity, we still want for oculus users to be able to play our game on their platform.”
With exclusivity being a major point of contention on consoles, it is hoped that it doesn’t continue to spread on PC gaming with virtual reality. These comments certainly suggest that this is the case, and that these continued Oculus Rift exclusivity deals are much more than Facebook and Oculus VR simply helping fund developers to allow them to be able to create their games.
