RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS

[Blarghagh]

I see some people defending it as "early adopter stuff is always expensive, adjusted for inflation pong was like 700 bucks too" but early adopters would be the people who bought Nintendo's Virtual Boy in 1995. We had the early adopter phase - what we need is a consumer friendly item.

[Mamoulian War]

Geeze, the consumer Oculus Rift got priced. In the US, it's about 600 USD. Where I live, it's 700 Euros + Shipping which translates to 800 USD. That's insane. As someone who got to use the DK2 on a regular basis and loved it, I still wouldn't pay more than 250 bucks for it until there were at least some solid products for it - right now it's a gimmick.

 

Give it few weeks, and there will be enough porn for it, to justify the price :D

[Lexx]

Hahaha. I totally wanted to buy this thing... But 700€ in Germany... No way, nope. It's like all this talk about lower prices was total bs. I mean, keep in mind the consumer version recommends games to run in 90fps.

[Ganrich]

Hahaha. I totally wanted to buy this thing... But 700€ in Germany... No way, nope. It's like all this talk about lower prices was total bs. I mean, keep in mind the consumer version recommends games to run in 90fps.

They have been saying 90fps was recommended for a long time. IIRC, less than that would cause screen flicker in your peripheral vision and cause headaches. Not to mention that I am sure lower frames cause some input delay, and that would lead to "VR sickness." So, if you don't want headaches and vomiting then make sure your PC is beefy enough to run your game on 2 displays.

 

Other than the price tag... I am waiting because I don't want to build a new main rig just yet (I'm waiting to see what AMD's Zen processor line, and their Polaris graphics cards look like before buying. I'm tired of blue and green, and need red to bring some competition again. I have a bit of faith in AMD this go around), and also... The only game I know of that is worth a crap that supports VR at present is Elite: Dangerous. I love ED, but not that much.

[Keyrock]

I wonder how this will fare, given the price tag.  It will be interesting to find out what the proverbial line in the sand is for VR headsets.  For home consoles it's $400.  If your console costs more than $400 it will fail to sell regardless of how impressive the tech is (this does not bode well for the majority of Steam Machines).  For handhelds it's $200.  There will obviously be enthusiasts that will buy this at launch, for whom no amount of price tag is high enough a barrier, but I'm curious to see if $600, which is a rather significant sum to the average consumer, will be a deterrent to said average consumer.  My guess is yes. 

 

The other factor in this is other VR headsets coming out and what price they will sell for.

[Lexx]

 

Hahaha. I totally wanted to buy this thing... But 700€ in Germany... No way, nope. It's like all this talk about lower prices was total bs. I mean, keep in mind the consumer version recommends games to run in 90fps.

They have been saying 90fps was recommended for a long time. IIRC, less than that would cause screen flicker in your peripheral vision and cause headaches. Not to mention that I am sure lower frames cause some input delay, and that would lead to "VR sickness." So, if you don't want headaches and vomiting then make sure your PC is beefy enough to run your game on 2 displays.

 

 

Yeah, that's the point. Not only do you have to pay 700€ for the device, you'll also have to spend *at least* as much on a machine that can run the games well enough. So based on this, I'd say VR is still far away from this "available for everyone"-thing they talked about in their kickstarter years ago.

Edited January 7, 2016 by Lexx

[HoonDing]

[Ganrich]

 

 

Hahaha. I totally wanted to buy this thing... But 700€ in Germany... No way, nope. It's like all this talk about lower prices was total bs. I mean, keep in mind the consumer version recommends games to run in 90fps.

 

They have been saying 90fps was recommended for a long time. IIRC, less than that would cause screen flicker in your peripheral vision and cause headaches. Not to mention that I am sure lower frames cause some input delay, and that would lead to "VR sickness." So, if you don't want headaches and vomiting then make sure your PC is beefy enough to run your game on 2 displays.

 

Yeah, that's the point. Not only do you have to pay 700€ for the device, you'll also have to spend *at least* as much on a machine that can run the games well enough. So based on this, I'd say VR is still far away from this "available for everything"-thing they talked about in their kickstarter years ago.

Indeed. I think we are looking at a "first to market" gouge here, myself. Keep in mind that they are "the" brand name in VR, as well. I honestly was also waiting to see the Valve/HTC Vive in comparison to the Rift. Valve's SDK is likely to be less propriety sans the usual "game can be on any store front, but has to be on Steam" clause. It will also support Linux out of the box. Where as Occulus is bringing their support at some vague "later date." That's the reason I'm waiting on AMD as well. Their current GFX cards have been solidly better than Nvidia in 2k resolutions. While they tend to lose in 1080p, and trade blows in 4K. Occulus is closer to 2k. So, IMHO AMD could be the better option when trying to get your PC to be a single Card solution and avoid SLI/Crossfire setups. Also, Directx 12 and Vulkan could play an interesting part here. At the moment, I would say a $1000+ rig would be recommended to run a VR headset. I would build to ensure I had a cushion so you never dip below 90fps in most games.

 

@keyrock - I think VR headsets should be compared to buying trends of people getting top of the line monitors (2k, 4K, etc). Because they are more likely people with PCs capable of maintaining 90fps at the HDM's required 90fps already, and now having to build a rig specifically for it. I personally think the $300 -$400 window is what they should be aiming for. We will see if competition brings that number down.

[mkreku]

That's not the reason at all.

 

The reason the Oculus Rift is so expensive is because they made the decision to go all in on the equipment. They are using very high definition OLED screens, headphones that are comparable to Sennheiser 700-something (pretty high end stuff), quality lenses, etc. Oculus Rift realized that their competition had already covered the cheap route and the medium route but there were no high end VR goggles. They simply decided to be that.

 

Of course it's prohibitively expensive. But there will be others. The Vive, PSVR, Gear VR and more. There will be a headset for every price point. Oculus Rift just happens to be at the top of the heap.

[rjshae]

Yes, the specs are impressive; thanks for pointing that out.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Games are becoming uncrackable: http://www.vg247.com/2016/01/08/latest-pc-drm-tech-too-hard-to-crack-no-more-cracked-games-in-two-years-says-cracking-group/ I say that's good news for gaming.

[Fenixp]

I say that's good news for gaming.

Not really.

a) Pirates are, thus far, the only group that actually gives a crap about preservation if videogames. If it were up to a good deal of publishers, we'd forget all big releases the moment next installments come out. (you know where, say, GOG gets a lot of working executables for their games? Yup, it's cracking groups.)

b) Heavy DRM don't exist to prevent piracy, didn't for a very long time. Enforcement of regional restrictions, DLC distribution, usage statistics tracking - that's a large reason of why DRM is a thing nowadays.

c) The news post is mostly just a cracking group whining, at this point, there's not yet such a thing as "uncrackable"

Edited January 11, 2016 by Fenixp

[Mamoulian War]

If it's true, It's Good news for the suits, but the bad news for customers and preservation projects like internet archive

[rjshae]

If it's true, It's Good news for the suits, but the bad news for customers and preservation projects like internet archive

 

I don't see this as bad news. I pay for the games I play, so I'm also paying for the pirated copies that unscrupulous people play for free. More money to the game developers => better profitability => lower risk for investing in new games.

[Fenixp]

I don't see this as bad news. I pay for the games I play, so I'm also paying for the pirated copies that unscrupulous people play for free. More money to the game developers => better profitability => lower risk for investing in new games.

There are several problems with this statement.

First of all, a bit of a logical fallacy in "paying for the pirated copies". You don't pay for development of the game and I can assure you that those who do are very well aware of piracy ratings. You're not paying a cent more than you would if pirates were to disappear over night.

 

Secondly, there's the issue with 'piracy causes less sales'. I'm pretty sure I've seen similar research conducted with videogames somewhere, but at least with music, anime and movies, piracy helps sales or at the very least doesn't harm them. The catch here is twofold:

1.) Word of mouth. Even with the most advertised products out there, a lot of sales will be generated by people talking about videogames. This talk stems from both pirated and bought copies. See where I'm going with this?

2.) People who pirate games may often end up purchasing them. People who only pirate games will most likely not purchase them anyway. Belief that reduction of piracy will lead to higher sales is not quite based on real data and any claim of "Piracy led to 90% of lost sales" is completely disconnected from reality.

 

In other words, not only are you not paying for "filthy pirates", they might very well bring more money to your favorite developers!

 

And then there's the last point, and that's how consumer, like you, benefits from piracy. "What is this lunatic talking about", you ask? Well, as long as pirates exist, they're competition. "Can't compete with free!" you say, well... Turns out you can as proven by Steam, Netflix, Spotify, Crunchyroll and similar services. While they provide content with copy protection that's extremely easy to break, they're exactly the services designed to compete with free - to give consumer a hassle-free, cheap experience which outclasses stuff you can pirate.

 

Of course, last point would be my personal one, and that's the already brought up archival. Games that I can't purchase anywhere? They're on pirate sites. What happens when Steam inevitably goes down? Well, I know for a fact that there's someone, completely disconnected from big companies and corporations, who will keep these games I paid for alive and easy to reach. It always provided me with comfort - but with recent developments, both in law and extremely invasive technology, I'm worried that won't be the case any longer in some time. And all benefits piracy brings us will be lost.

 

Honestly, piracy was always a victimless crime and in light of recent studies, it might be even beneficial. But a lot of people are extremely happy to have their liberty taken away because of a lack of understanding and negative propaganda. Piracy is supposedly "Killing gaming!" for as long as I can remember - yet PC gaming is now stronger than ever.

 

Edit: On other thought, let's remove the links to torrent freak, although the site should be fine as it's just a news blog. Anyway, if anybody wants the original links, feel free to message me.

Edited January 11, 2016 by Fenixp

[Mamoulian War]

 

If it's true, It's Good news for the suits, but the bad news for customers and preservation projects like internet archive

 

I don't see this as bad news. I pay for the games I play, so I'm also paying for the pirated copies that unscrupulous people play for free. More money to the game developers => better profitability => lower risk for investing in new games.

 

 

One of the reasons, why you have so many Steam sales, is the direct competition with piracy. No piracy = no sales. Just look at the console market... There are almost no sales on digital downloads compared to PC games.

[sorophx]

not to mention, that the majority of people who pirate video games can't afford to buy them anyway. the publisher loses very few sales from people, who'd try and find the money to buy that one game/year. piracy is prevalent in countries like China, India and Russia, where retailers are ****e, and Steam is the only means of getting games at a reasonable price.

Edited January 11, 2016 by sorophx

[Oerwinde]

That's not the reason at all.

 

The reason the Oculus Rift is so expensive is because they made the decision to go all in on the equipment. They are using very high definition OLED screens, headphones that are comparable to Sennheiser 700-something (pretty high end stuff), quality lenses, etc. Oculus Rift realized that their competition had already covered the cheap route and the medium route but there were no high end VR goggles. They simply decided to be that.

 

Of course it's prohibitively expensive. But there will be others. The Vive, PSVR, Gear VR and more. There will be a headset for every price point. Oculus Rift just happens to be at the top of the heap.

According to an AMA yesterday, Oculus is essentially trying to be the Steam of VR too. They helped fund a bunch of exclusive VR games to get people to get their games through the oculus store (games are exclusive to the store, not the Rift.) So their endgame isn't to have the most pervasive hardware, but to be the goto place for VR everything.

[the_dog_days]

not to mention, that the majority of people who pirate video games can't afford to buy them anyway.

While I agree with the statement that stopping piracy doesn't translate into sales, I'm not convinced the above statement is correct. I look at digital piracy as magpie-like hording that has nothing to do with whether or not the persons involved are without financial means of purchasing games.

[sorophx]

well, maybe it's a bit too general of a statement on my part. I should rather say: couldn't afford them at some point, got a taste of what piracy is like, got used to it and never bothered to stop pirating games since.

 

at least that's the story with the majority of my friends from the former Soviet Union. 

[Ganrich]

 

That's not the reason at all.

 

The reason the Oculus Rift is so expensive is because they made the decision to go all in on the equipment. They are using very high definition OLED screens, headphones that are comparable to Sennheiser 700-something (pretty high end stuff), quality lenses, etc. Oculus Rift realized that their competition had already covered the cheap route and the medium route but there were no high end VR goggles. They simply decided to be that.

 

Of course it's prohibitively expensive. But there will be others. The Vive, PSVR, Gear VR and more. There will be a headset for every price point. Oculus Rift just happens to be at the top of the heap.

According to an AMA yesterday, Oculus is essentially trying to be the Steam of VR too. They helped fund a bunch of exclusive VR games to get people to get their games through the oculus store (games are exclusive to the store, not the Rift.) So their endgame isn't to have the most pervasive hardware, but to be the goto place for VR everything.

I was sitting here thinking to myself, "You know what I want? More storefronts to make my PC experience more obnoxious. To top it off, we need a new technology that is Apple-esque and hampers adoption.". /sarcasm

 

IMHO, this thing requires a PC to be worth it. The specification requirements will dictate it for a long time. If that's the case I don't want to be required to shop at a single store for games. Whether that is oculus' store or Steam. The games should be everywhere and the hardware should differentiate itself via hardware features and price and not a locked down store of exclusive games. This is why the Vive exists. I bet Valve caught wind of the exclusive games on oculus' store and started working on a competitive option to oculus. Funny that Valve was working with oculus for a time, and possibly built their biggest future competition.

 

This is the $2 Billion Facebook purchase talking. I'll hedge my bets that the open option wins and this will go down like android vs Apple. While oculus will be the Apple and carve out %20 adoption and all open options will have %80 market share because of varying prices. We will see.

[Fenixp]

Piracy is prevalent in countries like China, India and Russia, where retailers are ****e, and Steam is the only means of getting games at a reasonable price.

That actually sort of brings me to the point that western videogames would have a lot more difficult time penetrating European and Russian market if it weren't for piracy. As it stands, when game shops were getting into these parts, we already knew our Ultimas, Dooms and Elder Scrolls and were extremely excited for next installments in these popular franchises. People have a tendency of reducing piracy into this evil movement of doom while completely omitting the cultural and social importance it holds to this very day. Edited January 11, 2016 by Fenixp

[mkreku]

 

Piracy is prevalent in countries like China, India and Russia, where retailers are ****e, and Steam is the only means of getting games at a reasonable price.

That actually sort of brings me to the point that western videogames would have a lot more difficult time penetrating European and Russian market if it weren't for piracy. As it stands, when game shops were getting into these parts, we already knew our Ultimas, Dooms and Elder Scrolls and were extremely excited for next installments in these popular franchises. People have a tendency of reducing piracy into this evil movement of doom while completely omitting the cultural and social importance it holds to this very day.

 

 

Source for the "cultural and social importance"? Would love to see the research behind that statement.

[Zoraptor]

Presumably it's his opinion rather than knowledge garnered from careful perusal of peer reviewed articles in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Gaming. There's next to no credible research about gaming at all.

 

It doesn't even sound much like an authoritative statement, generally there's no need to write IMO at the end of every post, it's implied.

 

 

not to mention, that the majority of people who pirate video games can't afford to buy them anyway.

While I agree with the statement that stopping piracy doesn't translate into sales, I'm not convinced the above statement is correct. I look at digital piracy as magpie-like hording that has nothing to do with whether or not the persons involved are without financial means of purchasing games.

 

 

Most of those who pirate don't do so exclusively, so they can afford some games. There are two groups doing the pirating, those who have a limited budget and those who just don't want to pay but could if pushed. You might get some extra sales from the latter- not all that many, I suspect, $60 a pop for something that used to be 'free' and hence disposable is a big difference- but from the former you're just more likely to have them spread the limited cash they have around more thinly. So instead of buying, say, Fallout 4 and TWitcher 3 for $120 and pirating otherwise they'll buy a dozen older games at $10 a pop to spend the same amount and play the same number of games; even some of the people with decent money will do this too. It's already what many people who don't pirate do. Most of the sales gained are likely to be at low price points, not high, and hence well after the success of a game has been determined¹.

 

¹ Oraptor Z, Bruce V & O'Flies L 2016; PRSoG 7(1): 42-5

 

(Inspiration has deserted me on article titles, couldn't even come up with a decent acronym for the journal)

Edited January 12, 2016 by Zoraptor

[Fenixp]

Source for the "cultural and social importance"? Would love to see the research behind that statement.

That's the part of my statement you take issue with, really? Every widespread phenomena has some cultural and social importance, all you need to do to get that is to live in a country where piracy runs rampant. Heck, there are countries which would apply mods on a game, rebrand it and sell it under a different name - now that's genuinely harmful piracy, but denying its cultural impact on countries where it actually happens would be a little silly.

 

Anyway, the bit of my statement you actually should have taken issue with is the bit which goes on about *what* kind of importance that is, in other words, opening up to western market before it even properly arrived, because that's based purely on anecdotal evidence and my own experience.

 

Edit: We would never talk about Doom in school if a classmate didn't bring a floppy (floppies?) with a copy from his uncle, which then quickly spread around. Majority of the games which formed my childhood were pirated - not that we knew that'S even a thing back then. And a big part of early purchases from me and my friends were based on excitement for next installments of those games or at least games which were similar. I moved around quite a lot when I was a kid/teenager so I experienced more than a single collective where this happened. Naturally, I might have just gotten lucky and what I experienced might not have been an indicative of majority at all.

Edited January 12, 2016 by Fenixp