Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Some smart cookie figured out a way to make Oculus Rift exclusive games work with the HTC Vive and, as of now, a patch for the Rift has rendered that cross-platform capability inactive.
A couple of weeks ago we reported on the Revive program, one that allowed folks gaming on the Vive to play Rift games. It wasn't perfect, nor was it tested across all games, but users were reporting experiencing a lot of success getting games working on their Vive that weren't technically supposed to be.
As expected, however, the Rift team has nipped this problem in the bud. The most recent app update to the Oculus headset, according to Engadget, once again returns us to a world where Oculus headsets can play certain games Vive headsets can't and vice versa. We understand that this will likely upset a few folks currently dwelling in the land of virtual reality, but we all knew it was coming. If some exploit allowed gamers to play Ratchet & Clank or Uncharted on the PC, you better believe someone would get a patch out with a quickness.
According to the initial report, it's still possible to trick your computer into thinking you're running a Rift when you're actually using a Vive, but you would need to own both headsets in order to pull that off. Obviously, the cost of these things makes that an expensive venture, and what would be the point if you already own both headsets?
The folks over at Ars Technica had a chat with a Rift representative who explained that the latest patch wasn't so much targeted at Revive specifically as it was geared toward cutting down on piracy in all forms. Developers made their games to work on specific platforms for a reason, and using a workaround to get them running on the wrong platform could be rightly frustrating for them.
It might seem like a small issue to those who play the game, but that kind of stuff can really hurt a developer. Say a team releases a game for Rift and folks figure out an exploit to get it running on the Vive. Now say that the game experiences all kinds of issues on the Vive, leading folks to leave bad reviews or create generally negative buzz online because the game, as far as they can tell, is buggy or broken. That could then result in fewer sales for the title, which isn't fair when you consider the fact that they are now being judged on a product being played in a way that it wasn't intended.
But, as always, we'd be interested in hearing the take of our readers in the comments section below.
