Oculus removes DRM headset checks, won’t reuse it in the future


Oculus has done some really silly things in the past. Apart from trying to sign up deals with a number of developers in order to release their VR games first on the Oculus Rift, the team had implemented a really weird DRM hardware check in order to prevent all HTC Vive owners from playing the exclusive Oculus Rift titles. Well, good news everyone as Oculus decided to remove this DRM and claimed that it will not reuse it in the future.

As an Oculus spokesperson told PCGamesN:

“We continually revise our entitlement and anti-piracy systems, and in the June update we’ve removed the check for Rift hardware from the entitlement check. We won’t use hardware checks as part of DRM on PC in the future.”

But let’s take things from the beginning. Reddit’s member ‘CrossVR‘ released Revive; a tool that made possible to enjoy the Oculus Rift exclusive games on HTC Vive headset. Oculus the implemented a DRM hardware check in order to prevent it, however CrossVR found a workaround. The downside here was that this workaround made piracy easier, which is why Oculus decided to completely remove the DRM hardware check. And as a result of that, CrossVR released a new version of Revive (that basically reverts it back to its original version).

As Oculus’ spokesperson concluded:

“We believe protecting developer content is critical to the long-term success of the VR industry, and we’ll continue taking steps in the future to ensure that VR developers can keep investing in ground-breaking new VR content.”