Meta announces always online DRM for all existing and future Quest VR devices
mixed-news.com
Meta sneakily introduced "Platform Integrity Attestation API" which basically calls home to see whether the user has a valid license to play.
This means that to run apps user has to have online connection to perform an integrity test. Whether it's only a test on launch or continues call home like Denuvo-like DRMs is not yet clear. This could also mean that modified headsets could fail to pass this test essentially closing down the device for modifications that could damage "platform integrity". Not all details are clear yet but this doesn't look good.
Currently it's optional and up to app developers to enable it.
No fucking way I'll consider buying one now.
My consideration was off the table after Facebook bought Oculus.
Or be like me. Get one then Meta buys the company. Z_z
Bad luck man. I would have bought a rift if Facebook didn't ruin it.
I always wanted one, but when they made it a requirement to have and link a Facebook account to use it I completely lost interest.
I have one. Not long after I bought it, it became a brick because it forced a software update that forced a Facebook sign in to use it.
That requirement has been removed for longer than it was in place.
Will I never picked it up again to find out.
Well now you can :)
Nah I'm good. Not really that cool anyway after a few hours.
Maybe one day I'll get a Valve Index.
But you've already got a Quest?
No I've got an Oculus Go. And it's got bullshit Facebook spyware on it.
So you bought a Meta VR headset and are surprised that it's got Meta stuff on it?
What "bullshit Facebook spyware" are you talking about?
No. Read it again. I bought an Oculus Go. And at the time (2018?) I did not know it was bought by Facebook.
You not knowing doesn’t mean it already wasn’t a Facebook device. They bought oculus 4 years earlier.
still think people complaing about this is weird. Like, they made this change, and removed the facebook integration, and people still act like this is the case.
You don’t need a Facebook account. They very quickly removed that requirement.
Make a dummy one.
They make you send them your id...
No they don't.
They took that out a while ago, that's when I picked up the Quest 2. Honestly, it's the best PCVR headset out there, and this article has nothing to do with PCVR, just their own platform. This won't affect your ability to pirate PCVR games at all.
Guess I'll save up for the Valve one
HP reverb g2 is pretty solid
It's discontinued unfortunately, so don't expect much in the way of support. But it is a great VR headset that you can get on the cheap ATM
I'm really not a fan of Windows MR, both because it's locked to Windows but also because it's kind of temperamental, but it's a good headset in terms of resolution at least (and comfort).
Although I will admit it's not as buggy as it used to be so that's a plus.
Out of curiosity:
I was looking into VR headsets half a year ago and found the PICO 4 interesting as a budget option to try VR.
The Display of the G2 seems to be a lot better but costs an additional 250€. Does it really make the experience that much better and worth the bigger investment if you only want to try it out and fear that the headset will only collect dust after a month or so?
Honestly, If you are just trying out vr I think you should go for the cheaper option. I don’t have a frame of reference though as the G2 was my first headset. You also need to have a good enough GPU for the increased resolution.
Thanks, I guess I will go for the PICO once my urge to buy some new tech appears again.
Just an FYI, but the PICO 4 is made by ByteDance which is the parent company of TikTok. Facebook is awful but I don’t trust TikTok either.
I’m just waiting for the Psvr2 jailbreak. The index is nice, but their choice of display really leaves a lot to be desired. I far preferred even the slightly smeared look of my Odyssey+ to the Index, though the index’s tracking was miles ahead of my Odyssey. PSVR is the best headset on the market, but not worth my time unless it can be used forPCVR.
Or just pay $20 for one of the ones that you stick your phone in.
My phone always overheated with those
It seems (seemed) like a pretty good vr headset....just it's owned by one of the worst companies and I have no interest paying them hundreds for that level of access to my personal information.
😂😂😂😂
...and there goes my eagerness to buy the Q3. I loathe drm.
All the shills promised me and other doubters that something like this would never happen. I'm glad I lost all interest in Oculus the moment Facebook bought them.
Hopefully we'll see some solid info on the Deckard this year.
Same. And it's sad because, from what others have said, they are great vr headsets. Hopefully valve nails it with Deckard.
I so wish Facebook dropped Oculus so that someone else would do it properly.
So glad I avoid Meta products. I doubt they will be satisfied until they can live sell your data and display ads while you use the product.
Those are two very different things. Advertising giants don't actually "sell" your data, it's really not in their best interest, they make money by being the only ones with your data.
So... they sell, lease, etc either your data or some value added bullshit services or products based on your data for a higher price due to monopoly?
No, they sell advertment slots to advertisers with promise of higher ad interaction, a promise they can keep because they target those advertisements to users that are more likely to interact with them using user data. User data isn't sold, leased, whatever you want to call it.
Also, technically not entirely a monopoly because there are quite a few tech giants that operate like this. Oligopoly would be the correct term.
Who the fuck are buying shit from google and Facebook? No wonder fucking internet is going to shits
Google Pixel phones are the only phones compatible with GrapheneOS, so there's one reason.
They're also easy to unlock and relock the bootloader on
You can relock the bootloader? Basically "unrooting" the device??
It's not "unrooting" it's just preventing your OS from being replaced. It's an easy change for anyone with physical access to the device who can get past the lock screen, but can't be done by accident. So you won't be accidentally installing malicious software that will reinstall your OS, for example.
The unlock/lock and install can be done through a website, but it requires your phone to be plugged in to a computer, and you can enable/disable unlocking through the developer menu in the phone's settings.
You can also use the standard android CLI tools to lock and unlock the bootloader, but that web app is really convenient.
Edit: and for anyone wondering, you can re-lock it with any ROM, or after rooting (you don't lose root). I'm running grapheneos with a locked bootloader. Only difference between this and the stock ROM is a message that's displayed when you boot that warns you the phone isn't stock.
Yes but beware it will wipe everything on your phone!
So it just wiprs out the new OS?
Just user data
They're also absolutely the best phones you can buy, in my opinion.
And you literally can't buy phones that don't have anti-consumer software.
No one sells the old Nokia bricks, and even if they did, the networks they run on have been deprecated.
The quest is amazing. It’s cheap and completely standalone while also giving you the ability to use it with pc vr games.
Cant figure out how to delete my own comment. Ignore me
If you got a good PC for VR the Quest is great to use. I played HL Alyx on it which was incredible.
But the DRM BS though....at this point the Pico is looking better for standalone use
What DRM BS? This article? I’ve explained why it’s a whole bunch of fear mongering. There have been apps and games that require always online long before this api came around.
I haven't updated my Quest 2 since it got a 120hz patch. Been blocking their servers via Pi-Hole and Oculess because fuck Meta and their shitty requirements. Btw, PCVR players, if you want more freedom with your Quest 2 devices you might want to check out Oculess and OculusKiller.
Edit / typos
I'm also glad I've kept my quest isolated from the internet once I enabled dev mode (for oculess). I've noticed it tries to connect to IP addresses owned by Meta (according to whois), without any dns queries involved. Your pihole won't be able to block that... I went a few steps farther and set up a dedicated wifi network that only allows local traffic. Then I set up a http proxy (squid) that only allows connections to certain websites. I mostly use the quest for PCVR though, so the proxy doesn't get much use.
And thanks for sharing oculuskiller! I've been looking for something like that for a while.
Oh, I didn't know about that. Gonna try isolating it too.
Thanks. I'll be checking these out later.
Liiiiiitle bit of an outrage attempting title.
The API is being added, it’s optional for developers, and the person that is quoted in the article even says that it’s not really going to be used for that.
Also there’s never been anything stopping developers from making their games “always online” to begin with, so this changes nothing.
This is like saying steam requires always online simply because an api exists for online checking drm.
Not a fair comparison to Steam as it allows indefinite-ish offline access as long as you check in once. This new Quest restriction has nothing like this. It's more similar to DRM systems like Denuvo that call home on startup or during play time. The API also checks device integrity which means access to apps could be disabled for modified devices and Steam does nothing of sort.
The comparison was that the ability to enforce always online exists in steam, just like it will here. Neither will mandate it.
The ability to do this isn’t only being added now, it’s just that meta have made an api for it that developers can use if they want instead of writing their own.
Honestly I'm not as optimistic as you are. Official API gives implicit permission for DRM. Right now if an APP did this it would be review bombed and suffer backslash. With official API it'll slowly normalizes DRM and suddenly everything requires online.
Quest is getting more closed with every release - remember when Facebook login was not required? The whole dev ecosystem is getting more complex with every update. This seems like an up-coming trend especially now that Quests main competition will be an extremely closed ecosystem of Apple. This will give Quest permision to basically lock down more.
My bet is that a year in most of the apps will have this DRM though I'd love to be proven wrong. I love my Quest 2 and only use it to draw/sculpt when I travel and that would basically kill the device for me so I might be a bit over protective of my hobby here but it really sucks when you buy a thing and somebody else tells you how to use it.
Only the nerds care. There is DRM on every damn platform or there except gog and nobody cares because it works fine and they aren't the users who just want to steal.
You hear about a shitty DRM implementation like once a year. This is all just noise from pirates.
This is such a "why does privacy matter when I have nothing to hide" argument.
God forbid my software check that it's not stolen!
Hey did you steal that? Did you steal that? Is that stolen? No don't block my line of sight I need to see if you stole that. Did you steal that? Did you steal that?
What a consumer experience.
And yet for most products, nobody notices nor cares.
Whatever you say.
"Noise from pirates" is bullshit. Pirates generally tend to have a better experience with their media than legal users.
Lolol 👌 Plex is definitely more consistent then Netflix 🙄
They're plenty of people who complain about it when it doesn't work, but they don't know why it doesn't work, they're just annoyed it doesn't.
yea, this article is intentionally rage baiting. I hate meta as much as the next guy, but 1) im shocked there wasnt any DRM for their apps already, and b) this just opens an API for apps.
Im just not going to buy games with DRM, same as steam.
Yeah, but people love finding new reasons to rant about Meta (as if there weren't enough already)
Why are all these companies hell bent on making more e-waste
Or, what the fuck do they think they're protecting against?
It's not about protecting anything, it's about acquiring and selling as much of your personal data as they can.
Aaaaaaaaaand just like that, never buying a Facebook headset. Also because apparently they firmware updated to requiring a Facebook account.
Meh.
I'll go valve index 2.0
I think this is wrong, at least on the quest 2, this used to be the case, but they got rid of this requirement I think a year or so ago.
If you have a source, pls provide it.
Didn't they just change to require meta account instead?
I dunno, I just remember reviewers discussing it. I don't have facebook. But looks like they did in fact ditch the facebook account requirement.... in favor of meta accounts https://www.tomsguide.com/news/meta-just-removed-facebook-login-requirement-for-quest-headsets-what-you-need-to-know
No thanks.
Index 2.0 when?
Whenever it graces us with its presence. lol.
Sounds pretty on-brand for them.
Remember kids: Meta = cancer
Do everything you can to stop meta from metastasizing.
We've reached a point that technology is not improving, but degrading -- who on earth is going to accept this as is and let third parties acquire random information about them, including their credit card? I mean, if a hacker manages to bust (whatever feature that allows this bs to happen) and forward info to them instead of the meta HQ -- they are going to have a heck of a honeypot.
I very much doubt even 10% of Quest owners will even bother to complain online about this.
Complain? I would be shocked if 10% of quest users even know it's happening
I agree. But I worry that unfortunately this won't stop most people.
Welp as someone who cannot maintain a constant internet connection on my devices this is quite the turnoff
Another reason I would never buy a Meta product
I can't imagine what kind of a bad way I'd have to be in mentally to end up buying a Meta product...
Yep. Called it. Again.
Glad I got a Vive.
You’re still using a Vive?
Some people aren't using any VR headset.
Oh, that’s fine! I’m just impressed with the longevity some people have gotten out of the Vive. It was a well built HMD.
This will be removed once thousands of little Billy or grandma's can't get that app to work, just like the Facebook requirement. Their support is a joke.
I had an app stuck in the update queue (still no way to see that queue). The recommendation was to do a factory reset. Not open up queue, restart download, not remove from queue - none of those things you can do! Good thing I had sidequest and was able to open up the quest taskmanger on my computer and do a force quit or I would never have been able to download anything again!
No way they let something that does that on purpose everytime the router goes out. Millions of factory resets? No, millions of returns.
I hope you're right.
Oculus was dead to me the moment it was announced Facebook was purchasing them.
I have trigeminal neuralgia, a painful nerve disorder in my face, meaning I can't wear VR headsets. So when I find out that Zuckerberg's "VR is going to change everything" bullshit has yet another issue, I feel smug. Pretty much the only time I can feel smug about trigeminal neuralgia.
I'm so, so, so sorry. My infraorbital nerve runs through my maxillary sinus and I had really fucking bad 3-month sinus infection that caused nerve pain on that isolated nerve (among a lot of other things). I can't imagine how you are dealing with this even though I do have nerve pain elsewhere.
Thanks. I've had it for 10 years now and I'm on a good regimen of pharmaceuticals that deal with the vast majority of pain, but my face is still too sensitive to have anything on it for more than about 5 minutes. Sorry to hear you're dealing with nerve pain yourself and I hope you find a solution that will at least help.
Man am I glad I bought an index after my rift s broke
Yeah, but no new games for PC VR since quest has gobbled up the market.
STEAM DECKERD WHERE ARE YOU
LOL
Master class in destroying a product line.
Can't tell who is more clueless, Zuck or Musk? They both seem to be hell bent on ruining their own companies.
The one thing I am excited about is eventually seeing Meta cancel their entire Quest division and clearing-out all these VR devices for pennies on the dollar. At which point I would expect some enterprising hackers find a way to run them off a regular PC without needing them to phone-home all the time.
The whole metaverse shtick was ridiculous. Nobody asked for it, and yet they spent billions promoting it anyway
Meta has revenue of over $100B. So even if they flushed $10B down the drain on this stuff (10-15% of revenue on R&D), that would be right in-line with industry standards. What's what you can do when you have such a ridiculous amount of money.
I thought about getting a Quest 2. Glad I didn't.
I've had my quest 2 for a while now but not used it in a bit. Certainly not making me want to play it or get anything new for it.
This doesn't affect using it as a PC VR headset though, does it?
Because that's the only reason I was thinking of waiting for a Quest 3 instead of buying a Pico, anyways.
Considering it's for existing and future stuff, things could change later on and it break pc functionality. I'm not sure to actually answer your q though
No, not at all, it's strictly on their platform and that's not going to change, because they physically can't install DRM onto your PC's existing non-oculus apps. And no, even though people in this thread are claiming it, they won't stop PCVR integration because that would be suicide for their VR headset. Honestly this is just the way gaming systems are going now, new releases on Steam all have Denuvo, which is even worse.
Anyone who gets a different headset to "avoid DRM" is going to be very disappointed when they see PCVR games released with DRM.
No, not yet anyways. But Meta is clearly on a quest to lock-down the devices that started out rather free so it's really just a matter of time.
Lol no they aren't, they have zero plans to cut out PCVR integration and even if they secretly did that would be suicide for their VR headset.
I use a quest headset for PCVR and my advice would be just don’t. Their software treats this use case as a second class citizen and it shows. I haven’t been able to play online in weeks because since the last update the link decides to completely drop after 15-30 minutes of use.
Get virtual desktop, it's a must for PCVR on Oculus devices
Have one of the original dk1 units in storage gathering dust. I was so excited for it until they pulled Linux support and Facebook buying them out. Never touched it since.
I don't think Denuvo does that, I have lots of Denuvo protected games that work just fine offline after I activated them.
But yeah, fuck Facebook.
Yup, another thing that will be (forcefull) used only by Meta emplyees.
If you look at the data flow diagram, this is basically just OAuth for a device ID and APK combination. It’s a far cry from “always on DRM”.
Are there any custom firmware for the Quest 2 yet?
News to me if there is, but damn would that be sweet news
I've got to get a new VR Helm when I can, but the other options are so pricey
I really hope the Valve Deckard is real and can compete on price with Oculus. I feel like it should be doable comparing the price of the cheapest Steam Deck to the price of the Quest 3, but I don't know a whole lot about how much more hardware has to go into a headset over a game "console" alone.
I wanna completely cut facebook out of my life, but.... Some company's gotta start working with me on price
They have to bring developers along with though. The Quest has completely taken over the VR market.
There is also the pico that costs more or less the same iirc. Although it's not available worldwide and the company was bought by bytedance not long ago, so...
Looks like my rift s is still unaffected. Guess I'll be holding onto it for another 4 years (who am I kidding, I was going to anyway)
What's the Decard?
Sure glad I switched to a Pico 4. Well I still have my Quest 2 for certain situations (VRchat when away from PC) as long as they'll graciously allow me to use it, but that helps me decide whether to get a Q3 or not.
This effectively kills beat saber custom maps, which is a large part of quest users. Currently, the custom maps mod already requires hoops to be jumped through but this is possibly way worse.
The article you’re replying to literally says that it’s not likely going to be used to stop that in beat Sabre.
Lolol only if the beat saber devs willing implement the API that prevents sharing. Christ even on here assholes don't read. It's a optional API and OP is just socially engineering your rage.
Dance for your master you lazy Muppet.
Boycott Meta regardless of this
what the hell meta you had a good thing
It stopped being a good thing when Meta took over and you had to login with your Facebook account.
You haven’t had to log in with a a Facebook account for 12 months, that decision was quickly reversed.
Meta never had a good thing. Oculus had a good thing. Meta WAS the bad thing. The writing was on the wall from the start and the open VR community has preached about it for years. It's a shame for the best outgoing PC-Free VR hardware.
that's what i was thinking when I wrote this oops 😅
"Meta announces optional API to allow developers to get paid"
It's painful how much you editorializing the article. You are basically fox news.