Developers worried about not having access to stores other than the Oculus Store when selling their VR games can rest easy: Oculus recently confirmed that the Rift will work with games bought on Steam and other online retail outlets.
Now that the Oculus Rift has officially launched, many developers have questions about selling their games. Oculus offers its own store for Rift VR titles, but would titles bought from Steam and other sites and apps work with the headset?
Oculus answered that question on its blog, confirming that players can purchase games on platforms other than the official Oculus Store.
"The Oculus platform and store are designed to provide the best VR experience and content, but we also recognize that people will want to use apps that aren't available on the Oculus platform or in the store," Oculus wrote on its blog. "As a developer, you don't have to be in the Oculus Store — you can sell outside, and when you do that you can you use your own IAP if you prefer, and we don't take a cut. You can also request keys (royalty free) to sell your Oculus PC app on other stores, while making it available to the community through the Oculus platform."
Oculus did note, though, that players wanting to use VR games bought from other sites will have to choose the "Unknown Sources" settings on the Oculus desktop app. The company also pointed out that all games must allow customers to return to the Home screen and see any and all Oculus-specific overlays and notifications.
Full details for developers interested in going outside of the Oculus Store is available on the Oculus website.
The blog post also states that every Rift comes with the capability of being used as a development kit and that this feature will remain this year as long as developers use the latest SDK.
"If you need additional developer hardware to build for the 1.3 SDK, submit your app to the Oculus developer portal," Oculus writes. "We'll reach out to you and talk next steps.
We're looking forward to helping you ship great content on Rift, and we can't wait to see what you build!"
The Oculus Rift released on Monday, launching a new age of virtual reality gaming and interaction.
