‘They tried to buy Serious Sam VR’
[Update: Oculus has provided the following response: “We regularly offer developers financial grants to help fund early development of new titles to accelerate development or expand the scope of the game. In some cases, we exchange funding in return for launching on the Oculus Store first, with the expectation that the game will go on to launch on other platforms. In the case of Croteam, at no time did we request that they stop development for other platforms, and we look forward to seeing Serious Sam be successful across the entire VR ecosystem.”
Croteam has also responded: “Ok, Mario, you’ve had fun here, now let’s get serious. I want to clarify some of the inaccuracies about our relationship with Oculus. Oculus did approach us with an offer to help fund the completion of Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope in exchange for launching first on the Oculus Store and keeping it time-limited exclusive. Their offer was to help us accelerate development of our game, with the expectation that it would eventually support all PC VR platforms. We looked at the offer and decided it wasn’t right for our team. At no time did Oculus ask for, or did we discuss total exclusivity or buyout of support from Vive. We look forward to supporting Rift and Vive.”]
The VR wars are heating up!
After a post in the HTC Vive subreddit titled “Fuck Facebook, and fuck Oculus,” regarding their propensity to buy exclusives, a Croteam developer for Serious Sam jumped in for comment. “Eagleshadow,” who participated in an AMA for the game previously today (and subsequently confirmed his identity), notes that Oculus tried to buy Serious Sam VR, and they turned down a “shitton of money” in the process.
A hatred of exclusives seems to be the reason, though this also technically means that the game is still an HTC Vive exclusive for the time being (since there’s only passing mention of Oculus support in logo form, though the trailer only showcases and mentions the Vive). Live and let live I guess.
Serious Sam VR will be out this summer in Early Access form. On the Vive!
Fuck Facebook, and fuck Oculus [Reddit]
Published: Jun 13, 2016 10:35 pm