Facebook acquires Sanzaru Games

Atmos

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Sanzaru Games, the developer behind Oculus-funded VR title Asgard’s Wrath.

I never planned on buying Asgards Wrath anyway, or Beat Saber for that matter so makes no odds to me if they're exclusive to the Oculus store.

I think the only Oculus exclusive I'll buy this year is Lone Echo.
 
I'm surprised that they haven't bought Ready At Dawn yet tbh. They should have started doing this ages ago with indie developers.
 
I guess after Sony snatched up Insomniac games Oculus realised they needed to do something to stop it happening again.
Asgards Wrath looks amazing.... but i would swap Sanzaru Games for Insomniac in a heartbeat.

In an ideal world no one would these indies at all and the indies would support everyone but sadly it does not work that way.......................
(I wonder if Hellblade 2 will support VR now MS have bought Ninja Theory?)
 
Thing it it doesn’t matter how many Devs you buy you can’t stop key staff leaving and forming new studios. Valve have had people leave too.

I doubt Oculus cares because they can afford not to care in the way they bought What’s App and closed it down months later. To me Facebook are like the race car about to lose the race so smash into the leader to stop them winning. Spite is a terrible thing and Zuckerberg has it in spades.

I wonder how many people bought Rift S to play Half Life Alyx v those who bought the Rift S to play Asgard’s Wrath?
 
I always thought Sanzaru were part of Oculus. They have been working with Oculus from pretty much the beginning.
 
Thing it it doesn’t matter how many Devs you buy you can’t stop key staff leaving and forming new studios. Valve have had people leave too.

I doubt Oculus cares because they can afford not to care in the way they bought What’s App and closed it down months later. To me Facebook are like the race car about to lose the race so smash into the leader to stop them winning. Spite is a terrible thing and Zuckerberg has it in spades.

I wonder how many people bought Rift S to play Half Life Alyx v those who bought the Rift S to play Asgard’s Wrath?

sure staff can leave, such is the way of the world......., Do you think sony were spiteful in their purchasing of insomniac as well then ?

as for whats ap I have seen you say this before i think, and you may well be correct however, my whatsap works just fine still so doesnt look closed down to me. As for facebook buying them.... i can tell you for a fact the developers of whats app did pretty well out of that whole debacle.

they approached facebook right at the start and all they wanted was a job...... Facebook turned them down and it ended up costing them billions.

Acton just came across as a massive turncoat over the whole thing imo. you choose to sell out your company for billions, then fair enough. I dont blame them for selling, but if you do that you lose the moral high ground if the new parent company does not do what you want. (which sounds a bit familiar i think)
 
Job stability for Sanzaru staff. Each studio invested in or purchased is more money invested into the furtherance of VR. As to how many platforms, at this time who knows. Beat Saber continues to be a multi platform best seller with the updates hitting all formats.
 
This is unlikely to be a case of a big fish swallowing a little fish. This will be mutually beneficial arrangement for those at the negotiating table, though not all those waiting outside the door, unfortunately.

I suspect the ultimate goal of many founders of indie studios is to sell up for a monsta pay check and retire early. They're passionate artists, of course they are, but they're not artists working for free.

This has been the way of the game developing landscape for it's whole existence. Someone / something will rise to fill the void left by Sanzaru.
 
sure staff can leave, such is the way of the world......., Do you think sony were spiteful in their purchasing of insomniac as well then ?

as for whats ap I have seen you say this before i think, and you may well be correct however, my whatsap works just fine still so doesnt look closed down to me. As for facebook buying them.... i can tell you for a fact the developers of whats app did pretty well out of that whole debacle.

they approached facebook right at the start and all they wanted was a job...... Facebook turned them down and it ended up costing them billions.

Acton just came across as a massive turncoat over the whole thing imo. you choose to sell out your company for billions, then fair enough. I dont blame them for selling, but if you do that you lose the moral high ground if the new parent company does not do what you want. (which sounds a bit familiar i think)

Sony would be spiteful if you bought a PSVR only to find out the headset didn’t work because this particular game you bought need only works on PSVR+ and Sony expects you to buy spend another £400 on it. Obviously Sony wouldn’t do this but Oculus are expecting people to buy a RiftS while not supporting any other PCVR headset when it only takes a few lines of code to do so aka Revive. They then buy Devs to stop games appearing on rival stores. That’s Spiteful. Thank god we have Valve and GabeN who supports all headsets.

If we support exclusivity with PC peripherals don’t cry when your steering wheel or HOTAS doesn’t work with that game you bought just because a Dev who doesn’t care about gamers couldn’t resist a fat bundle in the post. It’s crazy and why I’m against it.
 
Sony would be spiteful if you bought a PSVR only to find out the headset didn’t work because this particular game you bought need only works on PSVR+ and Sony expects you to buy spend another £400 on it. Obviously Sony wouldn’t do this but Oculus are expecting people to buy a RiftS while not supporting any other PCVR headset when it only takes a few lines of code to do so aka Revive. They then buy Devs to stop games appearing on rival stores. That’s Spiteful. Thank god we have Valve and GabeN who supports all headsets.

If we support exclusivity with PC peripherals don’t cry when your steering wheel or HOTAS doesn’t work with that game you bought just because a Dev who doesn’t care about gamers couldn’t resist a fat bundle in the post. It’s crazy and why I’m against it.

 
What’s that thing in Never Ending Story that’s trying to gobble up everything just like Facebook are doing? ‘The Nothing’ lol
 
This must be Snowdog.

 
Sony would be spiteful if you bought a PSVR only to find out the headset didn’t work because this particular game you bought need only works on PSVR+ and Sony expects you to buy spend another £400 on it. Obviously Sony wouldn’t do this but Oculus are expecting people to buy a RiftS while not supporting any other PCVR headset when it only takes a few lines of code to do so aka Revive. They then buy Devs to stop games appearing on rival stores. That’s Spiteful. Thank god we have Valve and GabeN who supports all headsets.

If we support exclusivity with PC peripherals don’t cry when your steering wheel or HOTAS doesn’t work with that game you bought just because a Dev who doesn’t care about gamers couldn’t resist a fat bundle in the post. It’s crazy and why I’m against it.

I'm so glad to hear that Sony have decided to have Insomniac release games for other consoles and PCs.

And that GabeN and Valve have decided to allow Oculus native access to the Index and Valve headsets which has allowed Oculus to extend their SDK so that they can release games on the Oculus Store with native support for those headsets without people needing to use Revive. Very good of them!

First I've heard about both of those things but if Sony and Valve aren't being spiteful then those things must have happened, right? Right? 😂😂😂
 
I'm so glad to hear that Sony have decided to have Insomniac release games for other consoles and PCs.

And that GabeN and Valve have decided to allow Oculus native access to the Index and Valve headsets which has allowed Oculus to extend their SDK so that they can release games on the Oculus Store with native support for those headsets without people needing to use Revive. Very good of them!

First I've heard about both of those things but if Sony and Valve aren't being spiteful then those things must have happened, right? Right? 😂😂😂

When I go to Steam and Look at Valves own game I see Oculus listed as supported headsets.

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Now you show me any mention of Index on the Oculus Store. Or any mention of Revive. There isn’t any because that’s the difference between Oculus and Valve
 
If Valve gave Oculus permission to extend their SDK to cover the Valve and HTC headsets you would see the Index being supported on the Oculus Store.

We've been over this numerous times before.

Games on Steam can have native access to Oculus headsets because Oculus have allowed them to do so. Valve haven't reciprocated.

There's no spite involved on the part of Oculus. They've given Valve everything they need to allow Oculus headset owners native access to their Steam Store without needing to use a translation layer.

If anyone is being spiteful it's Valve because they're refusing to return the favour. They don't get anywhere enough grief that they should get for this anti-consumer and anti-competitive behaviour. It's pretty disgraceful tbh.
 
If Valve gave Oculus permission to extend their SDK to cover the Valve and HTC headsets you would see the Index being supported on the Oculus Store.

We've been over this numerous times before.

Games on Steam can have native access to Oculus headsets because Oculus have allowed them to do so. Valve haven't reciprocated.

There's no spite involved on the part of Oculus. They've given Valve everything they need to allow Oculus headset owners native access to their Steam Store without needing to use a translation layer.

If anyone is being spiteful it's Valve because they're refusing to return the favour. They don't get anywhere enough grief that they should get for this anti-consumer and anti-competitive behaviour. It's pretty disgraceful tbh.

Non of that is true. Oculus have never given Valve anything.
 
Non of that is true. Oculus have never given Valve anything.

Of course they have. They own the OculusSDK. They've allowed Steam games to run the OculusSDK natively instead of forcing them to use a translation layer and the next to useless SteamVR. They've allowed developers to use the OculusSDK on Steam since the DK1 and DK2 days. If they were being 'spiteful' they wouldn't have done that and insisted that developers publish their OculuseSDK native VR games on Oculus Share instead.

They're allowing use of the OculusSDK on a rival Store that gives Oculus headset owners a better performance than they would if they had been forced to use a translation layer with SteamVR. Valve on the other hand, aren't giving Oculus permission to extend the OculusSDK to cover HTC and Valve headsets. Valve are the ones being 'spiteful'.

It doesn't even involve any work on Valve's part either, going by what Palmer Luckey said years ago, they've effectively reverse-engineered everything they need to get it done, they just need Valve's permission to extend the OculusSDK to cover those headsets. And Valve aren't giving it.

Like I've said above, Valve don't get anywhere near as much grief that they deserve for this anti-consumer and anti-competitive behaviour. They're effectively crippling the potential installed userbase of a rival Store by 50% or so.
 
Wow, I've never read such a misinformed fanboy load of bs on these forums.
 
Frankly I have no idea who is to blame for what..... And I don't claim to either. My gut feeling is all sides take some of it. AFAIK (and I could be wrong) oculus don't want to support other SDKs on their store as it's too much work , but according to Palmer Lucky oculus did ask valve permission to natively support lighthous HMDs with their own SDK and Valve refused to allow them. He could be lying of course.
IF that is true it is unfortunate but I can see it from both sides.... What I do know is games using the steam wrapper on the rift are inferior to those with native support so I DO get why oculus do not want to officially support a wrapper like revive but equally have said they won't block it.

Valve are the ones who win out here surely as they get to sell more games. I definitely think valve not distinguishing native oculus support from the steamVR wrapper is bordering on dishonest. Valve claiming it is official or not is irrelevant. I want to know if a game I am buying used a wrapper ornif supports properly. I MAY still buy it... But I should know that without having to rely on other buyers telling me.
Calling oculus names for buying 1 company whilst giving Sony a pass for buying insomniac or calling oculus out forna walled garden (esp when there is revive) but allowing MS a pass with their own mixed reality walled garden just shows huge double standards Tho.

Also alyx.... I am pretty sure that will be locked to steam... And am also fairly sure that WONT support the rift natively either. ..... To me that is not really much different than lone echo on the oculus store needing revive for vive or index users.

I had hoped that openXR would have solved this by now but that seems to have made no difference
 
Snowdog is absolutely wrong. If Valve were using the Oculus SDK natively then we wouldn’t have to install any Oculus software at all because according to him SteamVR would do it natively.

The reality Snowdog chooses to forget or ignore is whenever a Rift/RiftS headset tries to access a Steam game it fires up the Oculus software in order to access the Oculus SDK. This is NOT native support unlike WMR who have an embedded App which runs direct from Steam.

It’s common knowledge Valve made a compatibility layer that sits between SteamVR and the Oculus SDK. Oculus did not give permission for this because no permission was needed. In the same way Revive strips the identity of Index and Vive HMDs and fools the Ocukus Home into thinking it’s a Oculus headset. There’s not permission needed.

Palmer Luckey contradicted himself several times. He stated in 2016 Oculus asked Valve for permission to use their SDK to implement ATW and Valve refused. That could well be true. But Oculus refused and still refuses to use a wrapper. Later Palmer Luckey funded Revive which is the equivalent of Valves wrapper even though this layer doesn’t support ASW which was the only reason Palmer previously gave for Oculus not supporting other headsets.

The facts are there. Palmers words, No ASW for Vive/Index, Revive. SteamVR still needs Oculus software to be installed.

Snowdog has just convinced himself he’s right. Everyone else who uses a native SteamVR headset knows he’s wrong.

Even Pimax headsetnative aren’t native to SteamVR as Pimax use their own SDK. Without Pitool it won’t work.

Give it a few weeks and we’ll be going over this all again lol.
 
It begs the question why don’t WMR headsets work natively with Oculus Home? If Valve was the barrier and Microsoft are open to supporting all stores like Steam why isn’t Oculus jumping for joy?

I think the barrier is and always has been Oculus and their protectionism of ASW and control of their SDK.
 
Microsoft “As we discussed at MWC 2019,” the spokesperson said, “we continue to develop with the idea of #Open at the forefront—in which we believe that for an ecosystem to truly thrive there should be no barriers to innovation or customer choice.”
 
Microsoft “As we discussed at MWC 2019,” the spokesperson said, “we continue to develop with the idea of #Open at the forefront—in which we believe that for an ecosystem to truly thrive there should be no barriers to innovation or customer choice.”
Isnt that about as genuine as Tim Sweeney who said that the PC platform should remain open for PC gaming and chastising microsoft for locking down their games (paraphrasing) before then doing exactly that with epic store?

unless i am wrong, and i am sure you will correct me if i am!....... neither oculus VR OR lighthouse VR users can access the exclusive software on the microsoft store.

eg

as for palmer luckey hypocrisy that you state.... its not really imo......

Palmer Luckey as an oculus employee telling us about Oculus choosing to not officially support a wrapper within their software, but to officially state that they tolerated it and would not block it (early teething problems not withstanding)

is kind of different than Palmer Luckey as a private user with a boatload of cash, supporting a software endeavour for the betterment of VR unofficially via a donation.

I actually think both you and snowdog are cut from the same cloth... you both are utterly convinced you are right with no grey area in between with an obvious "good guy" and "bad guy", despite us not really having all the facts.

The 1 area where I personally think valve are definitely better than oculus is that valve allow software developers to officially support the oculus SDK on the valve store front.......... its actually obvious why, as it will make valve more money...... but oculus dont do that and indeed go 1 step further and force developers to actively rip out steamVR support from their games on the oculus store.

that is poor, and also imo bone headed..... I prefer the oculus infrastructure, I prefer how it has better software curation and find it just a higher quality place to use as my place to launch VR titles from.

but because i am not blindly locked into "must buy oculus VR" at the back of my mind with any purchases i am thinking about what will my next headset be.... therefore IF i can buy a title on steam with both steamVR AND native oculus support I will buy it on steam.

This may change as more games get quest cross buy on oculus but that is a different thing again!.


but all of that does not change the fact that oculus buying Sanzaru games is no different to Sony buying Insomniac and it is hypocritical do chastise one and defend the other..

indeed from my POV the facebook aquisition is better because at least it means Sanzaru will still be making VR titles, and either officially or via Revive everyone can still play their games on a PC VR headset (unless they go quest only of course)

where as if stormlands 2 for instance was PS4VR only then PCVR loses out completely (that is assuming Insomniac stick with making VR games..... they could do a "Playfull" and go non VR.
 
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Sony are not PC and if you want console games you buy their console.

Valve are PC. Oculus are PC. Microsoft are PC so I will support the store thats compatible with all PC headsets and at this point in time the only store doing that is Steam.

No one knows what platform Sanzura will support next. Will they make a Quest game? A Quest 2 game? A PC Oculus game? Who knows. My guess would be Quest 2.
 
Sony are not PC and if you want console games you buy their console.

Ahhh so IF oculus bought sanzaru to JUST make quest games that is ok in your eyes then because the quest is not a pc, so it is then exactly the same as Sony buying up a PC Dev to work on non PC software via PSVR....
But IF oculus choose to release sanzaru software to work both on quest AND Rift that is bad?

Very strange logic mate
 

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