Earlier this month Valve modified the longstanding format for displaying which VR headsets are supported on a recreation’s Steam Retailer web page. The corporate says the change was made to ‘sustain with the rising VR market’.
Earlier this month some of us have been alarmed to see that the ‘VR Help’ part on the precise facet of a recreation’s Steam retailer web page—which confirmed the headsets and playspaces a recreation supported—had been eliminated, seemingly leaving solely ‘Tracked Movement Controller Help’ to point that an app supported VR.
As Valve tells Highway to VR, nonetheless, the data was not eliminated however merely reorganized and streamlined—and it appears it might have taken a bit for the modifications to accurately proliferate throughout retailer pages.
“We determined to prepare issues a bit otherwise, as we discovered the outdated system wasn’t maintaining very properly with the rising VR market,” a Valve spokesperson tells us. “Now you can discover this data in System Necessities. We additionally added flags for VR Solely, VR Supported, and tracked movement controllers to the Options part. The modifications are additionally geared toward giving builders extra management and suppleness.”
So now as an alternative of a recreation itemizing all supported headsets and/or VR platforms on the precise facet of the web page, builders can select to point out ‘VR Solely’ or ‘VR Supported’. In the meantime, additional down within the System Necessities part, builders can moreover specify which headsets or playspaces are supported below the ‘VR Help’ prefix.
Taking a look at a number of examples reveals how this works in follow.
Half-Life: Alyx, as an illustration, lists ‘VR Solely’ and ‘Tracked Controller Help’ on the precise facet of the web page (and nonetheless prominently features a discover that the sport requires a VR headset). In its System Necessities we see ‘VR Help: SteamVR’, indicating that the sport affirms assist for all SteamVR headsets.
Grime Rally 2 makes use of ‘VR Supported’ on the precise facet of the web page, and below System Necessities we see ‘VR Help: SteamVR or Oculus PC’ (indicating that the sport helps each the SteamVR and native Oculus PC runtimes). Notably the sport does not listing ‘Tracked Controller Help’ on the precise facet, that means gamers can not use VR controllers with the sport however should use one other enter like keyboard or conventional controller as an alternative.
Whereas we don’t have any inside information as to precisely why Valve determined to alter this longstanding system, the explanations they gave do make sense from the skin. The earlier system confusingly listed some particular headsets (ie: ‘Valve Index’, ‘Oculus Rift’ and ‘HTC Vive’) lumped proper alongside an entire platform of headsets (ie: ‘Home windows Blended Actuality’)—whereas ignoring extra trendy headsets like these from Pico or Pimax. Making this transformation streamlines issues for Valve who would in any other case have to trace and add all new SteamVR headsets as they arrive to market.
And additional, the excellence between ‘Standing’ and ‘Room-scale’ playspace sizes has grow to be a lot much less necessary over time; only a few video games require a room-scale area, though most technically assist it. That left the earlier ‘Play Space’ part of the shop web page as one thing of a unnecessary remnant (apart from video games that solely assist ‘Seated’ play).
That stated, there’s little doubt the change feels prefer it’s popping out of nowhere. And with Valve’s minimal obvious curiosity in VR in the previous few years, it raises questions as to ‘why now?’