Doom 3: BFG Edition No Longer Shipping with Oculus Rift

[Timothy Chang]

Doom 3: BFG Edition No Longer Shipping with Oculus Rift

Oculus offers Steam credit, in-store credit or a full refund for lack of Doom 3 BFG support.

The Oculus Rift is a VR headset that became a Kickstarter success, with just under $2.5 million pledged. It was originally going to ship with a copy of Doom 3: BFG Edition for backers to start working with once they received their development kit. However, an update from Oculus announces that the game won't support the Rift's dev kit before the units start shipping, so it will no longer be bundled with the device.

In lieu of id's first-person shooter, the team are offering a number of replacement rewards, including $20 Steam credit, $25 Oculus Store credit (which offers devices such as latency testers and additional dev kits), or a full refund of the original pledge. Backers can request their replacement reward in the Oculus Order Manager [https://www.oculusvr.com/sales/].

"Again, we share your pain," the company says. "This isn't a sure-fire remedy for your broken heart, but we hope it helps." Several backers have already left comments on the post saying that they'd prefer to receive no reimbursement or supported game at all and simply get their units shipped above all else, given the existing delays due to impressive demand [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120851-Big-Demand-Delays-Oculus-Rift-Headset] for the headset.

Doom 3: BFG Edition was one of the first original games announced to officially support [http://www.oculusvr.com/faq/] the Oculus Rift, so its omission is puzzling. That said, Hawken (another supported title) looks to still be on track for a day-zero release, and Oculus also promises that "there are more great developer showcases on the way".



Source & Image: Kickstarter [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game/posts/430028]

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[Smooth Operator]

Honestly this is just plain good news because they somehow managed to make Doom 3 even worse in the BFG version, so you can get a good game instead for that money.
Meanwhile Hawken is free and bloody excellent.

 

[Entitled]

Hawken is a more perfect fit for VR anyways.

Though I personally believe that pretty much every genre will be better with VR, even the ones where you are just a floating camera.

Hell, even the 2D games can just virtually simulate a giant flat screen with a wider field of view than your monitor, in the same way as that "virtual cinema" app works as well.

This technology can literally make most monitors obselete.

It would be like watching low resolution black and white movies on a HDTV. Not utilizing ALL potential, but still better than watching them on an antique b&w TV.

 

[beef623]

I don't think it's really relevant whether or not the game supports it at launch, it was promised in the Kickstarter reward so it should be delivered regardless. Their website should at least default to the "give me what I paid for" option instead of defaulting to the store credit for their site.

 

[Entitled]

I don't think it's really relevant whether or not the game supports it at launch, it was promised in the Kickstarter reward so it should be delivered regardless. Their website should at least default to the "give me what I paid for" option instead of defaulting to the store credit for their site.

Well, they are just selling a devkit to begin with, so it's not like their target audience is likely have a specific demand for old gaming software on it's own. It was supposed to be a testing tool for Rift developers, not distributed for the joy of playing Doom.

 

[beef623]

I don't think it's really relevant whether or not the game supports it at launch, it was promised in the Kickstarter reward so it should be delivered regardless. Their website should at least default to the "give me what I paid for" option instead of defaulting to the store credit for their site.

Well, they are just selling a devkit to begin with, so it's not like their target audience is likely have a specific demand for old gaming software on it's own. It was supposed to be a testing tool for Rift developers, not distributed for the joy of playing Doom.

But it sets a bad precident for future campaigns. A lot of projects list t-shirts with the rewards at certain levels, is it ok to leave them off too?

 

[kailus13]

I don't think it's really relevant whether or not the game supports it at launch, it was promised in the Kickstarter reward so it should be delivered regardless. Their website should at least default to the "give me what I paid for" option instead of defaulting to the store credit for their site.

Well, they are just selling a devkit to begin with, so it's not like their target audience is likely have a specific demand for old gaming software on it's own. It was supposed to be a testing tool for Rift developers, not distributed for the joy of playing Doom.

But it sets a bad precident for future campaigns. A lot of projects list t-shirts with the rewards at certain levels, is it ok to leave them off too?

If they pay for the missing T-shirts, then yes. It's not as if people aren't getting any compensation for this. If a backer isn't competely satisfied then they can ask for a refund, which seems like a good deal to me.

 

[Togusa09]

I'm not sure how people are blaming Oculus for this. Aren't they just the hardware guys, so isn't it ids responsibility to deliver the updated Doom 3? They can't distribute a product they don't have.

 

[beef623]

I'm not sure how people are blaming Oculus for this. Aren't they just the hardware guys, so isn't it ids responsibility to deliver the updated Doom 3? They can't distribute a product they don't have.

I don't think they'll be releasing a special version just for the Rift. I would imagine they'll just push out an update. The game itself has been out for several months now.

For the record, I think it's a good thing that they're giving people a chance to just drop the game off their reward if they don't want it without Rift support, I just think the default option should be to get the game since that is what was stated in the reward tier.

 

[Entitled]

But it sets a bad precident for future campaigns. A lot of projects list t-shirts with the rewards at certain levels, is it ok to leave them off too?

If the offered T-shirt can't get made, should they still leave a blank white T-shirt in the package just to be faithful to the letter of the pitch?

I think one of the benfits of Kickstarter is that the devs can allow themselves to be flexible about deciding what the backers really wanted. They might end up changing the name of the project, they can decide that the unexpectedly huge number of backers means they must expand it and work longer on it, they might decide that even though they mentioned a feature in the pitch video it's obviously not working and no one would really want it.

You are literally the only one who thinks that a developer kit to a VR game should contain an old 2D game just for the sake of being technically accurate. It's just not something that they are likely to feel betrayed about, as long as they get the part of the money back anyways.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

Worth noting that Team Fortress 2 will support the Rift on release

 

[beef623]

But it sets a bad precident for future campaigns. A lot of projects list t-shirts with the rewards at certain levels, is it ok to leave them off too?

If the offered T-shirt can't get made, should they still leave a blank white T-shirt in the package just to be faithful to the letter of the pitch?

Except in this particular case, the shirt has been made and has been retailing for a few months, but unless you change your preference they're sending a gift card to a hardware store instead. You shouldn't have to change your preference to get the stated reward if that reward is available.

There hasn't been any indication that the game won't be updated with Rift support, it just won't be ready when it starts shipping out because the hardware changed.

Having the choice is good, having to go in and update your preferences to get what you already said you wanted is bad.