Oculus Share
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| Oculus Share | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| Platforms | Oculus Rift (Platform) |
| Devices | DK1, DK2, CV1 |
| Operating Systems | Windows, Mac, Linux |
| Accessible | Desktop, Mobile |
| Developer | Oculus VR |
| Website | https://share.oculus.com/ |
- See also: Oculus Store
Oculus Share was the official app distribution platform and database for the Oculus Rift (Platform). Created by Oculus VR, Oculus Share allowed users to share and discover Rift apps, demos and other experiences. Oculus Share could be accessed on desktop and mobile devices. Its successor as the store for Oculus content was the Oculus Store, accessible on Rift devices. Oculus Share was shut down in May 2016.[1]
Oculus VR announced the service in beta on August 19, 2013, as "a new platform that lets you self-publish, discover, download, and play the best VR games and experiences out there."[2] It launched when the Oculus Rift DK1 was the available development kit, and it gave developers a curated place to showcase home-grown VR experiences for other Rift owners to find.[3][1] Oculus announced in 2014 and 2015 that Share would be replaced by a commercial storefront, and the developer portal became the Oculus Concepts section of that store.[3][4]
History
Launch (2013)
Oculus VR introduced Oculus Share (also called simply "Share") in a blog post on August 19, 2013, signed by "Palmer and the Oculus team". The post described Share as "the first of many steps we're taking to build the best virtual reality platform" and said the service was available at share.oculus.com, with log-in through the same account used for the Oculus Developer Center.[2] Contemporary coverage in Engadget gave the address as share.oculusvr.com.[5] Oculus said that "while it's simply a sharing service today", it planned over the following months to turn Share into a marketplace for "Oculus-ready games, experiences, and applications".[2] Game Informer and Pocket-lint both reported the launch as the start of an eventual Oculus marketplace.[6][7]
Oculus thanked the developers who had alpha-tested Share: Cloudhead Games, Owlchemy Labs, UXGround, Justin Moravetz, Aldin Dynamics, Lumina Celare, TerraNovita Software BVBA and Enno Gottschalk.[2] The same announcement said Oculus would add a dedicated "VR Jam" category for games from its VR Jam 2013 competition, which had more than 250 teams competing for over $50,000 in prizes.[2][5]
In an interview at Gamescom 2013, Palmer Luckey and Nate Mitchell told Road to VR that the two main goals for Share were to give developers a platform to show and share their work with a wider audience, and to route feedback on those titles back to the developers and to Oculus.[8]
Operation (2013-2016)
Road to VR described Share as "a curated portal for developers to showcase their work and for enthusiasts to find it", and noted that Oculus play-tested submissions and vetted them for comfort before the Oculus Rift DK2 added positional tracking.[3] UploadVR later called it "the Internet's leading repository for home-grown VR experiences" and wrote that educational experiences such as Titans of Space and horror demos such as Dreadhalls became widely downloaded among the earliest adopters. The article noted that Oculus raised US$75 million between August and December 2013, the period after Share's launch, and was acquired by Facebook shortly afterward.[1] The same article argued that the experiments shared on the service taught developers how to avoid simulator sickness before consumer headsets reached the market in 2016.[1]
Media projects also used the service. In March 2015 Road to VR reported that "An Unseen Sky", a VR music video by Elemental Spark, was available to download from Oculus Share.[9] An archived copy of the Share home page from January 2016 featured a trailer for Oculus Story Studio's Henry, which the listing said would be released for free at the Rift's launch in the first quarter of 2016.[10]
Replacement by the Oculus Store (2014-2016)
At the first Oculus Connect conference in September 2014, Oculus said that a new "Oculus Platform", a set of apps and portals on several platforms, would replace Share. Nate Mitchell, then Oculus's vice president of product, said the platform would let developers publish and sell content in a way similar to the iOS and Android app stores, including in-headset purchases on the Samsung Gear VR.[3]
At Oculus Connect 2 in September 2015, Anna Sweet, Oculus's head of developer strategy, said the new storefront would launch first on Gear VR and come to the Rift the following year, and that the Oculus Share developer portal would become a section called Oculus Concepts, where developers could distribute content "in the early stages of development with the broader Oculus community".[4]
The Share site was still online in early May 2016: an archived snapshot from May 3, 2016 shows the Share home page, while a snapshot from May 28, 2016 shows share.oculus.com redirecting to the Rift experiences section of the Oculus website.[11][12] UploadVR reported on May 13, 2016 that Share had been shut down that week "as part of a plan to transition developers to a 'Concepts' section of the Oculus storefront", and that the old domain redirected to the Rift storefront page.[1] On May 24, 2016, an Oculus developer blog post opened with "Since Oculus Share was phased out, we want to make sure everyone knows how to publish their innovative experiments", and described Concepts as a free section for experimental projects alongside a paid Early Access section.[13]
General information
The app files can be hosted by Oculus Share or a 3rd party developer.
Screenshots, icons and YouTube videos of the app can be uploaded.
Operating Systems include Windows, Mac and Linux.
Input Devices include Keyboard, Mouse, Gamepad, Hydra and Other.
Game Modes include Single Player, Multiplayer and Co-Op
Rift Devices include DK1, DK2, CV1
Age Rating: None, 13+, 18+
Features
According to the launch announcement, users of Share could host Oculus-ready games and experiences they had made, browse and download content from other developers, rate experiences on quality and on VR comfort level, give feedback to developers, and tip developers in cash.[2] Oculus said it would initially vet submissions "to make sure the content isn't offensive or malicious", and asked developers to be patient while it improved the approval process.[2]
Archived app pages show the information each listing carried. The page for Oculus VR's own Oculus Tuscany Demo listed a download button, version number, developer, description, minimum and recommended system requirements for PC and Mac, and an information box with developer, publisher, release date, category, genres, supported Rift versions, supported controllers and game modes. Visitors could give a star rating and a separate comfort-level rating, and logged-in users could submit a YouTube gameplay video in a "Let's Play!" section, which appeared after approval.[14] The page for Titans of Space also showed a download count, a "Donate" link and the developer's own license terms.[15] Each listing carried a notice that products and product information were provided by their owners, who were responsible for them, and that Oculus did not take "any responsibility for the Product or its performance on the Rift".[14]
By January 2016 the home page had a set of featured titles, a "Top Rated" list with average user ratings and rating counts, a "New Releases" list tagged by category, sorting by name, release date, rating or DK2 compatibility, and filters for genres, categories and platforms.[10]
Categories
Oculus Share features 5 categories: Full Game, Experience, Tech Demo, Pre-Release, Official Mod.
Developer may choose only 1 category for each app.
Genres
Oculus Share features 9 genres: 360 Video, Action/Adventure, Casual, Exploration, Puzzle, Racing, Simulation, Sports, Strategy.
Developer can choose as many genres as needed for his or her app. The list of genres may change over time. For example, an archived February 2015 listing for Titans of Space shows the genres Casual, Simulation, Exploration and Educational.[15]
Notable listings
The table below lists examples drawn from archived Share pages and press coverage. Ratings are shown as they appeared on the dated archive snapshot.
| Title | Developer | Share details | Source date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oculus Tuscany Demo | Oculus VR | Tech Demo; release date March 28, 2013; supported Rift version DK1[14] | November 2014 archive |
| Titans of Space | DrashVR LLC | Experience; release date June 6, 2013; supported Rift versions DK1 and DK2; version 1.70c built for the DK2[15] | February 2015 archive |
| Dreadhalls | Horror demo that UploadVR said was widely downloaded among the earliest adopters[1] | May 2016 press | |
| "An Unseen Sky" | Elemental Spark | VR music video available on Share[9] | March 2015 press |
| I Expect You To Die | Top Rated list, 4.9/5 from 613 ratings[11] | May 2016 archive | |
| Mythos of the World Axis | Top Rated list, 4.9/5 from 463 ratings[11] | May 2016 archive | |
| SightLine: The Chair | Top Rated list, 4.7/5 from 511 ratings[11] | May 2016 archive | |
| Windlands | Top Rated list, 4.7/5 from 485 ratings[11] | May 2016 archive | |
| Henry trailer | Oculus Story Studio | Featured on the home page[10] | January 2016 archive |
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Ian Hamilton (2016-05-13). "Oculus Share Shuts Down, Ending An Era". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/oculus-share-shut-down/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Oculus VR (2013-08-19). "Announcing Oculus Share (Beta)!". Oculus Blog. Meta. https://www.meta.com/blog/announcing-oculus-share-beta/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Paul James (2014-09-21). "Oculus Connect: Oculus 'Platform' Replaces 'Share' as Oculus Plans the Future of VR Content Delivery". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/oculus-connect-oculus-platform-replaces-share-oculus-plans-future-vr-content-delivery/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Christian Nutt (2015-09-24). "New, finalized Oculus Platform launching later this year with storefront". Gamasutra (Game Developer). https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/new-finalized-oculus-platform-launching-later-this-year-with-storefront. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Ben Gilbert (2013-08-19). "Find and share the best Oculus Rift games on Oculus Share, now in beta". Engadget. https://www.engadget.com/2013-08-19-oculus-share-beta-launch.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ Matt Akers (2013-08-19). "Oculus Rift Creators Launch Oculus Share Beta". Game Informer. https://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/08/19/oculus-rift-creators-launch-oculus-share-beta.aspx. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ Elyse Betters Picaro (2013-08-19). "Oculus Share launches in beta, a marketplace for Oculus Rift games and apps". Pocket-lint. https://www.pocket-lint.com/ar-vr/news/oculus-rift/122978-oculus-share-launches-in-beta-a-marketplace-for-oculus-rift-games-and-apps. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ Paul James (2013-09-03). "GamesCom 2013: Palmer Luckey and Nate Mitchell talk Carmack, InfinitEye and HD Prototypes". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/gamescom-2013-palmer-luckey-and-nate-mitchell-talk-carmack-infiniteye-and-hd-prototypes-video/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Paul James (2015-03-15). "Virtual Reality Music Video 'An Unseen Sky' Available on Oculus Share Now". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/virtual-reality-music-video-an-unseen-sky-available-on-oculus-share-now/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 "Oculus Share (home page, archived 25 January 2016)". Oculus Share. Oculus VR (archived by the Internet Archive). 2016-01-25. https://web.archive.org/web/20160125214200/https://share.oculus.com/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 "Oculus Share (home page, archived 3 May 2016)". Oculus Share. Oculus VR (archived by the Internet Archive). 2016-05-03. https://web.archive.org/web/20160503080430/https://share.oculus.com/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ "share.oculus.com (redirect, archived 28 May 2016)". Internet Archive Wayback Machine. 2016-05-28. https://web.archive.org/web/20160528171933/https://share.oculus.com/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ The Oculus Team (2016-05-24). "Submitting to Concepts and Early Access on the Oculus Store". Oculus Developer Blog. Meta. https://developers.meta.com/horizon/blog/submitting-to-concepts-and-early-access-on-the-oculus-store/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 "Oculus Tuscany Demo - Apps - Oculus VR Share (Beta) (archived 14 November 2014)". Oculus Share. Oculus VR (archived by the Internet Archive). 2014-11-14. https://web.archive.org/web/20141114171451/https://share.oculus.com/app/oculus-tuscany-demo. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 "Titans of Space - Apps - Oculus VR Share (Beta) (archived 6 February 2015)". Oculus Share. Oculus VR (archived by the Internet Archive). 2015-02-06. https://web.archive.org/web/20150206032448/https://share.oculus.com/app/titans-of-space. Retrieved 2026-09-27.