Meta Strikes Against Quest’s Most Prominent Outlet for Pirated VR Games

By
Scott Hayden
-
10

One of the most prominent VR game piracy groups has been shut down following a DMCA notice which was apparently issued by Meta.

As first reported by Heise Online, the game piracy group ‘VRPirates’ issued a statement on its public Discord last week notifying members that it was ceasing operations.

“Due to a recent DMCA notice from Meta, VRP will be shutting down. As a result, we will no longer accept donations, provide sponsored mirrors, or host content publicly. All related operations are being discontinued effective immediately,” the group said.

According to archived versions of the VRPirates website, the group was engaged in sourcing, testing and distributing torrents of cracked Quest and PC VR games.

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The group also offered its own ‘Rookie’ sideloader for Quest, which, much like SideQuest, allowed users to browse a library of content and sideload APKs directly.

While the group has been in operation since at least late 2023, VRP admin ‘Maxine’ says in a recent r/QuestPiracy subreddit post that it was actually the release of a cracked version of Beat Saber (2018) that was the last straw.

“[A]s much as I hate to say, they’re well within their right,” Maxine said, referring to Meta pursuing legal action against piracy of its first-party game.

According to UploadVR, Rookie Sideloader still allows users to sideload self-sourced APKs, however the library of VRPirate-hosted cracked content is now officially offline.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Queen of the Starry Skies
  • kraeuterbutter

    Good job!
    Apparently there isn’t enough VR software anyway—and now you’re stealing even the little that does exist?

    • NL_VR

      Yes and vr games arent even expensive. For most people.

      • Billy

        And they aren't even worth the cash considering most VR games are as deep as most mobile games. Not worth the cash. You and the idiot you commented on are both children that clearly never played VR, or you'd see it's not there yet. Brainless worms y'all are

        • ThatDudeWhoPlaysVR

          This seems to make you absolutely incredibly mad.

          Try a game, refund it if it's "not worth the cash". "The platform is full of shit games" is not a valid excuse when you can refund anything you don't like.

    • Billy

      Are you a child that doesn't understand the value of money? Who wants to buy slop? That's what most of these VR games you're talking about are anyways. Tell me you've never put a meta headset on, I already know you haven't. Like 1 in 30 games might be fun and not copy slop. They should push for cheaper hardware and better software if they want sales. You are a little brainless worm if you think 35$ for some shitty vr port of let's say, the medal of honor vr title as an example. That game was more of a premium price and was supposed to help push VR but it did nothing and is an 8 hour buggy experience. It's a no brainer that people will pirate. You must actually have no brain

      • dextrovix

        Billy, wind it in, you're coming across as childish yourself using terms like "brainless worm". And your opinion on slop vs someone else's definition is entirely subjective, so you can have your opinion, but so can somebody else have theirs.

  • FrankB

    Perhaps if there wasn’t so much absolute dreck on the store people wouldn’t feel the need to pirate. I’ve pirated a couple games in the past and bought the ones I liked and was relieved I didn’t buy the ones that turned out to be janky shite.

    • ThatDudeWhoPlaysVR

      We're all aware of the refund feature, right?

  • Billy

    Sounds like greed. Beat sabre was ass and sold like a billion copies. Who cares if it's pirated anymore. It's old news. Maybe if half the VR games were worth playing and a headset didn't cost as much as a standard game console, then they might actually make some sales. Meta is gonna have to learn to take more loss on their headsets if they want it more mainstream