Carmack joins Oculus VR
id Software co-founder announced as Rift maker's new full-time CTO; id says Carmack's technical leadership at studio "unaffected"
[UPDATE]: A Bethesda representative provided the following comment: "John has long been interested in the work at Oculus VR and wishes to spend time on that project. The technical leadership he provides for games in development at id Software is unaffected." When asked for clarification, the rep told GamesIndustry International that Carmack "will spend time working out of Oculus as part of his role with them, but he will also continue to work at id."
Carmack provided his own clarification in a Twitter post, saying, "My time division is now Oculus over Id over [rocketry developer] Armadillo. Busy busy busy!"
The original story follows below:
John Carmack has always been a vocal supporter of the Oculus Rift VR headset, but the id Software co-founder has taken that support a step further. Oculus VR today announced that Carmack has joined the company full-time to be its chief technology officer, and will work out of a new Dallas, Texas office the company is forming.
A representative with id Software parent Bethesda had not returned a request for comment as of press time, but Oculus referred to Carmack as "formerly at id Software."
"The dream of VR has been simmering in the background for decades, but now, the people and technologies are finally aligning to allow it to reach the potential we imagined," Carmack said in a statement. "I'm extremely excited to make a mark in what I truly believe will be a transformative technology." Oculus noted that Carmack has championed open source software, and co-founder and CEO Brendan Iribe stressed the company shares his commitment on that front.
"John's early experiments with the Rift put Oculus on the map and helped create an amazing amount of momentum around virtual reality," Oculus founder Palmer Lucky said. "His technical genius and passion for solving hard problems makes him the ideal CTO."
Oculus Rift kits have been available to developers since March. The headset has no commercial release date as of yet.
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BTW, where does it say "Formerly at id Software"? It's not on the blog post, and there's no mention of him on the Occulus About->People page.
Edited 2 times. Last edit by Sam Brown on 7th August 2013 4:37pm
(Chase the next fad.)
If they're doing a good job, they should be making themselves obsolete on a regular basis.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Tim Carter on 7th August 2013 10:58pm
As many that have demoed and watch people demo, first reaction is wow, this is awesome followed by.. "is this out yet?" followed by " how much will it be?".. followed by " 300, huh thats not bad at all"
Nausea is the only roadblock I see for this tech. But then again nausea hasnt stopped the rollercoasters from being a worldwide favorite experience.
Edited 3 times. Last edit by Todd Weidner on 8th August 2013 12:32am
All the same, good luck to them - it's a very cool prospect.
Sure, this only works for first person games but first person doesn't have to mean a shooter.
On the other hand, the problems facing the Rift are at least partly technical in nature, and are directly addressable by people with a skillset like John Carmack. That's not to say it's simply a case of the latency down, the resolution up and then profit - I do agree that there are a whole slew of impediments to mass market adoption here, but the Rift has the potential to be a successful niche (there is such a thing) for the core gamer market, and who knows where it goes from there.
Bottom line, Carmack can make a huge impact at Oculus in a way he probably can't anymore at Id.
Looking forward to results of the OR. Doubt I'll get one soon after it comes out.
This is more somethign for me after a couple of iterations and after the price has come down.