It was a bit of a shock when John Carmack, who co-founded the company, left Doom creators id Software in November. Until now, we didn’t really know why.
Turns out that the reason he and the company he helped build parted ways was because of virtual reality, specifically the Oculus Rift headset. And the fact id’s owners, ZeniMax, weren’t as passionate about it as Carmack was.
Carmack – long a champion of virtual reality in video games – had visions of id’s upcoming games like Wolfenstein and Doom 4 being some of the first AAA Oculus Rift games, supporting it out of the box and helping to sell the tech (and id along with it). He’d even taken up a second job of sorts last year, working at both id and Oculus Rift.
But his attempts to bring the two together weren’t supported by ZeniMax, Carmack says, which ultimately led him to choose one over the other.
“When it became clear that I wasn’t going to have the opportunity to do any work on VR while at id software”, Carmack tells USA Today, “I decided to not renew my contract.”
id co-founder Carmack pushes reality with Oculus VR [USA Today]
Comments
5 responses to “John Carmack Left Id Software Because Of Virtual Reality”
I’m pretty sure we already knew this.
This is hilarious.
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/08/john-carmack-has-a-new-job-but-still-involved-with-id-in-some-way/
5 months news.
Plunkett gotta buck up man…
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/11/doom-co-creator-john-carmack-leaves-id-software/
This too.
Um, the article is about WHY he left. It even links those older pieces for context.
*Sigh*
Finally! Carmack is a hack who hasn’t been relevant for years. Now the scene is set for John Romero to make his triumphant return. Who knows, perhaps we’ll finally get a glimpse at Daikatana 2???
I know heaps of people interested in the Oculus, but none want it. I want it, but it will be expensive.
Gamers like their controller and TV.
Then the issue of people getting highly annoyed of wearing this Oculus Headset for too long.
Gamers wont get into VR gaming the way carmack hopes for. Its a gimmick, and I cant remember where I was reading it, but a while ago, Carmack was saying VR gaming is the future.
That is one reason I couldnt care what he says no more.
Once he told me what the future was, I lost respect.
Im sick of Developers trying to force a change in gaming, but its the gamer who decides the industries future.
Cause VR gaming will never be huge.
Everyone I know want the controller and TV screen to stay for good.
It was like Carmack saying Digital only was next gen, well its next gen now dumb ass and ur soo very wrong and after the Xbone reveal, it showed Digital only is still atleast very far off, consumers hate the thought of not owning physical copies of games.
But also, the device will cost the same amount as a console if not more, and its a device that would be incredibly hard to make cheaper without sacrificing something or waiting untill the tech used to make the VR headset cheaper.
I might get the Oculus, or the Sony version for PS4, and I would play Batlefield or Fallout 4, but it wont be used too much.
I like to play video games, but still notice im in the real world, as hard as that can be for some games. But im controller and TV.
But on an end note, I do hope Carmack can push the success of Oculus and hope he has found his calling in the industry. Its awsome this tech is here now and depends on the price if I get, but I still hold my belief it will be a hard device to push into consumer hands.