Oculus
VR announces John Carmack has joined them as Chief Technical Officer as they
continue the quest towards viable consumer-level VR headsets. According to
GamesIndustry International Oculus VR initially referred to him as "formerly
at id Software," but they have a statement from Bethesda clarifying this is not
the case, and this press release says no such thing. Bethesda tells them: "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." This has a certain vagueness to it, and Oculus VR's
announcement states "John will be working from the new Oculus Dallas office that
we’re opening soon." When pressed, Bethesda told GamesIndustry International
that he "will spend time working out of Oculus as part of his role with them,
but he will also continue to work at id."
Kotaku notes a
John
Carmack tweet clarifying his priorities: "My time division is now Oculus
over Id over Armadillo. Busy busy busy!" The announcement includes John's
thoughts on the occasion:
"I have fond memories of the development work
that led to a lot of great things in modern gaming – the intensity of the first
person experience, LAN and internet play, game mods, and so on. Duct taping a
strap and hot gluing sensors onto Palmer’s early prototype Rift and writing the
code to drive it ranks right up there. Now is a special time. I believe that VR
will have a huge impact in the coming years, but everyone working today is a
pioneer. The paradigms that everyone will take for granted in the future are
being figured out today; probably by people reading this message. It’s certainly
not there yet. There is a lot more work to do, and there are problems we don’t
even know about that will need to be solved, but I am eager to work on them.
It’s going to be awesome!”