Carmack leaving ID? John Carmack Joins Oculus as CTO

[DooMAGE]

I like the idea of the oculus rift.
But in the same time is sad news for us doomers.

John Carmack Joins Oculus as CTO

We have incredible news to share with the community: legendary game programmer John Carmack will be officially joining the Oculus team as our new Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

John is one of the brightest minds of our generation -- pioneer, visionary, and industry legend. There are very few people in the world that can contribute to the Oculus Rift and the future of virtual reality like John can.

John put together a short note for the Oculus community:

“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!”

If you’re unfamiliar with John’s background, John co-founded id Software, served as lead programmer on Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and the Quake series, and is one of the pioneers of 3D graphics. When John’s not working on revolutionizing video games or computer graphics, he can be found coding at Armadillo Aerospace.

If you’ve been following Oculus since the launch of the Kickstarter campaign (or before that on MTBS3D), you know that John has been a part of the project and a true believer in the future of virtual reality since the beginning. He was the first developer to actually integrate the Rift into a game, back when the hardware was just a hand-held prototype without an SDK.

QuakeCon 2012 Panel - Virtual Insanity
Watch the Video

Palmer, Michael Abrash (Valve), and John discuss virtual reality at QuakeCon 2012.

John will be working from the new Oculus Dallas office that we’re opening soon. We’re looking for a few key hires to help us in Dallas, so if you’re interested, check out the Oculus Careers page.

Please join us in welcoming John to the Oculus family! You can follow John at @ID_AA_Carmack on Twitter.

Happy anniversary to our Kickstarter backers! We've come a long a way in 1 year, and we can't wait to show you where we're headed next. This is just the beginning.

-- Palmer, John and the Oculus team

Source:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013- ... gy-officer
http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/john-carma ... us-as-cto/

[ibm5155]

Great, at maybe change would be better for him, since the last days of id are like a too old bridge, you never know when it´ll fall.
I really prefer to not release doom 4 than release a game that sucks :D

[darkstar64]

At this point it seems that John Carmack is more of a technology and software guy rather than a video game programmer, but I don't think he'll abandon the company he helped create, unless he has to.
And seeing this is the guy who programmed the engines to such games as Wolf3D and Doom, then eventually Quake and RAGE, I"m really glad the Oculus team has someone as gifted as him. I've been really hyped for the Oculus Rift and having Carmack on board will really help make it the best product it can be.

[Cruduxy]

This is probably better for him.. nothing in this decade from ID was like the 90's..
In its defense, its probably the only company I know that survived mutliple radical changes of gameplay and still lived afterward.

[Empyre]

It doesn't say he's leaving id. It says that he is dividing his time between Oculus, Id, and Armadillo.

[Hellstorm Archon]

Technically, he'll still be at id, but he'll focus more of his time over at Oculus. Plus, some of the guys over at the ZDoom forums have been saying Carmack is doing this to provide optimal Oculus support for Doom 4.

[Balrog]

At this point it seems that John Carmack is more of a technology and software guy rather than a video game programmer

Carmack has always been a technology guy. Commander Keen was a tech demo for smooth scrolling, Wolf3D and Doom were tech demos for 2.5D, Quake was a tech demo for an efficient true 3D renderer.

[Cruduxy]

And he had some good pep to do the gameplay stuff on his engines.. Although the more recent games are questionable. -I see most people started bashing since Doom 3. No not quake 2 and 3 because they held their ground.

P.S. never got into quake 2, thinks quake 1 was amazing.

[Laggy Blazko]

I think it's official.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/11/22/ ... d-software

[Ænima]

That's it. These are the end times.

[scalliano]

[Samurai]

Wonder where that leaves Doom 4, providing it ever gets released...

[Ænima]

Wonder where that leaves Doom 4, providing it ever gets released...

In Hell.


Infact Doom4 is actually listed on that page ...

[jwaffe]

Strange to think they're all gone now, with the Doom ip owned by Bethesda. I guess it's possible that Bethesda will do something "risky" and hire somebody to make doom 4 more like 1 and 2... bringing back the mappers from NRFTL and having them make something high res would be interesting.

[Eonfge]

It seems to me for the better. Id Software has long ago ceased to be that rogue group of Texans. I wish John Carmack the best of luck and I am really looking forward to the Oculus Rift.

[Hypnotoad]

Strange to think they're all gone now, with the Doom ip owned by Bethesda. I guess it's possible that Bethesda will do something "risky" and hire somebody to make doom 4 more like 1 and 2... bringing back the mappers from NRFTL and having them make something high res would be interesting.

Willits is still there.

[Espio]

What a sad day... Still, Carmack, Romero and the rest of the team brought forth a VERY great game that is still played and ported today even after twenty years.

I can't imagine where Doom would be if the source code was never released long ago.

[Kara Kurt]

Good news.

[Hellstorm Archon]

Just found some not-so-good-news:

It turns out that Carmack is an Ayn Randriod Libertarian, which may had something to do with him leaving (or ZeniMax owning id in the first place).

And yes, it was too soon that I said he was one of the few gaming geniuses with an untarnished record.

Let's see how the rest of the Doom community (and gaming industry) will take it.

[StrikerMan780]

Just found some not-so-good-news:

It turns out that Carmack is an Ayn Randriod Libertarian, which may had something to do with him leaving (or ZeniMax owning id in the first place).

And yes, it was too soon that I said he was one of the few gaming geniuses with an untarnished record.

Let's see how the rest of the Doom community (and gaming industry) will take it.

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