And John Carmack is in the middle of the whole thing. This should get messy.
Oculus just can’t catch a break, huh? This is like the second allegation of theft involving them, isn’t it?
Wait… Did anyone ever believe that Luckey invented anything? I followed Oculus from the start of the Kickstarter and my impression was that he was super into VR and managed to get this going, but that the actual brains behind the Rift’s technilogy was other people. I thought that Luckey was just really well-versed in VR headsets and was able to say what was needed, but not how to do it.
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ZeniMax basically sues anyone related to Carmack and VR because he did some VR work Pre-Oculus and they think his head knowledge is their property.
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From the entry for him on Wikipedia I’m left with the impression that he actually did.
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I don’t doubt that he experimented… But did he actually manage anything worthwhile? That just sounds like typical spin to me.
Still, I’ll grant that it’s more than I thought he did, so maybe they did try to give the impression that he invented things (true or not), and I just missed it.
There are some articles about how Luckey got going with his VR stuff, but basically he wanted to make VR happen because he really wanted to and he knew someone was going to do it eventually anyway. IIRC he had already met Carmack at some conference or something? (as a fanboy) and I think that’s where a lot of controversy came from. Either way, he made his garage prototype and showed it to Abrash and it took off from there and they later brought on some high profile tech guys including Carmack who was apparently working on some private VR stuff already which is why Zenimax is all pissy and thinks he basically took all his work to Oculus.
This lawsuit could go either way. Facebook and ZeniMax are both huge and have excellent legal teams. ZeniMax bought id Software in 2009 and acquired Carmack during that deal. In 2013, Carmack left ZeniMax to take the CTO job at Oculus. Between those two points in time, there was some collaboration between ZeniMax and Oculus on VR. It is going to be an interesting case to watch. I would not be surprised if ZeniMax managed to receive some kind of settlement in this case.
I have always been a little skeptical about the story of Oculus. I view Carmack as one of the smartest programmers on the planet, so I was skeptical that a 17 year old kid (Luckey) had managed to nail the VR tech so well that Carmack would go work for him. But I do not personally know either person, so I really have no idea what actually happened.
Could end up the other way, Facebook taking over control of Bethesda. That would suck imo.
** ZeniMax is parent co of Bethesda.
That would be a very interesting turn of events. I don’t think there is any risk of that happening.
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Isn’t it the same one being re-reported? I’ve definitely heard most of the things in that link before. I think it’s just come up again because of juror selection or something.
they had those vr goggles in like 1991 … they just needed better computers and better display technology
they really didnt do anything special if you ask me, just steal ideas
but my view on stealing ideas is that if an idea exists, its humanity’s property
… i mean, sure you can own your own ideas, but youre a jerk to keep it to yourself, and if your idea is amazing and … idk saves lives, people should come after you and take your idea, dont be selfish!!
… but problems arise with capitalism or something… ugh … going too far now… lol whatever…
people that like hack medical secrets are HEROES and should be rewarded by government!! 
i think thats an indisputable fact
Go check out the YouTube comments section. There is no such thing as an undisptutable fact anymore.
In reality a lot comes down to where you country and government sits on the tech scale. In a developing nation, stealing tech makes sense and is applaudable. It’s how pretty much every nation got started.
However when you are on top, there is no one else to steal from. And a government that incentivises stealing tech disincentivises innovation. And that’s the last thing you want to do when your economy is on top.
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if those people’s personal incentive is monetary gain,
they shouldnt be involved in that kind of work
BOOM!! PWNED
what kind of silly joke of a concept is “money” anyway?
its a psych manipulation system created by despots to incentivize monkey minded people to be slaves.
So no one should be involved in that kind of work? There are very, very few people who have both the skills needed to develop new tech, and don’t need money from their work.
When you have developed technologies that change the world, you can give them away for free. I won’t stand in your way. I on the other hand need to eat and feed my family. I’m well equipped to help solve some big problems, like world hunger. But that doesn’t help mean anything if my family goes hungry.
Altruism is a nice idea. But it doesn’t put food on the table.
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hahaha yeah iam just really frustrated at stuff right now haha
… it just sucks the instances where people are screwing people over for money lol
and it seems like money is all about screwing people over and nothing else…
Its all a matter of perspective. Yes it sucks that people are screwed over for money, or lack there of. On the other hand its great that there are people that world over searching for solutions to some incredibly difficult problems.
I’m not nice enough to save the world, and few people are. But I just might be greedy enough to do it.
I’m not arguing for unrestrained capitalism, far from it. But unrestrained socialism can be just as dangerous.
The only reason you are even reading this text on your computer screen is because someone was greedy and pursued profit opportunity.
Making a world a better place for free sounds nice on paper, but in reality money is what makes things happen, like it or not.
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true, but it shouldnt, and it takes people with (bravery)? to make it happen
Bravery? Or insanity? My first thoughts when reading your posts were about Richard Stallman. There is no such thing as being normal in my opinion but at the same time RMS is a bit further from it than most people are. Yet even RMS needs funds to live the life he does. He’s just fortunate that he’s able to make them without violating his own beliefs.
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