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Facebook’s Virtual Reality Foray Derided as ‘Fanciful Story’
- wmccullough 10y agoAs soon as I saw the suit was ZeniMax I dismissed it immediately. They'd sue me for this comment if they could figure out how.
- pawadu 10y agoRead Carmacks biography! His first job was at a small computer shop where he wrote business software. He felt the job was boring and with some friends started developing PC games in secret, on work machines and while lifting wages. This is how id software was born. Due to that book, I think he will have a hard time convincing a jury he is innocent. edit: its even on wikipedia Softdisk, [...] hired Carmack to work on Softdisk G-S [...] introducing him to John Romero and other future key members of id Software such as Adrian Carmack [...]. In 1990, while still at Softdisk, Carmack, Romero, and others created the first of the Commander Keen games, [...]
- SmellyGeekBoy 10y agoFrom what I remember of "Masters of Doom" he was indeed using his employer's PCs, office etc but outside of working hours and with the blessing of at least someone higher up. I don't think anything in there implies that he was defrauding the company.
- pawadu 10y agoIIRC they were doing just that but the owner let them off easy (they had to write some additional software for the company). With a more trigger happy owner things could have ended very differently
- forgetsusername 10y ago>From what I remember of "Masters of Doom" he was indeed using his employer's PCs, office etc but outside of working hours and with the blessing of at least someone higher up. Sounds like a convenient post-hoc rationalization, right in line with what may be occurring in this developing story about the Rift.
- Paul_S 10y agoIf you don't believe it, read Masters of Doom - it's a hugely sympathetic history of id and they still manage to look like sociopaths in it, especially Carmack. They steal, lie and backstab their friends.
- csmattryder 10y agoEspecially Romero's "resignation". if that played out a tenth of how it was written, that's devastating. Admittedly, Romero was getting complacent and becoming more of the end-user than developer, but man... To get booted from your own creation with a prepared resignation letter, savage.
- rasz_pl 10y agoFiring sixth wheel that stopped producing anything of value a savage move? The best thing Romero was involved in after Doom(and 10 quake maps?) was founding Ion Storm and only screwing up Dallas office(Did you "suck him down"? "became his bitch"?[1]) leaving Austin alone to create Deus Ex. My fav is Brenda(wife) telling everyone a story of young brilliant Romero hacking computers at a military ICBM facility, basically a script to wargames .... [1] http://kotaku.com/5541406/john-romero-is-so-sorry-about-trying-to-make-you-his-bitch http://kotaku.com/5541406/john-romero-is-so-sorry-about-tryi...
- Notre1 10y agoI don't think sociopathic is an accurate characterization. Carmack's behavior struck me as similar to someone with Asperger's Syndrome (based on the Masters of DOOM book.)
- taneq 10y agoThat's a rather selectively edited quote. Full version, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carmack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carmack: > Softdisk, a computer company in Shreveport, Louisiana, hired Carmack to work on Softdisk G-S (an Apple IIGS publication), introducing him to John Romero and other future key members of id Software such as Adrian Carmack (not related). Later, this team would be placed by Softdisk in charge of a new, but short-lived, bi-monthly game subscription product called Gamer's Edge for the IBM PC (DOS) platform. In 1990, while still at Softdisk, Carmack, Romero, and others created the first of the Commander Keen games, a series that was published by Apogee Software, under the shareware distribution model, from 1991 onwards. Afterwards, Carmack left Softdisk to co-found id Software. Nowhere does it say that Commander Keen was created using work hardware or on company time. Everything I've seen and read about Carmack portrays him as a guy who loves to build new tech. It would be totally out of character for him to copy and claim someone else's work, much less to "steal thousands of files."
- john_reel 10y ago> Next, they hired Carmack, who is accused of copying thousands of documents from his computer at ZeniMax. This claim sounds pretty dubious. Has John Carmack said anything about it?
- sho_hn 10y agoDoes it? Carmack wouldn't be the first engineer to ignore legal details in pursuit of perceived nobler goals. Many mass-ignore sw patents every day. Guilt needs to be proven, but I don't find it hard to imagine. Side note: HN may not realize, but the public sympathy in this case may not be with Carmack and Oculus. ZeniMax, as parent of Bethesda, has a largely solid rep among the video game consumer audience as publisher of respectable games, and while the acquisition of id was initially seen as id selling out, their latest game under Bethesda (the first shipped without Carmack at the company) is widely regarded as a major return to form for a once-struggling game developer. Meanwhile Occulus burned through most of its initial goodwill with (perceived to be) disappointing pricing, exclusiviy shenanigans and losing a lot of ground to HTC's strong Vive offering. Carmack has tons of deserved cachet with us, but the public at large may be ready to hang him and Oculus. This will get ugly.
- charlieflowers 10y agoWhich game are you talking about?
- aaron-lebo 10y agoI got really excited thinking maybe Carmack would be set free, but he's at the center of it: ZeniMax contends Carmack was responsible for the breakthroughs that transformed the Rift into a “powerful immersive virtual reality experience.” But after Carmack and Luckey agreed to use the Rift to showcase a specially configured version of Doom 3 at a Los Angeles convention in 2012, relations between the startups quickly soured, according to ZeniMax. Instead of discussing how Oculus would compensate ZeniMax, Luckey and Oculus’s then-Chief Executive Officer Brendan Iribe allegedly became “increasingly evasive and uncooperative.” Next, they hired Carmack, who is accused of copying thousands of documents from his computer at ZeniMax. and Carmack says he also offered to manufacture and sell a consumer headset similar to Luckey’s, but his idea fell flat with ZeniMax’s CEO Robert Altman, a former lawyer who had also been CEO of the adult entertainment website FriendFinder Networks Inc. What a world we live in. Are there any indications to how this case may go?
- HugoDaniel 10y agoWasn't Doom 3 GPL'd ?
- douche 10y agoIt is, at least the version that is on the Id Software Github https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM-3/blob/master/COPYING.txt https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM-3/blob/master/COPYING.tx...
- jamesrom 10y agoYour heading is much better than Bloomberg's, but still confusing.
- suprfnk 10y agoOfftopic, but how do I read that title? Syntax error in my head. I get the "Goes to Trial" part, but "Carmack Rift Over Oculus"?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- charlieflowers 10y agoI think the wordplay is confusing you. Rift is the product name, but that's not how they're using it here. A "rift" is a disagreement. So the headline can be restated as "The disagreement related to Carmack about the Oculus goes to trial."
- de_Selby 10y agoIt's intentionally written like that - it's a play on the word rift and the "Oculous Rift"
- akjainaj 10y agoI'd blame the senseless title case that Americans use. If rift was lowercase, it would be easier to understand. "Carmack rift over Oculus goes to trial"
- tangus 10y agoEither: The rift over Oculus involving Carmack. Or: Carmack's rift over Oculus.
- sundvor 10y ago
- probablybroken 10y agoThis whole case seems utterly bizarre; I followed the development of the rift pre-Oculus, and none of what Zenimax are saying seems to be grounded in reality. As I remember, Carmack's real innovation was to create a full screen effect that compensated for the cheap optics that palmer's design used; Now you could claim that as a member of staff, this innovation belonged to Zenimax, but this does not appear to be the case that they are making. In addition, how come other independent organisations have been able to create working VR without treading all over their patents if they were really betting on the technology?
- krona 10y agoI doubt it's about patents, since Carmack himself wouldn't be involved if it was. This seems to be a copyright issue, i.e. whether Carmack did a ctrl+c, ctrl+v on something he didn't own. Alternatively perhaps Zenimax has additional and convincing information about how the works in question was re-implemented. Was it done by Carmack himself, or did a team implement it from his specification?
- momerath 10y agoI don't have time to read through the thread today, but I did before the Rift kickstarter was announced, and my impression has always been that the software-distortion-in-compensation-for-simpler-optics[1] idea was already out there when Carmack chimed in. 1. Allowing the screen to be much closer, drastically improving practically achievable FOV. Here's the thread: http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=14777 http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=14777
- cr0sh 10y agoOf course it was - the barrel distortion system was originally developed in the 1990s for and by (?) LEEP: http://www.leepvr.com/ http://www.leepvr.com/ Back then, the optics were key - and very expensive - but while the optics were originally used to warp then unwarp the image (ie - analog warping), it was thought that the warp portion could be done in software (but computers at the time weren't powerful enough to do it real-time). I believe that Palmer was fully aware of this, and when the LEEP optics patent expired, realized that a cheaper version could be made, and combined with other parts coming on the market (particularly lightweight, large, high-res phone displays) to build a "dream" HMD.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- kelvin0 10y agoWhy wait all this time to figure out they want to sue? FB bought occulus, Carmack Joined ... a few years later their lawyers wake up now? Anyone know more about this, or at least has seen similar strategies before? The only thing I could guess is that they waited until the goose lay an egg, which turned out not to be gold ...?
- Yodoshi 10y agoThis has been in the pipeline for nye on 3 years. https://www.engadget.com/2014/05/01/zenimax-claims-oculus-stole/ https://www.engadget.com/2014/05/01/zenimax-claims-oculus-st...
- Yuioup 10y ago> relations between the startups quickly soured I wouldn't call Zenimax a "startup"
- seppin 10y agowell, Uber still is called one
- jandrese 10y agoIMHO this is likely to be moot anyway. One of the takeaways I got from CES this year is that Galaxy Gear and Vive have won the VR race. There were zero Rift demos. This is looking like a fight over who is going to own the IP for HD-DVD.
- pr0zac 10y agoThe Galaxy Gear is made by Samsung in collaboration with Oculus.
- alexqgb 10y agoYes, but it's been managed as a separate product, in a separate category (mobile VR), and now — after the recent reorg at Oculus — in a separate division. It's also the one that Carmack has been focused on exclusively for well over a year now. On a day-to-day basis, he doesn't have anything to do with the Rift.
- jandrese 10y agoFor what it is worth, the Gear provided better VR than the Vive did. The higher resolution was definitely noticeable and the distance adjustment worked properly, unlike the Vive. The lack of controllers was of course an issue, but none of the Rift demos made very good use of the controls anyway so it was kind of moot.
- carlosdp 10y agoNah, the VR race is just getting started. Vive won this round, in my opinion, because it exclusively had controllers for nearly a year and has a better tracking solution. But the real test is going to be who develops an inside-out tracked, fully self-contained headset. That's the device that will really break through the mainstream. In that respect, Oculus has shown off the Santa Cruz prototype and Intel showed of their self-contained headset at CES, while HTC hasn't shown anything in that space.
- nilkn 10y agoKeep in mind that Oculus had been showing off prototypes for years when the Vive almost came out of nowhere and completely leapfrogged them on room-scale VR and tracked controllers. Oculus has a track record so far of actually getting to market very slowly. Granted, their recent troubles and the success of the Vive might be pushing them to change that practice.
- rl3 10y ago>ZeniMax contends Carmack was responsible for the breakthroughs that transformed the Rift into a “powerful immersive virtual reality experience.” ...that was completely trampled by the HTC Vive. It's like ZeniMax insists on squabbling over the scraps of a failure. To play devil's advocate, I suppose they didn't know this when they filed, and Oculus may still prove quite valuable in the future—but either way, they could probably start their own VR program for what their legal bills are going to cost in the end.
- drzaiusapelord 10y agoWorse, the Vive has leapfrogged them with wireless support, additional trackers, etc. I feel like there's an elephant in the room when discussion the value or 'success' of the Rift. I don't think most consumers casually interested in VR realize how behind those guys are. I do see the Oculus/Rift branding being repurposed for a Facebook social experience, if not an entire platform for phones to support, but in the realm of PC gaming or anything that requires desktop GPU/CPU levels of power, I imagine they'll always be second fiddle and will be surprised if they last much longer. Tim Sweeney is claiming the Vive outsells the Rift 2-to-1 right now. That's damning for a company with Facebook heft behind it and several years of community engagement, developer kits, hype, etc which ultimately when up against a product that came out of nowhere but delivered everything on day one: controllers, roomscale, good fov, amazing tracking, immersion, etc as well as trivially being able to do seated/standing experiences.
- serge2k 10y ago> That's damning for a company with Facebook heft behind it That's not great when their target market is gamers, a large number of whom distrust facebook, love valve, hate the idea of a VR device trying to become a walled garden, and are generally entitled jerks who will whine and cry and talk about how they are never buying an oculus product because palmer lied about the price/sold out to facebook/whatever.
- carlosdp 10y agoEhh, I agree the Vive is way better when it comes to tracking technology, but Vive and Oculus are basically at parity otherwise with Oculus having the upper-hand when it comes to ergonomics and design of the headset and controllers. Oculus is far from dead in the water and is definitely very valuable, especially with their lead in the performance software space with Asynchronous Timewarp/Spacewarp. They'll lag behind Vive in global sales for a while because FB doesn't have a foothold in Asia yet, but Vive vs Oculus is definitely an active competition.
- gumby 10y agoIf anyone had the grounds to sue it would be Valve. This one seems absurd on the face of it. Still, we'll see what comes out.
- serge2k 10y agowhy?
- gumby 10y agoAbrash handed over a lot of Valve IP and prototypes to Oculus (note: Gabe did not object) before himself joining Oculus. Oculus did their VC demos at Valve on Valve hardware. I think gabe was hoping that oculus would put all their games on Steam. Didn't work out that way :-) Still, my comment was semi-flippant; Valve is no lawsuit monster and even if they were inclined to sue, they surely would have done so by now. But there were quite a few unhappy people at Valve about how that went down, and IMHO the Vive is in part a this-is-how-you-really-do-it fuck you to Oculus. In any case I feel like this is simply an opportunistic deep-pocket-reaching lawsuit against FB. PS: don't know why my original comment was downrated.
- iaw 10y ago> ZeniMax also declined to invest in Oculus in an early financing round and was unwilling to accept anything short of “a large non-dilutable stake” in Oculus in return for allowing Carmack’s participation as a technical adviser, according to Carmack’s filing If there was an issue with proprietary information wouldn't they have objected that the financing stage?
- omarforgotpwd 10y agoReminds me of that scene from the social network: "Did we use any of your code? If you guys were the inventors of the Occulus Rift, you would have invented the occulus rift"
- thampiman 10y agoAt Zenimax: "Hey guys. This whole VR is becoming a real thing and we dismissed it along with this Carmack dude. Lets fill a suit against Zuckerberg for ludicrous amount of money, maybe we can get couple millions for free via settlement."
- joeevans1000 10y agoOnce Palmer sold us all out to Facebook it was over. Fortunately, better headsets are on the scene.
- joeevans1000 10y agoAfter trying both the Vive and the Rift, I immediately stopped worrying about whether we were all going to have to log into our headsets with Facebook. The Vive is amazing in comparison.