Oculus VR responds to ZeniMax's claims that Carmack stole IP for the Rift

Shawn Knight

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Last week, John Carmack’s former employee claimed he stole intellectual property that ultimately helped the Oculus Rift go from garage-based pipe dream into a working reality. On Monday, the company issued an official statement on the matter after briefly acknowledging it a few days ago.

Oculus VR said they were disappointed but not surprised by ZeniMax’s actions and aim to prove that all of their claims are false. Specifically, the Rift maker said there is not a line of ZeniMax code or any of its technology in any Oculus products.

What’s more, they say ZeniMax did not pursue claims against Oculus for IP or technology as ZeniMax claims. Oculus added that ZeniMax has never contributed any IP or technology to Oculus and only after the Facebook deal was announced did ZeniMax make claims through its lawyers.

Oculus also corroborated Carmack’s reason for leaving id Software last year. If you recall, the gaming pioneer revealed earlier this year that the company he helped co-found didn’t share his passion for virtual reality gaming and refused to invest the resources necessary to build VR into games like Doom 4 and Wolfenstein: The New Order.

Oculus also claims that ZeniMax pulled support for Doom 3 BFG when they wouldn’t agree to give ZeniMax an equity stake in their company. Ultimately, it may have all come down to money

For what it’s worth, the full Oculus SDK is available online for anyone that wants to check it out. If there’s any stolen code in there, surely someone on the Internet will find it and point it out, no?

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Lawyers don’t know how to read code, but they do know how to lead a client on.


Plus, people who fall out, like saying bad things about each other.
 
The truth is that his thinking of adding support for VR in those games was the way to go and John was seeing that clearly, being so forward thinking as he is along these lines. They didn't see that and now when they see the new momentum that Oculus has taken, now that they have realized that VR could finally be on the verge of become a a true reality (as most everybody else has) they want a piece of the pie. The timing with the huge Facebook acquisition is a bit too perfect. Sounds to me like these people are very badly buthurt because now they have realized the huge mistake they made by not supporting Carmack's ideas before. I can imagine Carmack sitting on his office chair now: "Waaaahhh Zenimax! Let's call the waaaaaambulance!"
 
Ahhh the SDK and the source code for the Rift are two *very* different things. The whole world knows (Oracle vs Google) what an SDK is and they know it is an arbitrary abstraction. I can name a method "SameMethodAsOracle" as easily as I can name it "DefinitelyNotTheSameAsOracle". The SDK isn't exposing the source code of the Rift's internal operation which is surely the real value of the platform? If it is poorly done and exposed software side, maybe.
 
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