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Was Oculus Rift’s Tech Stolen? One Lawsuit Says Yes!

Was Oculus Rift’s Tech Stolen? One Lawsuit Says Yes!

There’s been a long-brewing lawsuit building between the Facebook-owned Oculus and ZeniMax, the parent company of beloved game developers like Bethesda and id. It’s all about who owns the intellectual property behind Oculus VR and… hey… don’t doze off yet! I know, I know, it used to be a pretty standard issue corporate lawsuit, but last week it got personal .  And personal is when it gets interesting, at least to industry gossip-mongers like me.

Last week ZeniMax amended its lawsuit against Oculus to include various personal accusations against Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and former ZeniMax employee John Carmack. Yeah, that John Carmack. DOOM John Carmack. You know, one of the people who basically invented the first-person shooter. Not exactly a great guy to go after if you’re looking to curry favor with the gaming community. ZeniMax, though, isn’t looking to win a popularity contest. It’s looking to win a lawsuit, and it’s accusing Carmack of outright theft when it comes to the technology behind the Rift. It’s also attempting to paint Palmer Luckey as a bit of an ignoramus who could never have created the Oculus Rift without Carmack and ZeniMax’s technology.

What do we know is true? We know that Carmack helped Luckey out with some of the Rift’s technology while he was still working for ZeniMax. In fact, the two companies worked together to demonstrate VR software at E3 2012, where journalists could try out DOOM 3: BFG Edition on an Oculus headset.

After that point, though, it doesn’t seem like ZeniMax was gung-ho about pursuing VR tech itself. The company allowed Carmack to act as Oculus’ Chief Technology Officer in August 2013 while still working for id Software. Apparently they didn’t see any conflict of interest happening at the time. That November, though, Carmack left id, the company he had founded in the early ’90s, to pursue VR technolgy full-time with Oculus. When asked why he’d left, Carmack noted that ZeniMax had refused his proposal to port id titles like Wolfenstein: The New Order and DOOM 4 to the Rift. He’d decided to go all the way into VR tech, and ZeniMax wasn’t allowing him to do so.

Was ZeniMax hoping to create its own VR headset, and that’s why it wouldn’t allow Carmack to port games to the Rift? We’ve seen no evidence of such a project. Instead, we’re seeing a huge lawsuit claiming that without ZeniMax and its technology, supposedly stolen by Carmack via a USB key (sounds like a CSI: Cyber episode!), the Oculus Rift would be nothing. ZeniMax even claims that Luckey didn’t have the know-how to make a VR headset until he met Carmack. That appears to be a big ol’ lie, as Luckey’s prototype VR helmet projects are actually documented ( here’s one from 2011!) in the online DIY VR community. ZeniMax also claims that the Oculus Rift Kickstarter was inspired by the headset’s E3 success in the ZeniMax booth… but wait! Here’s Luckey discussing the upcoming Kickstarter several months before E3 2012!

Was Oculus Rift’s Tech Stolen? One Lawsuit Says Yes!

As with many lawsuits, the truth is probably somewhere in-between the two sides. I wouldn’t be surprised if Carmack, a renowned workaholic who doesn’t support modern software patent and intellectual property laws, was lackadaisical about where exactly all of his personal research into VR tech took place. It wouldn’t be shocking if he inappropriately used some ZeniMax resources while collaborating with Luckey. Still, there’s that inconvenient fact that ZeniMax didn’t have a problem with him officially moonlighting with Oculus until he left id and turned it into a full-time gig. I am very curious if there’s any evidence of actual thievery, which we may never know if this case gets settled out of court. Either way, smearing Luckey’s technical knowledge seems like a mean-spirited and ill-advised part of the lawsuit. It makes me imagine a dramatic courtroom scene in which Luckey”s lawyer unveils a table full of his early prototype headsets, although I’m sure the reality will be far more dull than that.

So far, we’ve only got ZeniMax’s side of the story, which appears to play fast and loose with the historical record in several places. Still, these accusations are rather serious, so you have to imagine ZeniMax has some kind of smoking gun available against Oculus and Carmack. It would have been a lot easier to simply sue for some proceeds based on ZeniMax’s contributions to the Oculus’ early popularity at E3. Is it bad to hope that this goes to trial instead of being settled confidentially out of court? I want to know the whole story!

Sources: ZeniMax v Oculus , Why John Carmack quit id Software . Special thanks to commenter k.t. on the Rock Paper Shotgun forums for posting the links to Luckey’s forum history.

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