There’s a strong push for VR gaming especially with PlayStation VR releasing on October 13th. However, other solutions like Oculus Rift and HTC Vive have been around for a few months with minimal impact.

Oculus chief technology officer and former id Software founder John Carmack noted at the Oculus Connect event that the technology is currently “coasting on novelty.” As per Games Industry International, Carmack said, “The initial wonder of being something people have never seen before. But we need to start judging ourselves. Not on a curve, but in an absolute sense. Can you do something in VR that has the same value, or more value, than what these other [non-VR] things have done?”

One area that VR needs to improve in is loading times as players are taking as long as 30 seconds to get into a game. “That’s acceptable if you’re going to sit down and play for an hour…but [in VR] initial startup time really is poisonous. An analogy I like to say is, imagine if your phone took 30 seconds to unlock every time you wanted to use it. You’d use it a lot less.

“There are apps that I wanted to play, that I thought looked great, that I stopped playing because they had too long of a load time. I would say 20 seconds should be an absolute limit on load times, and even then I’m pushing people to get it much, much lower.”

Oculus is currently planning to launch its Touch controller on December 6th and dubs it the “hand trigger” for tracking different finger poses. Stay tuned for more information on the same soon.

Work and Play

At one point in time, Carmack was described as having “no empathy for other human begins”. The man is well known for his work ethic which involved coming into work at odd hours, getting everything done and then repeating the process (to the tune of 80 hours a week). Heck, his idea of a vacation was to take his computer to a hotel, isolate himself from the world and just code for a week or two. So it’s somewhat surprising that he settled down and married Katherine Anna Kang in 2000. Kang was renowned for the mobile games she created for id Software including Doom RPG and Orcs & Elves which were critically acclaimed. It seems like a match made in Heaven…and of course Carmack had to bring his workstation along when they went on their honeymoon. What can we say? There’s an impeccable work ethic and then there’s business as usual for men like Carmack.

Battle Axes

During the early days of id Software, John Romero found himself locked in his office. The solution would have been to simply call the handy man but John Carmack at the time observed the door and decided to use a battle axe on it instead. Yes, a friggin’ battle axe and not just any battle axe either – this was a $5000 custom made battle axe. The door was chopped down much to the joy of the staff at the time and the door itself remained in pieces for a good while afterwards. Let it not be said that Carmack couldn’t be metal as hell when he wanted to be.

College Dropout

It shouldn’t be all that surprising that some of the most brilliant minds dropped out of college when they could. Such is the case of Carmack as well – he pursued college for two semesters before dropping out and becoming a freelance games developer. Of course, it’s another matter that Carmack broke into his school at the age of 14 to steal some Apple II computers using thermite and Vaseline. It’s one thing to say that higher education would be wasted on him but honestly, it turned out to be the other way around as Carmack joined Softdisk, met John Romero and Adrian Carmack and subsequently worked on Commander Keen for Apogee in 1991.

Paging Dr. Carmack

Have you see the Doom live-action film? You know the one with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and a two minute first person shot that was the only good thing about the film? As it turns out, Carmack was referenced in the film in a fairly subtle way. No, he didn’t have a head on a pike named after him. Carmack was instead the name for the lead scientist in the film – Todd Carmack – who sent the distress call that brought the marines to the Mars facility in the first place and later mutated into some horrible thing to be killed. Feel happy that we looked up the summary for this abomination of a film to provide context for Carmack’s appearance. That’s three minutes of our lives we’re never getting back. Amazingly enough, Carmack himself didn’t hate the film and felt it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as Super Mario Bros. or Street Fighter. Then again, for being as pleasantly surprised as he was, Carmack did go in with “fairly low expectations”.

Armadillo Aerospace Founder

Carmack had always expressed an interest in unorthodox and far-flung ideas like space tourism. To further that dream – and to make use of the millions in his possession – Carmack founded Armadillo Aerospace. The organization started working on manned suborbital spacecraft and won various challenges in 2008 and 2009 for its work. In August 2013 however,  the company would be placed in “hibernation” and subsequently acquired in early 2015 by former employees who began Exos Aerospace. While Carmack did dream big, Armadillo Aerospace is one example of things not quite working according to plan.

Though Oculus VR was embroiled in controversy following its acquisition by Facebook, its virtual reality hardware Rift is still very much a big deal. You need look no further than the thoughts of CTO John Carmack, former id Software founder who left the influential FPS developer to help craft the future of VR.

Speaking to Fortune, Carmack talked about the unique aspects of Rift. “Oculus really started popularizing a new approach using cellphone screen technology, a wide field of view, and super-low-latency sensor tracking.

“It’s not crappy stuff that doesn’t work and makes everybody sick. When you experience Oculus technology, it’s like getting religion on contact. People that try it walk out a believer.”

Carmack also feels that even with the advances made by Oculus, it’s still only just getting started. “Experiencing mobile VR is like when you first tried a decent desktop VR experience. There is a sense that you are glimpsing something from the future. This is science fiction made real, and it’s only just the beginning.”

What are your thoughts on

Last week, ZeniMax Media hit Oculus VR with a lawsuit, alleging that former id Software programmer John Carmack had stolen technology from the publisher – which has owned id for years now – for use in Oculus products.

The company recently hit back at these allegations in a new statement (via GameSpot), in which it stated that: “We are disappointed but not surprised by ZeniMax’s actions and we will prove that all of its claims are false.”

The key points outlined by Oculus included that: no line of code from ZeniMax was used in any of their technology or products; Carmack didn’t take any intellectual property; the company misstated an NDA that Oculus founder Palmer Luckey signed with ZeniMax; ZeniMax preventing Carmack from working on VR and investing in VR games which prompted him to leave in August 2013; and among other things, that despite the Oculus SDK being available online, ZeniMax never sought to identify stolen code or technology there despite it containing the full source code.

There are many other points but it’s already obvious that Oculus seeks to fight this battle tooth and nail with ZeniMax. Who do you think is right? Let us know in the comments.

Some time ago, John Carmack left id Software, the company he had founded and that ZeniMax had subsequently recently acquired, for Oculus Rift. The announcement came as a shock and surprise, but on the whole, it had seemed like the parting of ways between Carmack and ZeniMax had been an amicable one.

Well, it doesn’t feel so peachy now- it actually feels pretty damn hostile. You see, ZeniMax is accusing Carmack of having stolen tech when he left for Oculus, and then of having delivered it to Oculus Rift. What kind of tech, you ask? Some VR tech that ZeniMax was apparently developing internally, it seems.

“It was only through the concerted efforts of Mr. Carmack, using technology developed over many years at, and owned by, ZeniMax, that Oculus founder Mr. Luckey was able to transform his garage-based pipe dream into a working reality,” reads a statement from ZeniMax Media sent to Oculus VR and reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Oculus VR was quick to issue a response: “It’s unfortunate, but when there’s this type of transaction, people come out of the woodwork with ridiculous and absurd claims. We intend to vigorously defend Oculus and its investors to the fullest extent.”

Technology site Engadget contacted ZeniMax Media to try to confirm the veracity of this news. ZeniMax was quick to confirm that they had, in fact, made this allegation.

“ZeniMax confirms it recently sent formal notice of its legal rights to Oculus concerning its ownership of key technology used by Oculus to develop and market the Oculus Rift,” they said. “ZeniMax’s technology may not be licensed, transferred or sold without ZeniMax Media’s approval. ZeniMax’s intellectual property rights arise by reason of extensive VR research and development works done over a number of years by John Carmack while a ZeniMax employee, and others. ZeniMax provided necessary VR technology and other valuable assistance to Palmer Luckey and other Oculus employees in 2012 and 2013 to make the Oculus Rift a viable VR product, superior to other VR market offerings.

“The proprietary technology and know-how Mr. Carmack developed when he was a ZeniMax employee, and used by Oculus, are owned by ZeniMax. Well before the Facebook transaction was announced, Mr. Luckey acknowledged in writing ZeniMax’s legal ownership of this intellectual property. It was further agreed that Mr. Luckey would not disclose this technology to third persons without approval. Oculus has used and exploited ZeniMax’s technology and intellectual property without authorization, compensation or credit to ZeniMax. ZeniMax and Oculus previously attempted to reach an agreement whereby ZeniMax would be compensated for its intellectual property through equity ownership in Oculus but were unable to reach a satisfactory resolution. ZeniMax believes it is necessary to address these matters now and will take the necessary action to protect its interests.”

It sounds messy, and while the fact that ZeniMax is only now making noise about this automatically makes it seem suspicious, if they indeed have documentation that proves that Carmack ‘stole’ the tech, then him and Oculus may be in trouble.

In any case, we will keep you posted on all the drama.

John Carmack is one of the most influential figures of the gaming industry. He is perhaps the man who more than any other can be single handedly credited with popularizing PC gaming, with id Software releasing technologically stunning games like Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake in the 1990s, with cutting edge features such as online multiplayer support, in addition to his popularization of the freeware distribution method, as well as his tendency to release his engines to the public domain once they were old enough.

He shocked everyone when he announced that he had left id Software, the company he founded, to join Oculus Rift. Now, in an interview with USA Today, he has come clean about his reasons:

“I would have been content probably staying there working with the people and technology that I know and the work we were doing,” Carmack said. “But they [Oculus and id] couldn’t come together on that which made me really sad. It was just unfortunate.”

“When it became clear that I wasn’t going to have the opportunity to do any work on VR while at id Software, I decided to not renew my contract.”

It’s actually pretty sad, and feeds into the fears of Zenimax becoming too controlling of a company that was essentially the bastion of open source hacker ethos. But well, at least Carmack got to do what he wanted to when he found a new home at Oculus Rift.

Oculus Rift is going to be releasing the eponymous virtual reality headset for PC gamers sometime soon, and while third party developers and publishers are excited for it and signing up to support it in droves, the company itself will also be working on developing a title for the machine internally, reports Engadget.

The new game involves John Carmack, the pioneer and erstwhile head honcho at id Software, who left to head Oculus Rift’s technology development, in some capacity. CEO Brendan Iribe and Director of Developer Relations Aaron Davies talked about the new game.

“He’s working on a lot of exciting tech,” Iribe said of Carmack’s role. “But, his heart and soul and history certainly lies in the game-development side.”

He talked about the necessity for a flagship first party game. “That’s always been Epic’s philosophy. And it’s what allowed them to make what they made. It’s certainly been id’s philosophy in the past. It’s been John Carmack’s philosophy — you gotta eat your own dog food here, and develop internal content also,” he said.

It will be interesting to see the kinds of things John Carmack can accomplish with the Oculus Rift. Stay tuned.

Despite the enthusiasm surrounding the Xbox One and PS4 – and the monster sales accompanying both since their respective launches – former id Software programmer and industry veteran John Carmack believes that the current generation still has a lot of potential left.

Speaking to Wired, Carmack stated that, “There’s so much you can still do on the previous console generation. The 360 and PS3 are far from tapped out in terms of what a developer could do with them, but the whole world’s gonna move over towards next-gen and high-end PCs and all these other things.

“Part of me still frets a little bit about that, where just as you fully understand a previous generation, you have to put it away to kind of surf forward on the tidal wave of technology that’s always moving.”

However, some of that concern may just be a general reluctance to move away from known hardware to relatively new platforms and that with concerns to the above, “Data has shown over the decades that that’s usually not as important as you think it is.

“Although I keep making new arguments where now we can say that we’re past the knee of the cost-benefit curve in terms of what we get with graphics, and people are saying that with the next-gen consoles, that okay, they look better but they don’t look nearly as much better as the previous generation. So does that mean people will stay happier with the current things? And I could make that argument with a straight face and play for it, but it’s probably going to be wrong.”

Considering that some analysts like Michael Pachter believe this generation of consoles to be the last, it will certainly be interesting to see how long their cycles last.

In an interview with Wired, John Carmack talked about id Software’s Doom 4, including the number of issues the project has faced. Having recently departed the company that he helped found, Carmack believes that one of the biggest problems of all is identifying the essence of the franchise at this point.

“It’s been hard — one of the things that was a little bit surprising that you might not think so from the outside, but deciding exactly what the essence of Doom is, with this 20-year history, is a heck of a lot harder than you might think. You get multiple Doom fans that have different views of what the core essence of it is, and there’s been a design challenge through all of it.”

As for the long development cycle, which is beginning to mirror Duke Nukem Forever in more ways than one, Carmack stated that, “The worst aspect of the continuing pace of game development that we fell into was the longer and longer times between releases. If I could go back in time and change one thing along the trajectory of id Software, it would be, do more things more often.

“And that was id’s mantra for so long: ‘It’ll be done when it’s done.’ And I recant from that. I no longer think that is the appropriate way to build games. I mean, time matters, and as years go by — if it’s done when it’s done and you’re talking a month or two, fine. But if it’s a year or two, you need to be making a different game.”

Currently, Carmack is working with Oculus VR for the development of their Oculus Rift VR headset.

id Software founder and technical director, John Carmack, who is responsible for popular games like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake announced his resignation this past Friday. Carmack has stated that he wants to devote his full efforts to his job as the chief technical officer at Oculus VR, where he wants to focus on perfecting the virtual reality headset technology.

Tim Willits, studio director at id Software had the following to say:

“John Carmack, who has become interested in focusing on things other than game development at id, has resigned from the studio. John’s work on id Tech 5 and the technology for the current development work at id is complete, and his departure will not affect any current projects. We are fortunate to have a brilliant group of programmers at id who worked with John and will carry on id’s tradition of making great games with cutting-edge technology. As colleagues of John for many years, we wish him well.”

Carmack gave a brief statement via Twitter:

“I wanted to remain a technical adviser for Id, but it just didn’t work out. Probably for the best, as the divided focus was challenging.”

Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.