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Zenimax Accuses John Carmack of Stealing VR Tech
John Carmack made waves last year when he left id Software, owned by Zenimax, to join Oculus VR in order to help create its virtual reality headset. Now Zenimax has sent documents to Oculus's legal department claiming Carmack "stole" technology from them when he left. They said, "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." Carmack says, "No work I have ever done has been patented. Zenimax owns the code that I wrote, but they don't own VR." Oculus was also dismissive: "It's unfortunate, but when there's this type of transaction, people come out of the woodwork with ridiculous and absurd claims."
Ah, John, you make deals with the devil... are you then surprised when he comes calling for repayment? It's unfortunate that so many smaller, independent studios are absorbed by larger companies, who then proceed to strip-mine them of their IP and talent, leaving a dessicated corpse of a company in their wake to be discarded at their convenience.
I'm sure their partership with Facebook will be *completely* different.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
That's what people don't understand and the reason why patents suck. Ideas are NOT original. Implementations are.
What we're dealing with here is a trade secret dispute. Zenimax alleges that Carmack was privy to inside knowledge of Zenimax's work on VR tech while he worked there, and now he's allegedly run off with that knowledge and given it to Oculus VR.
Think of it like the formula for Coca Cola - it's not patented, never has been, but it's protected by trade secrets law. If someone works for Coca Cola and discovers/absconds with the formula, and then sells it to, e.g., Pepsi, then that person violates trade secrets laws by doing so. But if Pepsi independently discovers or reverse engineers Coke to discover the formula on their own, without relying on Coca Cola's inside knowledge, then more power to them.
Zenimax lost a fortune when it very foolishly bought iD. iD gave Zenimax exactly ONE game, the disastrous Rage that iD had sank tens of millions of dollars into prior to the sale.
The Rage engine was simply the worst generic engine ever developed- its single greatest failure is completely misunderstanding the work-flow of artists and others that produce the necessary assets for a game. With Rage, Carmack solved an interesting technical problem (that crudely became known as 'Megatexture') that no-one had ever requested be solved for modern game production.
After buying iD, Zenimax sank a new fortune into rapidly expanding the iD teams working on new games (what new games?). Rapidly, they discovered why iD had a reputation as the world's worst GAME designers. Carmack was discovered to be part of the problem, and the company was more than happy for him to "butt out" and go work with Oculus VR while still under his existing contract with Zenimax.
Today, Zenimax has two games about to be released using the Rage engine. Both look visually very primitive compared with other current AAA titles, but at least they should make some profit. HOWEVER, neither game is created by the iD teams in Zenimax.
Zenimax wants their money back. Normally, the world would respond "tough", but the whole Oculus VR/Facebook deal makes Zenimax thinks it may even turn a profit from its purchase of iD.
John Carmack was a 'free' man when Facebook finalised the deal to buy Oculus VR, but he most certainly was promoted by Oculus VR as being a key player in the team that created their success when Carmack was 'owned' by Zenimax. Today Oculus and Carmack will happily state they'll throw out ANY code potentially contaminated by Carmack's Zenimax contract- they had long depended on third-party code from other sources like Valve anyway.
So Zenimax relies on a factually true but nebulous position. And any court will ask why, if Zenimax cared about the assistance provided to Oculus by Carmack (which happened with Zenimax's explicit permission), they didn't reach an arrangement AT THE TIME with Carmack and Oculus. However, it seems that Oculus offered Zenimax some stock (long before the buy-out) which Zenimax couldn't be bothered to make a decision about.
The Law takes a dim view of companies that seek to manipulate a situation so they do the work first, and only THEN attempt to extort THEIR preferred reward. This kind of situation always smells like a well established con.
So Zenimax is going to have to prove some form of dishonesty of the part of Carmack and/or Oculus. But I bet that proves impossible. Neither Carmack nor Oculus had a history of anything but complete openness. Indeed, it was in Carmack's direct interest to be as open as possible, given how stupid Zenimax was in the first place allowing him to work with the Oculus people without a clear contract between Zenimaz and Oculus.
Most of us will expect Facebook to pay Zenimax something to go away, but Zenimax is a big company, and a 'little' pay-out is nothing to them. As I said at the top, Zenimax is actually looking to turn its financially disastrous purchase of iD into a significant profit . A quick Google suggests Zenimax paid north of 100 million dollars, but the income made subsequently from iD 'assets' wouldn't have even paid for the yearly running costs of their new purchase. So I guess Zenimax is looking for at least 100 mill from Facebook, and probably more like 150.
Zenimax agreed with Carmack working with Oculus, while still under his original contract with Zenimax. Zenimax accepted that Carmack was coding for Oculus, and actually had a signed agreement with Oculus acknowledging that fact, and claiming ultimate ownership of that code.
Carmack and Oculus are more than happy to ensure that ZERO code owned by Zenimax goes into any future product- by all accounts the code was junk anyway, and every current significant promotion of Oculus Rift is done with other third party software, including code from Valve. Oculus Rift is literally STONE SOUP, which is why every informed person was amazed that the dummies at Facebook thought there was anything worth buying in the first place.
Zenimax chose NOT to have a payment contract with Oculus when they allowed Carmack to work there. This is 100% the fault of Zenimax. Now, after the fact, Zenimax wants to unilaterally set a payment figure, and base this figure NOT on the work Carmack did, but on the fact Facebook paid 2 billion to buy Oculus VR. This logic will crash and burn in court.
The real-deal is that Zenimax wants pay-back for their disastrous decision to buy iD in the first place. Zenimax is well over 100 million dollars down on that deal, and they'd like their money back "thank you very much". But everyone knew the hopeless state of iD before Zenimax wasted their money buying them. Carmack had ran the company into the ground, from a licensed engine perspective, with only one genuine OUTSIDE customer for the Doom 3 Engine, and no outside customers likely for the dreadful Rage engine. iD was desperate to sell, having sank their fortune into the horrible Rage game. Everyone knew iD couldn't design new games, and everyone knew that iD's main success, licensed game engines, was long dead as well. The only sane reason to buy iD was if Zenimax was convinced that it could exploit iD's IP, namely Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein- IP that even iD itself had failed to usefully exploit for years.
Every decision made by Zenimax after the purchase of iD got worse. They paid to buy the rights to 'Prey', the ONLY outside (non-iD financed) title that used the Doom 3 engine, and lost a small fortune there as well, when the Prey 2 project collapsed.
They're all still stupid things to patent.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
No, it isn't. From the ZeniMax statement in the article:
The proprietary technology and know-how Mr. Carmack developed when he was a ZeniMax employee, and used by Oculus, are owned by ZeniMax.
So they are claiming that he also stole the "know-how".
If he actually took some ZeniMax programs, that is one thing. And if true, I can see how ZeniMax might have some claims.
But the term "know-how" tends to be common in unenforceable non-compete agreements, and are generally shunned in courts. People learn stuff, making the people more valuable. That is just how life works, and that is not usually a valid claim. When the people move on they can still keep secrets, but they cannot be made to unlearn that which they have learned.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
This has happened before...
http://scholar.google.com/scho...
This is why there is no CCR, and why Fogerty gave up music entirely out of disgust after this lawsuit. We missed decades of great music from a genius that we'll never get back. Remember this the next time a record company tells you that piracy is theft.
I have never seen Pepsi claim their blind taste tests are fair. This makes their saying that more people pick Pepsi in their blind taste test perfectly legal. Though I still think it is deceptive.
I took the Pepsi blind taste test. I would even say that the cold, freshly opened Pepsi tasted slightly better than the warm Coke that had been opened over a hour ago. I ended up choosing the Pepsi because I all of a sudden got the craving for the Juicy Fruit that they give you only if you pick the Pepsi.
How do I know the Coke had been open for over 1 hour and the Pepsi was freshly opened? I asked the guy. He said it was policy not to cool the Coke and make sure it was open at least 1 hour. Though they would sometimes cheat and only have them open for 30 minutes when things got really busy. The Pepsi had to be cooled and they were not allowed to use it if it had been open more than 5 minutes.
As for the Juicy Fruit, that was common knowledge here at that time. If you choose Pepsi, you got it, if you choose Coke, you didn't.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
It sounds to me like Zenimax doesn't understand that in California, "no compete" carries zero legal weight. I seriously doubt Carmack stole anything, they just don't like that he's using his knowledge and experience at a different company.