SHOCKING NEWS: John Carmack Joins Oculus as CTO

[Skel]

Anything I can pay money at the store for that he personally had a hand in producing, writing, coding, creating, or otherwise manufacturing. Quit playing the word games and run around, it's a bit ridiculous.

<snip>

Wasn't playing word games, I was pointing out that he does his job exceedingly well. You on the other hand seem to not have a clue wtf he does as you're implying that he's the only person involved in making Rage. It doesn't even say John Carmack's Rage. It was a team effort, and while I'd never say the game was a masterpiece and it didn't really work for me personally, I wouldn't blame the guy who's creating a tool set for everyone else to use. Let me know when you'd like to stop playing word games and acting like he did every part in the game.

 

[futurefields]

Why is John Carmack considered such a genius compared to his peers?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Wasn't playing word games, I was pointing out that he does his job exceedingly well. You on the other hand seem to not have a clue wtf he does as you're implying that he's the only person involved in making Rage. It doesn't even say John Carmack's Rage. It was a team effort, and while I'd never say the game was a masterpiece and it didn't really work for me personally, I wouldn't blame the guy who's creating a tool set for everyone else to use. Let me know when you'd like to stop playing word games and acting like he did every part in the game.

Blah...blah...putting words in people's mouth is what you do best eh? Look everything he has touched in over a decade has been pretty bad IMO. That's what I said to begin with. If you bothered reading what was said instead of trying to twist things to fit the idea that Carmack is this infallible being or something, maybe you'd see that I was expressing an opinion on his work as it relates to the games I play as one of my hobbies.

 

[dougp]

Blah...blah...putting words in people's mouth is what you do best eh? Look everything he has touched in over a decade has been pretty bad IMO. That's what I said to begin with. If you bothered reading what was said instead of trying to twist things to fit the idea that Carmack is this infallible being or something, maybe you'd see that I was expressing an opinion on his work as it relates to the games I play as one of my hobbies.

Games Carmack has touched over the past decade:

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (2003) – Raven Software
Call of Duty (2003)
Call of Duty: United Offensive (2004)
Doom 3 (2004) – id Software
Quake 4 (2005) – Raven Software
Prey (2006) – Human Head Studios
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (2007) – Splash Damage
Wolfenstein (2009) – Raven Software
Quake Live (2010) – id Software
Brink (2011) – Splash Damage
Rage (2011) – id Software

And those are just because of id Tech Engine. I count at least 6 games on there that were quite fun and popular.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Why is John Carmack considered such a genius compared to his peers?

Because he is?

True 3D, hardware 3D, dynamic lighting, colored lighting, dynamic shadows years ahead of others.

Playing Quake 2 with hardware-accelerated colored lighting was amazing at the time.

Carmack isn't admired as a businessman or game designer, he's admired as a developer of ground-breaking graphics engines.

 

[WiseUp216]

Why is John Carmack considered such a genius compared to his peers?

Check out the book 'Masters of Doom'. A great account of the early days of Carmack & Romero.

His recent history is subject to debate but his importance in the early days is undeniable.

 

[Skel]

Games Carmack has touched over the past decade:

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (2003) – Raven Software
Call of Duty (2003)
Call of Duty: United Offensive (2004)
Doom 3 (2004) – id Software
Quake 4 (2005) – Raven Software
Prey (2006) – Human Head Studios
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (2007) – Splash Damage
Wolfenstein (2009) – Raven Software
Quake Live (2010) – id Software
Brink (2011) – Splash Damage
Rage (2011) – id Software

And those are just because of id Tech Engine. I count at least 6 games on there that were quite fun and popular.

Don't bother bringing logic here. Some people just can't see the forest from the trees and only judge things based upon how it fits their niche likes.

Because he is?

True 3D, hardware 3D, dynamic lighting, colored lighting, dynamic shadows years ahead of others.

Playing Quake 2 with hardware-accelerated colored lighting was amazing at the time.

Carmack isn't admired as a businessman or game designer, he's admired as a developer of ground-breaking graphics engines.

That's what I admire about him, I honestly believe that if he wasn't for him we'd be a lot farther back in terms of what we can do in games.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Eh, VR has been around for quite awhile and has always been pretty poorly implemented. MS and Sony wouldn't risk buying into a fringe technology that has no real model behind it. Even for their motion stuff, it wasn't until the Wii and Nintendo proved it could sell did they even start putting any real investment into it. It paid for greatly for MS (the Kinect sold 24 million units, which is unheard of for a console peripheral).

If Oculus gets the software support and isn't clunky, Virtual Boy garbage that burns your retinas, we might see console versions / integration.

Motion was a flop for Sony and Microsoft is basically betting the farm on stuff that they know isn't even popular.

Have you read, well basically anything about this? It wows literally everyone that uses it. The software isn't an issue, at least the word is the API is actually good and robust, but they need games to properly use it. Its easy to get it working with games but needs developers to polish it to work out stuff like UI issues.

Sony has actually said they have Oculus units that they've been playing with. Considering all the other half-cocked stuff they've tried I don't see why they'd balk at this. Buying Oculus early would be cheap and they could lock down it to their system which would be huge. They wouldn't even have to have it launch with their system, and Sony could have leveraged it in other ways (they have an expensive 3D head display that isn't all that great).

Plus Microsoft or Sony would be able to get a company to develop or tweak a display if necessary, which means they wouldn't have had to dink around with the 720p panel they've been using (they also had problems sourcing panels, which the clout of a large company would have likely taken care of). Plus with 1080p 5" OLED displays, I'd think that would be a great fit for it.

I'm actually glad they haven't as I'd be much happier about it being open and being able to use it on PC. Really that's the only reason I can think is that Oculus refused to be bought out.

 

[smackababy]

Motion was a flop for Sony and Microsoft is basically betting the farm on stuff that they know isn't even popular.

Have you read, well basically anything about this? It wows literally everyone that uses it. The software isn't an issue, at least the word is the API is actually good and robust, but they need games to properly use it. Its easy to get it working with games but needs developers to polish it to work out stuff like UI issues.

Sony has actually said they have Oculus units that they've been playing with. Considering all the other half-cocked stuff they've tried I don't see why they'd balk at this. Buying Oculus early would be cheap and they could lock down it to their system which would be huge. They wouldn't even have to have it launch with their system, and Sony could have leveraged it in other ways (they have an expensive 3D head display that isn't all that great).

Plus Microsoft or Sony would be able to get a company to develop or tweak a display if necessary, which means they wouldn't have had to dink around with the 720p panel they've been using (they also had problems sourcing panels, which the clout of a large company would have likely taken care of). Plus with 1080p 5" OLED displays, I'd think that would be a great fit for it.

I'm actually glad they haven't as I'd be much happier about it being open and being able to use it on PC. Really that's the only reason I can think is that Oculus refused to be bought out.

If by motion being a flop, you mean a HUGE success never before seen in console peripherals, then yes motion was a flop for Microsoft. They sold 24 million Kinects. That is 24 million, with an 'm', $100+ peripherals to already existing console owners.

VR has been an extreme niche for years. And the Virtual Boy was a colossal failure for Nintendo, and anyone who was gaming at the time remembers that.

I don't think Oculus will be awful, but if I, a consumer, is skeptical; imagine what investors of a company are.

 

[Juddog]

If by motion being a flop, you mean a HUGE success never before seen in console peripherals, then yes motion was a flop for Microsoft. They sold 24 million Kinects. That is 24 million, with an 'm', $100+ peripherals to already existing console owners.

VR has been an extreme niche for years. And the Virtual Boy was a colossal failure for Nintendo, and anyone who was gaming at the time remembers that.

I don't think Oculus will be awful, but if I, a consumer, is skeptical; imagine what investors of a company are.

Motion is the PS3 equivalent of the Kinect... the thing with the glowing end.

 

[TechBoyJK]

No it's called this guy's product had sucked for over a decade.

At this point, I'm suprised you even know the guy's name. Your information is false, and the pretense in which you present it is false. Carmack is an engine guy, and his product far from sucks. There are other things to be said about the games ID made (most of which I enjoyed, btw), but to say ID Tech 5 'sucks' is like saying 'BMW sucks' or 'Ferrari sucks'. It just makes you look inexperienced or misguided.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Well he needs to quit his dayjob at ID because the rage engine (id tech 5) was truly awful. His prior engines pushed the limits of graphical possibilities. ID tech 5 has moments which makes it look far worse than doom 3.

We get it. He's a smart guy. Blah blah blah whatever. Who cares. He needs to apply that genius to something that is interesting to him, because clearly gaming isn't - he has lost his passion for gaming and just needs to QUIT before he ruins ID's legacy for good - id used to be the best, bar none. Those days are done. The passion is gone.

I'm surprised you even know what ID Software is. Or who John Carmack is. To say ID Tech 5 sucks just throws your credibility out of the window.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Blah...blah...putting words in people's mouth is what you do best eh? Look everything he has touched in over a decade has been pretty bad IMO. That's what I said to begin with. If you bothered reading what was said instead of trying to twist things to fit the idea that Carmack is this infallible being or something, maybe you'd see that I was expressing an opinion on his work as it relates to the games I play as one of my hobbies.

Are you drunk? Or always combative and abrasive?

 

[TechBoyJK]

I wonder if anybody realizes the COD MW games made by Infinity Ward used a variation of ID Tech 5?

 

[dougp]

I wonder if anybody realizes the COD MW games made by Infinity Ward used a variation of ID Tech 5?

Erm, not true. All non-original CoD games are powered by the IW engine, which is based off the Tech 3 engine from id.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IW_engine

 

[Aikouka]

Did you really need to make four separate posts on defending Carmack, which included no actual substance to the thread? Yeesh... at least multi-quote if you're going to do that.

Sony has actually said they have Oculus units that they've been playing with. Considering all the other half-cocked stuff they've tried I don't see why they'd balk at this. Buying Oculus early would be cheap and they could lock down it to their system which would be huge. They wouldn't even have to have it launch with their system, and Sony could have leveraged it in other ways (they have an expensive 3D head display that isn't all that great).

Hmm I'm not really sure how I feel about the Rift with console gaming. I think people would find the tech fascinating, but it seems like an awkward fit. Console gaming has always felt a bit more social than PC gaming strictly in a local sense because you tend to play in an open area on a larger screen which can support more viewers. Console games also usually support same-screen multi-player, which tends to be uncommon in PC games. So, I guess it seems weird that we would be completely transitioning away from that open, social nature to a very closed and confined singular nature with the Rift. That may not be an issue with some games that are most definitely single player. Skyrim has been shown off on the Rift, and that's a good example of a single player game. Although, maybe the social aspect doesn't have to go away if they steal a page from Nintendo's book by turning the monitor/TV into the gamepad. The person on the TV could work with the person in the Rift.

 

[dougp]

If you have time, and you're really interested in the OR, take a look at JC's keynote from 2012 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt-iVFxgFWk

He explains what he feels the limitations are with VR, workarounds, etc.

 

[Mushkins]

You have no clue what you're talking about.

http://www.twitch.tv/bethesda/c/2685811

Watch that. If you think that he has nothing left to contribute to gaming after watching one of his keynotes, then perhaps you should replace him.

Ok, great. He's good at what we all know he's good at. Applied Mathematics. And the "you cant do better so your opinion is wrong" fallacy isn't really helping your argument here.

No one is denying that the man is good at what he does. The point here is that him sticking with iD is a waste of his talents at this point, and it arguably has been for a long time. It was the right place for him to be in the 90's, but what he brings to iD and what iD brings to *him* is no longer a forward moving proposition. Fancy lights are cool and all, but fancy lights dont make up for the rest of iD taking his work and putting yet another mediocre FPS on top of it.

He should be taking his brain and his talents for building engines and physics and mathematics to an environment where he can stretch them and come up with new and interesting things in order to stay relevant. Oh wait, he's doing this by joining Oculus as CTO.He's focusing less on games and more on the technology, which also may happen to have uses for games. It's clear he's passionate about what he does, but its the new ways to render those lights and the math behind it that has him visibly excited, not how it affects you "Shootin' D00dz".

Technology is an ever moving field at all levels. Staying put means being left behind, and that has nothing to do with video games.

 

[Remobz]

My prediction: this will end bad

 

[dougp]

Ok, great. He's good at what we all know he's good at. Applied Mathematics. And the "you cant do better so your opinion is wrong" fallacy isn't really helping your argument here.

No one is denying that the man is good at what he does. The point here is that him sticking with iD is a waste of his talents at this point, and it arguably has been for a long time. It was the right place for him to be in the 90's, but what he brings to iD and what iD brings to *him* is no longer a forward moving proposition. Fancy lights are cool and all, but fancy lights dont make up for the rest of iD taking his work and putting yet another mediocre FPS on top of it.

He should be taking his brain and his talents for building engines and physics and mathematics to an environment where he can stretch them and come up with new and interesting things in order to stay relevant. Oh wait, he's doing this by joining Oculus as CTO.He's focusing less on games and more on the technology, which also may happen to have uses for games. It's clear he's passionate about what he does, but its the new ways to render those lights and the math behind it that has him visibly excited, not how it affects you "Shootin' D00dz".

Technology is an ever moving field at all levels. Staying put means being left behind, and that has nothing to do with video games.

First off, he's been involved in OR since before the Kickstarter campaign. Second, if you watch the video of his first keynote from this year, you can tell he's very much about what can be done for gaming. He's still involved in quite a bit in regards to hardware, especially on the console/mobile front.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Erm, not true. All non-original CoD games are powered by the IW engine, which is based off the Tech 3 engine from id.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IW_engine

I stand corrected. However I did mention it was just infinity ward, and was a variation of ID Tech. I think the only incorrect part was Tech 5 vs 3, of which you are completely right about.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Did you really need to make four separate posts on defending Carmack, which included no actual substance to the thread? Yeesh... at least multi-quote if you're going to do that.

I did need to; I was responding to different comments. Did you look at the time stamps?

 

[Aikouka]

I did need to; I was responding to different comments. Did you look at the time stamps?

Different yet close time stamps just means you're too darned lazy to combine posts. Whenever I find a post that I want to comment to but I'm not at the end of the new posts, I either hit this magical button at the bottom of the post

or I hold CTRL and hit this one

. It's proper forum etiquette to avoid multi-posting... just as it is to remain on-topic.

 

[Geosurface]

Is CTO the position previously held by the guy who got killed by a car hitting him?

And are we positive that the driver of that car wasn't John Carmack?

 

[Mandres]

Is CTO the position previously held by the guy who got killed by a car hitting him?

And are we positive that the driver of that car wasn't John Carmack?

this is John Carmack we're talking about. He would have used a rocket ship. Or a BFG9000...