Carmack: 'Unfortunate' id Software Wasn't Interested in VR

Doom creator John Carmack would have liked to stay at id Software while serving as Chief Technology Officer for the Oculus Rift, he says. He worked at both companies for a while, having taken the CTO position before leaving id Software entirely a few months later. Carmack has now spoken openly about the decision, saying it was "unfortunate" that id wasn't interested in pursuing his new virtual reality passion project.

"It would have been a huge win," Carmack told USA Today. "It seemed like a sensible plan for me. I would have been content probably staying there working with the people and technology that I know and the work we were doing," he said.

"But they 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."

When Carmack announced he was leaving the company, id studio director Tim Willits told IGN that he had, "become interested in focusing on things other than game development at id." The split seemed amicable, and Carmack has offered to give his annual talk at QuakeCon, even though he doesn't work for the host company anymore.

"I really do think VR is now one of the most exciting things that can be done in this whole sector of consumer electronic entertainment stuff," said Carmack. "I've seen this when we transitioned from 2D games to 3D games and everybody has seen the mobile transition, right now in the last five years. After you have been around for a while, you can notice some of the trends. It really feels like VR has the possibility to be something really huge."

Steve Watts is a freelance writer who tried Oculus Rift once, and felt pretty dizzy. You can read more of his keen insights by following him on Twitter and IGN.

Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com