Former Oculus Chief Technology Officer John Carmack resigns from Meta, saying ``I'm tired of fighting''

by Official GDC

John Carmack, co-founder of id Software known for developing FPS games such as ' DOOM ' and ' Quake ' and also known as the chief technology officer of Oculus (currently Meta's VR division), will retire from Meta. made clear in a message on an internal forum and a post on Facebook.

John Carmack - I resigned from my position as an executive... | Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/100006735798590/posts/i-resigned-from-my-position-as-an-executive-consultant-for-vr-with-meta-my-inter/3467566940144465/

Virtual Reality Pioneer John Carmack Is Leaving Meta - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/16/technology/virtual-reality-pioneer-is-leaving-meta.html

Oculus is a company established in 2012 by Palmer Lucky and others to develop the VR device 'Oculus Rift' for PC. Oculus was then acquired by Facebook (currently Meta) for approximately $2 billion (approximately ¥200 billion at that rate). After becoming a subsidiary of Facebook, we announced the VR platform 'Oculus' for general consumers and VR devices such as Oculus Go and Oculus Quest , and Oculus occupies a large share of the VR market.

Mr. Carmack, who was involved in the development of ' Wolfenstein 3D ', 'DOOM' and 'Quake' as the main programmer, was known as the co-founder of id Software, but after retiring from id Software in August 2013, Oculus Welcomed to VR as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Mr. Carmack retired from id Software and got a job at Oculus because ' Zenimax Media, the parent company of id Software, refused to partner with Oculus ', and lost the trial triggered by this turmoil Facebook will pay Zenimax more than 50 billion yen in compensation.

Facebook will pay about 56.6 billion yen in a trial over technology theft of the VR headset 'Oculus' - GIGAZINE

With the renaming of Facebook to ``Meta'' in October 2021, Oculus was treated as Meta's VR division rather than a subsidiary, but Mr. Carmack served as an advisor to the Meta VR division as CTO and executive advisor. continue.

However, since Meta announced its aggressive investment and commitment to the Metaverse, Carmack has often been critical of Meta's stance.

In the keynote speech of Meta's event Meta Connect held in October 2022, Mr. Carmack appeared in an avatar in an empty room in the Metaverse space and said, ``This is here. No,' he commented. “The most obvious path to the metaverse is to have a single universal app like Roblox. I don't think one player or one company will make the right decision,' he said, skeptical of Meta trying to promote the metaverse.

In a message to the internal forum, Mr. Carmack praised the standalone VR device Oculus Quest 2 , saying, 'This hardware is almost the same as what I wanted to see from the beginning.' It's still incomplete.'

Also, in an interview held in August 2022, regarding Meta, which spends $ 1 billion (about 140 billion yen) every month on VR initiatives, he said, ``I'm sick of my stomach. It has been hampered by ideologies and plagued by concerns about diversity and privacy.'

John Carmack: Doom, Quake, VR, AGI, Programming, Video Games, and Rockets | Lex Fridman Podcast #309 - YouTube


In a message to the official forum, Mr. Carmack said, 'Meta spends a tremendous amount of manpower and resources (on Metaverse), but it hasn't been half effective.' 'It's been a series of hardships for me. I have the highest level of power in Meta's VR department, so I thought I should be able to move things, but Meta's efforts in VR It seems that they don't have the voice they need to change things for the better. But they've never been able to squash stupid things before they do damage, or to set a direction and actually get the team to keep it. I think it was a strong presence below, but I couldn't become a driving force.'

Mr. Carmack also said, 'No more complaining. I'm tired of fighting and running my own startup, but I can still win the battle! 'It's got what it can bring, and there's no better company than Meta to make it happen. Maybe we could just run the way we do now, but there's a lot of room for improvement.'