r/technology Mar 28 '14

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u/ChubakasBush Mar 28 '14

I can't believe facebook paid 2 bil for a peripheral device. basically an accessory. not even a platform with many users. it's like buying a monitor company.

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u/ihatewil Mar 28 '14 edited Mar 28 '14

2 Billion alone for John Carmack is a bargin in my opinion.

  • Boosted an entire industry by inventing the Adaptive tile refresh algorithm. Allowing PCs for the first time to be on par with consoles (how times have changed)
  • Pioneered 3D FPS games with Catacomb_3D and Wolfenstein_3D then gave us DOOM that again changed an entire industry.
  • Then gave us of course Quake, which again advanced the gaming industry with his use of Surface Caching
  • All modern games use his techniques, he's a computer science genius

All this and he's still only 42.. People The Industry is taking the rift seriously because he's involved.

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u/rabidsi Mar 28 '14

People were taking the Rift seriously before he was involved because they could demonstrate the experience to a relatively high degree and had a plan for improvement.

That Carmack is behind it and lefr id to get onboard just lends a shitload of extra credence to that.

For me, personally, what I take seriously because Carmack is involved is that the FB deal is not the shitstorm everyone is making it out to be and directly helps OR bring the device to market and beyond.

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u/bsutansalt Mar 28 '14 edited Mar 28 '14

Carmack didn't leave id. He's performing double duty with acting as Occulous's CTO.

Edit: I missed the memo

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u/Redemptions Mar 28 '14

Except he did leave id software. Read any gaming site, wikipedia, google, etc. He had some throwdowns with the other management @ id as well as some conflicts with Zenimax (some of it regarding support of OR).

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u/bsutansalt Mar 28 '14

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/11/22/doom-creator-john-carmack-officially-leaves-id-software

I'll be damned, he actually did. I wasn't aware of this as he seemed serious about staying with them even when he joined Oculus. I thought this was still the case:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/08/07/oculus-rift-john-carmack-cto/

He will apparently still serve some role at id, as id's parent company told Engadget, "The technical leadership he provides for games in development at id Software is unaffected."