Oculus: ZeniMax Claims Over Rift Tech Are "False" 72
An anonymous reader writes "Unsurprisingly, Oculus VR has denied claims that John Carmack stole technology when he left Zenimax. From the article: 'Oculus VR just sent across an email outlining in seven points what it views as ZeniMax's specious claims about Doom-creator John Carmack and Oculus' virtual reality technology. Last week, ZeniMax accused Oculus VR Chief Technology Officer (and former id Software Doom mastermind) John Carmack of taking "proprietary technology and know-how" with him when he departed the Rockville, Maryland-based Elder Scrolls and Dishonored publisher for a job with Oculus.'"
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Nice try, American McGee!
Stealing from Elder Scrolls? (Score:5, Funny)
The company that makes Elder Scrolls? Did he steal their new crash every five minutes no matter how many years they spend developing the game technology?
Re:Stealing from Elder Scrolls? (Score:5, Funny)
He stole their prized, proprietary, "Horse Armor" technology.
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I read it as Horse Amour. Turns out that doesn't fit very well at all.
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whoosh.
it's a joke. predicated on the fact that at launch, Skyrim had a quite a few problems.
Besides, no matter how clean or nice your machine was, the only people to blame for a bunch of the bugs, like the "horse can walk directly up mountains" glitch, were ZeniMax/Bethesda.
Even though it's long patched and fixed, the joke is just going to keep going around and around until a computer powerful enough to play Crysis can come around and stop this.
Proprietary 'know-how' (Score:5, Informative)
In my state, there is no such thing as proprietary know-how. If you don't want someone taking their experience elsewhere, you pay them more, if you don't like that, you're in the wrong state. Of course, this state also has a habit of completely nullifying non-compete clauses that are ridiculous as well, for instance a non-compete clause that extends beyond the state boundaries will almost certainly be completely ignored by the courts. My former employer found out the hardware when they wrote my non-compete as a nation wide non-compete. The court didn't say it was limited to NC or local, it flat out nullified the whole non-compete and released me from my obligations to it across the board.
They don't take kindly on trying to turn someone into a slave, which is ironic considering I'm in 'the south'
Stealing code or any data is a different story, but if Carmack had some special experience in his brain that he took with him, Zenimax could go fuck themselves.
Note: My state is not involved in any of this, just throwing it out there.
Re:Proprietary 'know-how' (Score:5, Interesting)
NOT about patents either (Score:1)
You are WRONG. Zenimax's legal position, as clear in their legal statements when one identifies the claimed facts, states that John Carmack's ideas and code were essential during a key period in Oculus VR history. They do NOT claim this input continues to this day as used code or recognisable patents.
Zenimax is using the DIVORCE argument when a wife claims 50%+ of a career man's assets. America recognises the nebulous input of a wife's 'talents' to a man's career, and claims these 'inputs' entitle her to 50
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From my reading, this might be a situation where a non-compete clause might make a bit of sense. Zenimax paid him to do research and prototyping for a VR headset, and then he turned around and took what he learned doing that to another company. Even if the
Re:Proprietary 'know-how' (Score:5, Funny)
Zenimax paid him to do research and prototyping for a VR headset, and then he turned around and took what he learned doing that to another company.
Yeah, if you figure something out while employed, you have to forget what you know when you change employers!
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Zenimax has already stated that John took no code or documents with him.
Re:Proprietary 'know-how' (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if there is no legal backing to stop him, it is still pretty bad form.
Why is this bad form? The days of companies and employees expecting loyalty to each other ended a few decades ago.
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No, no, no. Companies still expect loyalty from employees (and even former employees), they just don't believe in reciprocation in that regard.
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Yeah. Companies want to be able to fire your ass at any second but if you leave they expect you to stay 2 weeks.
Mutual respect for employees is not a common trait for the legal "psychopath", er, corporation.
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It looks like Texas has a similar setup to NC and straight up non enforceable in California.
So it is telling which state they bring the case in.
Unfortunately, your state isn't Maryland.... (Score:3)
As a Maryland resident, I can tell you the politics out here lean very heavily towards copy-catting all the legislation Washington D.C. can come up with. A good chunk of Maryland consists of areas with a very different political feel, but those tend to be the parts of the state that "don't matter" as far as wielding influence that shapes the state legislation.
Montgomery County, for example, sits next to the D.C. area, and may as well serve as an extension of D.C. (Maryland actually sold some of its land t
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The whole east coast is a lot like that. The rest of the country would be better off if they seceded from the northeast states (including MD and DC).
Zenimax is salty (Score:1)
You mean you can buy a company but can't own it's employees?
Zenimax is mad because their assets are leaving. Don't blame John. Who'd want to work for a boring publisher who prefers bland and safe over real innovation. Dude's just bored. He's always been on the leading edge of pushing new game tech and innovations. Not saying he's always right or successful, but he's always leading edge. Remember when he was talking about mobile gaming years and years before smartphones existed? Did you know there's a J2ME e
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Re:Zenimax is salty (Score:4, Insightful)
Ahm.. that "boring publisher" was paying him to research and prototype VR headsets. This is actually a good example of why older companies are often nervous about researching new technologies, the pattern of paying people to do research and then they leave to do a startup is an old and frustrating issue in tech. Companies start to feel like they are bankrolling the research phase of startups but not getting a return on it.
They also canned the VR project before he left.
Re:Zenimax is salty (Score:5, Insightful)
their fault for not paying him more, I have heard the bullshit line from employers before...
VP of engineering :"We cant afford to lose you"
Me: "Ok, they are offering me XXX you give me XXX*20% and I'll stay"
VP of engineering:" We cant afford that"
Me: "So it seems you CAN afford to lose me, as you refuse to pay me what I am worth."
Re:Zenimax is salty (Score:5, Funny)
Me: "So it seems you CAN afford to lose me, as you refuse to pay me what I am worth."
Or even twenty percent of what you're worth.
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Since it's a math problem instead of grammar, would that make you an an arithmetic Nazi?
Re:Zenimax is salty (Score:4, Funny)
Me: "Ok, they are offering me XXX you give me XXX*20% and I'll stay"
Proposal Accepted.
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Re:Zenimax is salty (Score:5, Insightful)
So why does someone leave and create a startup like that anyway? Oh yeah, to get more money.
Not necessarily. There are a whole ton of nonmonetary reasons why people do things like this. For example, to get creative, technical, or professional control, to escape a terrible employer or working conditions, or (as appears to be the case here) to work on technologies or projects that interest you the most.
Pay is important, but isn't everything.
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And because it's a gamble they can afford to make, instead of trying to play the stock market and such. Usually it's either young people who got nothing to lose but time or middle aged people where the kids stand on their own and they're not dependent on the next paycheck to support a family. If you want more money, you find a better job or ask for a raise. If you want a chance at making much more money or bombing totally, you found/join a start-up. Most of them fail miserably, a few are wildly successful.
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> So why does someone leave and create a startup like that anyway? Oh yeah, to get more money.
That is an incomplete picture.
Gee, didn't we just have a story about older people joining a startup because they want to be freed of corporate bureaucracy, and want work to be fun again??
Ask Slashdot: Joining a Startup As an Older Programmer? [slashdot.org]
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who think that because moneybags Facebook is writing large cheques to expensive M&A lawyers and bankers to get the deal to clear quickly that they can be paid off to go away.
It's a win-big/lose-little situation for Zenimax if they already have some lawyers on payroll.
Neener neener (Score:2)
No we didn't.
Yes you did!
No we didn't.
MOM!!!
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We should rename the country "Ferengi States of America".
Fixed summary (Score:4, Informative)
Oculus VR denied claims that John Carmack stole Zenimax technology. From the article: 'Last week, ZeniMax accused John Carmack, Oculus VR Chief Technology Officer and former id Software Doom mastermind, of taking "proprietary technology and know-how". Oculus VR countered ZeniMax's claims in a seven-point statement. John Carmack departed Zenimax, the Rockville, Maryland-based publisher of Elder Scrolls and Dishonored, for a job with Oculus, the Irvine, California-based producer of the Oculus Rift VR Headset.'"
Fixed the summary and the article it quoted from.
Zenimax NEVER made these 'false' claims (Score:1)
Every tech journalist ran with the 'weasel words' of Zenimax's lawyers, and created headlines and articles that COMPLETELY misrepresented Zenimax's position. Let me spell out what Zenimax very carefully stated.
1) Carmack worked with Oculus VR while still a pained employee of Zenimax.
2) Carmack's contract with Zenimax gave Zenimax ABSOLUTE ownership of everything iD and everything computer related from the mind of Carmack.
3) Zenimax and Oculus VR signed an agreement that recognised some nebulous form of poin
Ideas made on company time are company property (Score:3)
I seem to remember a case from the middle 90's where an engineer for a ... phone? company came up with an interesting idea for a software-based filter. He talked to a co-worker about it who agreed it could be good, and took it to his superiors. They decided not to pursue it. A year later, he left the company, and he decided to go ahead and write that software - he knew a lot of folks who'd pay for it.
He was still 2 or 3 months from completing it when his old company heard about it. They sued him, claiming that he had the idea on company time, they could cite that he discussed it with a co-worker (so it was 'developed') and they claimed ownership. He lost his case. The judge had him not only turn over his source code, build environment, and all rights, but made him finish the product and deliver it to the company, with threats of fines or jail time if he acted maliciously (like making it impossible to run, or obfuscated, or anything other than delivering a finished product in a reasonable time frame).
Searching on google now for these terms just gets me lots of hits for 'bully bosses' and 'henry ford' for some reason, but ... precedent is out there. I just can't find it.
The upshot is this... If he discussed ideas he had while at Zenimax with anyone else, and those ideas were shared with Oculus, even if they're not patentable or Zenimax had no desire to implement them, they may have a very good case.
Of course, I'm not a lawyer, so I may be bull-poopooing you inadvertently.
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Sounds like the guy didn't have Facebook-level dollars with which to spar in court.
Intellectual property (Score:4, Insightful)
I can see this situation playing out in a lot of companies
Employee: Hey, I've got this [great idea]. It's innovative and likely to be popular. Here's how it works.
Corp: Sounds nice, but there's no guarantee it'll make money. Instead we'll just put out a sequel [game] 2 or perhaps introduce [new game] based on [game]'s existing technology. Maybe we'll get to your idea eventually
Employee: OK, we've done that. Now about that idea
Corp: Sorry, we'll need you to work on [game] 3 now. But look, it's got prettier graphics
Employee: I'm outta here. Nobody listens to my suggestions and so I'm going to [NewCorp] who is interested in my ideas
Corp: Hey, NewCorp implemented [great idea] and is making money off of them. We should sue because obviously they stole it from us.
just silly (Score:3)
The idea that the primary mastermind behind 3D gaming and 3D accelerated instructions, not to mention one of the most recognized names in all of computing, would have stolen ideas from a "who's that?" company is just absurd.
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Zenimax is hardly an unknown company, not knowing who it is tells us far more about you than them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z... [wikipedia.org]
Stop that man! He's got the know-how! (Score:2)
taking "proprietary technology and know-how" with him
Look, if you forgot to administer the mind-wipe when he left the company, that's your own look-out.