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ZeniMax: Palmer Luckey knowingly lied about creating VR, used stolen code & resources

C

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
This required a separate thread because holy crap: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...ow-direcly-accuses-john-carmack-of-theft.aspx

The complaint, which alleges a variety of transgressions, now includes Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe and id Software co-founder John Carmack by name.

The suit also directly names Oculus parent company Facebook, with amended charges against the VR company that further detail a key source of conflict: misappropriated Zenimax property. Specifically, the filing now spells out theft allegations against the id Software co-founder and Oculus’ current chief technology officer John Carmack.

“Instead of complying with his contract, during his last days at ZeniMax, he copied thousands of documents from a computer at ZeniMax to a USB storage device,” the amended filing (below) alleges. “He never returned those files or all copies of them after his employment with ZeniMax was terminated. In addition, after Carmack's employment with ZeniMax was terminated, he returned to ZeniMax's premises to take a customized tool for developing VR Technology belonging to ZeniMax that itself is part of ZeniMax's VR technology.”

Further, the suit increases its allegations that Palmer Luckey is not the inventor of contemporary virtual reality. In the original filing, Zenimax states that "Luckey increasingly held himself out to the media and the public as the visionary developer of the Rift’s VR Technology, which had actually been developed by ZeniMax without Luckey’s involvement."

The similar passage from the amended complaint is far more damning, suggesting that Iribe knowingly spread a tall tale about Luckey creating VR in his parents' garage. "Oculus, at Iribe’s direction, disseminated to the press the false and fanciful story that Luckey was the brilliant inventor of VR technology who had developed that technology in his parents’ garage," the new document reads. "In fact, that story was utterly and completely false: Luckey lacked the training, expertise, resources, or know-how to create commercially viable VR technology, his computer programming skills were rudimentary, and he relied on ZeniMax's computer program code and games to demonstrate the prototype Rift. Nevertheless, this fraudulent tale was frequently reported in the media as fact. Luckey increasingly and falsely held himself out to the media and the public as the visionary developer of the Rift’s VR Technology, which had actually been developed by ZeniMax without any substantial contribution from Luckey."
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Lots more at the link.
 
R

Riptwo

Member
...he relied on ZeniMax's computer program code and games to demonstrate the prototype Rift.
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It really sounds like they consider Carmack's Doom test with its screen distortion to be the only thing of importance rather than the actual HMD design itself. I'm not sure that I agree with that.
 
K

Kaako

Felium Defensor
My jaw dropped when I first read that shit. No way, just no fucking way lol.
This lawsuit is gonna be the carnival of drama.
 
I

injurai

Banned
Arkanius said:
I wanted to do a witty first post, but I just hope this doesn't tarnish Carmack's name.
Click to expand...

Even if true, a caged bird still dreams of the skies. I think this rings true about Carmack. He'll jump at the opportunity to make fantastic things happen.
 
W

_woLf

Member
Jesus, that'd be absolutely monumental if it turns out to be true.

We need more information. What would this mean for Facebook's acquisition?
 
SinSilla

SinSilla

Member
Crosspost from the "other" Thread.

wanderingprostheyltite said:
This part on Iribe doesn't sound so hot either if true (from same article):
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Thats bullshit though: development of the Oculus Rift began well before Carmack was even remotely involved. Quite a lot of that is well documented at mtbs3d. The prototype Rift has been sent for demo to other members of mtbs3d back then (again before Carmack was involved) as well. The name and Logo of oculus existed already as well. (Danny Unger of cloudhead games did the first Logo if I remember right)

A lot of later oculus Staff were people from the Community there.

Sure things got more complicated as John demoed it at E3 (and wouldnt have taken off in the same way, yes) and they started a legal Business, but discrediting Palmer in that way is factual wrong.
 
T

thefro

Member
Y5bU1HK.jpg


Is Gavin Belson the CEO of ZeniMax now?

WAZaO48.jpg


The real inventor of Oculus
 
Z

Zeouterlimits

Member
SinSilla said:
Thats bullshit though: development of the Oculus Rift began well before Carmack was even remotely involved. Quite a lot of that is well documented at mtbs3d. The prototype Rift has been sent for demo to other members of mtbs3d back then (again before Carmack was involved) as well. The name and Logo of oculus existed already as well. (Danny Unger of cloudhead games did the first Logo if I remember right)

A lot of later oculus Staff were people from the Community there.

Sure things got more complicated as John demoed it at E3 (and wouldnt have taken off in the same way, yes) and they started a legal Business, but discrediting Palmer in that way is factual wrong.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I thought there was a good bit of Luckey's early development and interactions on the mtbs3d forums.
 
Q

QaaQer

Member
SinSilla said:
Crosspost from the "other" Thread.



Thats bullshit though: development of the Oculus Rift began well before Carmack was even remotely involved. Quite a lot of that is well documented at mtbs3d. The prototype Rift has been sent for demo to other members of mtbs3d back then (again before Carmack was involved) as well. The name and Logo of oculus existed already as well. (Danny Unger of cloudhead games did the first Logo if I remember right)

A lot of later oculus Staff were people from the Community there.

Sure things got more complicated as John demoed it at E3 (and wouldnt have taken off in the same way, yes) and they started a legal Business, but discrediting Palmer in that way is factual wrong.
Click to expand...

He should sue.
 
J

Jonnax

Member
Well we know from how they treated Arkane and Human Head what kind of business they are.

I'm somewhat suspicious whether what they're saying has merit.
 
J

JayEH

Junior Member
Wow. This is getting messy. Of course part of me wants to think this is Zenimax doing their usual BS but damn if this true. Lot of reputations going to be ruined.
 
S

sense

Member
microsoft is somehow in the middle of this stuff with their oculus and bethesda relationship so should be interesting to watch how this story develops
 
W

wanderingprostheyltite

Member
I'd like to quote Gaf user ido from the other thread that claims having an early prototype Palmer sent him years before Carmack posted on mtbs3d forums (where they initially made contact):

ido said:
I actually paid Palmer to build me an HMD years before Oculus was a thing(2005, to be exact), and it ended up being his first prototype that would eventually, after dozens of iterations, become the Rift. He named it PR1, and I still have it. Pretty neat, all things considered.

This was long before John Carmack ever started posting on MTBS3D forums, and long before Palmer ever met or chatted with Carmack. Not saying Carmack didn't help him, and provide valuable information along the way, but Palmer absolutely was making HMD prototypes that were better than almost everything else on the market a long time before Carmack got on board.
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If he/she sees this it would be cool to see a pic of the device, and maybe a thread in question from the site where it was being discussed. I know I've seen screencaps of Palmer first discussing the initial prototype but can't find anything now.
 
U

UserDoesNotExist

Member
If that isn't true, it appears to this simple country forum-dweller that Lucky has a slamdunk case for libel with the legal resources of Facebook at his back.
 
M

mugurumakensei

Member
Zenimax claims with Luckey should be disregarded as they are completely disregarding the hardware portion of the Rift. Palmer of course is an engineer not a program. so, the claims of Luckey not being able to program would not affect his ability to build a headset. it'd just mean someone else would be responsible for the SDK which we know as someone else is the chief software architect.
 
B

Bronetta

Ask me about the moon landing or the temperature at which jet fuel burns. You may be surprised at what you learn.
Palmer Lucky: Can't do VR and he definitely can't do PR!
 
P

PsychoSoldier

Banned
That sounds pretty serious.

I mean, maybe they're stretching things in order to ring more money from Facebook, but I doubt that they'd just make up all this out of thin air.
 
SinSilla

SinSilla

Member
wanderingprostheyltite said:
I'd like to quote Gaf user ido from the other thread that claims having an early prototype Palmer sent him years before Carmack posted on mtbs3d forums (where they initially made contact):



If he/she sees this it would be cool to see a pic of the device, and maybe a thread in question from the site where it was being discussed. I know I've seen screencaps of Palmer first discussing the initial prototype but can't find anything now.
Click to expand...

I'm a Lite excited and angry right now, so i step in here.

This is Palmers Thread about the PR1 (actually a monoscopic hmd)

http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=120&t=11970

Ido got it confused/typo, it must have been 2009/2010, not 2005.

I was an active member back then as well and witnessed everything that happened and lead to the later Oculus Rift. And that wasnt Zenimax for sure.
 
M

mugurumakensei

Member
PsychoSoldier said:
That sounds pretty serious.

I mean, maybe they're stretching things in order to ring more money from Facebook, but I doubt that they'd just make up all this out of thin air.
Click to expand...

considering it only talks about Luckey's inability to code in that paragraph when a majority of HW engineers are not coders and conflates that as a reason to doubt his claims of creating a VR headset, its bullshit
 
SlimySnake

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
umm its just an allegation. you are reading Zenimax's lawyers version of the events. of course they are going to sound damning.

The truth is usually somewhere in b/w.
 
W

wanderingprostheyltite

Member
Also didn't another company sue Palmer for code and/or hardware he worked on while there? Want to say one affiliated with his time at California State's Mixed Reality Lab. Not sure if that went anywhere. Not a shock or anything once the guy became worth almost a billion dollars. Thirsty lawyers circling for the kill and all that.

Aside from their recent Doom and FO4 VR projects has Zenimax actually had any inclinations towards their own hmd? I'm assuming like many tech companies it became one of many shelved experiments hence the Carmack migration. Will be interesting to see if they plan on doing anything in that space now, though they seem to have hitched their wagon to Vive somewhat with the Doom and Fo4 modes.
 
R

Red Frost

Banned
That's a crazy acccusation. Would at least make me feel like I wasted my life less knowing it wasn't some 20 year old kid that did all that if true.
 
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