NoPiece
Member
Worse than just lawyers, Washington DC and Hollywood lawyers.
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Zenimax cancelled VR version of Doom:BFG because Oculus wouldn't give them equity.
- Thread starter civilstrife
- Start date
Worse than just lawyers, Washington DC and Hollywood lawyers.
Oculus did respond denying everything. So I guess we will see.
Sorry if I missed it being posted as gaf is showing random blank pages for me.
http://kotaku.com/the-oculus-vs-zenimax-battle-is-heating-up-1571812928
Sorry if I missed it being posted as gaf is showing random blank pages for me.
Zenimax paid $100M for id. It has likely not returned a dime, and the most important employee of the company has left. Meanwhile Carmack sold his company and got paid millions, left to work on a passion project, which has now presumably put a whole bunch of Facebook shares in his pocket.
If anyone is regretful it's not likely to be Carmack.
Dre_G_Writer
Member
Welp, there goes any official Elder Scrolls and Fallout support for Oculus devices.
It's all up to the modders now.
It's all up to the modders now.
Ya, didnt Germany yell at Zeni for the way they advertised their "free" 30 days?
Moral Panic
Member
That's the clincher for me.
Solid Samus
Banned
crazy that people are starting to see zenimax in this light and yet when I shit talk bethesda all i get is strange looks and skyrim so gud tho
Gaming industry business practices and dealings on the financial side, just are not reported by the gaming press much. And honestly, I think it is because there just isnt much of a market for it, I dont think most gamers care as long as their games are good and are priced reasonably.
Let's pretend there is not a large contingent on gaf that hates skyrim.
It's not as simple as that. A publisher can demand arbitrary changes or move the release date forward and guess who has to pick up the slack?
I wonder who Brian Fargo is talking about in this Polygon feature?
http://www.polygon.com/features/2014/5/2/5613114/wasteland-2-fallout-brian-fargo
-COOLIO-
The Everyman
It's a big name to hardcore pc gamers which makes this anti-oculus stuff such bad PR. theyre only aggravating their (now former) fanbase.
There is still a contract involved between the two companies in your example. I'm saying there is not a damn thing binding the two companies.
A publisher (in your example) would have a contract with the developers to produce a product. It likely would set a estimated cost of production, and a date for completion. However these are always estimates that are adjusted during development, and many contracts have options built in like finishing earlier and shit costing more money because of the crunch hours required.
I see from the link that some companies don't run this way and think ranting and raving at employees gets results... (It doesn't); However that is far from the norm.
I can't think of a single company that has no contracts at all before assisting them with development of their product.
D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
God, I hate Zenimax, wanting a piece of a company just by putting a game with the device is just a shitty deal. They probably thought they'd get the best deal for themselves.
Starting? You mean you weren't bothered that they had previously bullied companies just to purchase them?
Starting? You mean you weren't bothered that they had previously bullied companies just to purchase them?
Ehhh, unless there is proof that Carmack helped in a specific way violating his contract, Zeni has nothing. Your original assumption about what you think happened requires a lot of leaps. We have no idea in what way he "helped" the rift before leaving, and unless Zeni has proof he violated contract, they are likely just trying to get a piece. Beyond that, contracts dealing with development for a piece of hardware wont be the same contract for an individual giving advise on another particular product. There is no direct competition with the rift, so unless he was giving code to them or his contract specifies that he cant consult ever at all without permission, your idea of what happened is...assuming much about the integrity of Zeni, imo.
shacklesmcgee
Member
Same here. Zenimax has no reason to not look through the code and point out what has been stolen. If they are worried that by pointing it out will cause people to see it's awesomeness and still it again, Zenimax would just sue them too. They are stating the NDA that Luckey signed, which was most likely regarding the Doom 3 engine and tech, encompasses basically the entire oculus rift, and hiding behind the fact that "it's an nda, no one can talk about it". Zenimax sees the failure of Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 4 not coming anytime soon, Skryim 2 being nowhere to be found, Dishonored 2 being a while out, Doom 4 being ?, and realizing "shit we need money and have no games any time soon".
Edit : Oh and the terrible previews of The Evil Within too...
Lightning4Ever
Banned
But if you take the time to realize that then you can't rage about it.
Obviously.
plagiarize
Banned
I can understand zenimax being upset that a guy that worked for them helped launch a company that went on to get sold for billions of dollars and they didn't get a penny.
But that doesn't mean they deserve a single penny.
It wasn't Carmack's coding that gave the Rift a jump start, but his reputation and Zenimax never owned that. They're are trying to get what they can. I'm sure they think they can get oculus to settle and that its a low risk move to get some free money. If they truly are doing that I hope a countersuit comes at great expense to zenimax.
But that doesn't mean they deserve a single penny.
It wasn't Carmack's coding that gave the Rift a jump start, but his reputation and Zenimax never owned that. They're are trying to get what they can. I'm sure they think they can get oculus to settle and that its a low risk move to get some free money. If they truly are doing that I hope a countersuit comes at great expense to zenimax.
BlastProcessing
Member
The particulars of Carmack's contract with Zenimax go a long way to clarifying what rights Zenimax has here. I mean, Zenimax doesn't have any right's towards Carmack's rocket business right? So they obviously don't automatically own any code he creates. The sensors he sourced for the Oculus were related to his rocket business contacts.
It is true that when most people first saw the Rift they thought of it was Carmack's baby, but if you go back and watch those interviews he is very clear that it was a personal hobby of his.
test_account
XP-39C²
Isnt that Bethesda's or MachineGames' fault? Zenimax is just the owner of Bethesda, i doubt they (Zenimax) had much to do with the direct development of the game.
plagiarize
Banned
Even when you look at the quotes of people at the time it wasn't 'if Carmack is working on this oculus thing it must be great' it was more like, if Carmack is endorsing this it must be great, and again, Zenimax didn't own Carmack's opinion or reputation.
Yes his endorsement helped make Oculus... but there isn't anything Zenimax are owed as a result.
Hendrick's
If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
They are trying to curb their inevitable losses from ESO.
Everyone pissed off with Zenimax should digest this analogy as best as possible.
Yet Zenimax says they have Oculus founder in writing acknowledging their ownership of software Oculus ended up using.
Maybe they are stretching definitions but until the court case brings forth this written document it is extremely foolish to say what you just did.
call_kotaku
Member
Actually, on further thought, Unity, Epc, and Valve have been heavily involved with Oculus ever since the Kickstarter, with free Unity Pro trials bundled with the devkit, Unreal demos being prominently featured at events, and Valve providing a ton of R&D, the first 2 official game ports, plus a promotional platform at Steam dev days (plus several employees later on). Even a more specific example like CCP working on a VR-exclusive game, and Oculus featuring it at basically every show they've been to for the last year, yet outside of a co-publishing deal I don't know what sort of terms they dictated to use their IP and company resources to "promote" Oculus.
All of this is way more than Zenimax would've done for Oculus even if Doom 3 would've gone though, and yet none of those companies have equity in Oculus as far as I know (would've made the news during the Facebookathon, wouldn't it?). It seems like as soon as Zenimax tried to "bully" Oculus and made their intentions known, Oculus pulled out and Carmack ceased involvement and eventually walked, but Zenimax wanted to push the issue.
All of this is way more than Zenimax would've done for Oculus even if Doom 3 would've gone though, and yet none of those companies have equity in Oculus as far as I know (would've made the news during the Facebookathon, wouldn't it?). It seems like as soon as Zenimax tried to "bully" Oculus and made their intentions known, Oculus pulled out and Carmack ceased involvement and eventually walked, but Zenimax wanted to push the issue.
Some one is lying...
·There is not a line of Zenimax code or any of its technology in any Oculus products.
·John Carmack did not take any intellectual property from Zenimax.
·Zenimax has misstated the purposes and language of the Zenimax non-disclosure agreement that Palmer Luckey signed.
·Zenimax did not pursue claims against Oculus for IP or technology, Zenimax has never contributed any IP or technology to Oculus, and only after the Facebook deal was announced has Zenimax now made these claims through its lawyers.
I think it is a cash grab and will fail horribly. It should be pretty easy to refute. It will be much harder for Zenimax to prove they are owed money than it is to refute such claims.
Fuck Zenimax and Bethesda. Turf those fuckers off the bridge of SS Glorious VR Future and watch them drown I say.
Todd Howard doesn't like VR, doesn't want to see it around (despite the obvious and massive synergies between VR and ES games), through Zenimax ordered John Carmack to stop working on it in his free time, and is only now that there's some money been thrown around at VR, trying to get some of its scaly fucking hooks into the whole kitten kaboodle, despite missing out on it the first time with ridiculously aggressive terms on equity for a synergistic licensing of their software.
I don't know how you could act more villanously as a company in this entire episode. Maybe if you actually started breaking the law, sending hit squads after key players.
Todd Howard doesn't like VR, doesn't want to see it around (despite the obvious and massive synergies between VR and ES games), through Zenimax ordered John Carmack to stop working on it in his free time, and is only now that there's some money been thrown around at VR, trying to get some of its scaly fucking hooks into the whole kitten kaboodle, despite missing out on it the first time with ridiculously aggressive terms on equity for a synergistic licensing of their software.
I don't know how you could act more villanously as a company in this entire episode. Maybe if you actually started breaking the law, sending hit squads after key players.
This isnt a good point, at all really. You don't get a cut because your employee's made a game demo for a game you were planning on selling on said platform, before you canceled it.