Jury hands victory to Facebook and Oculus VR founder in Rift ownership trial
The story of Palmer / Oculus / etc is full of massive RIFTS between partners and parties<p>I hadn't even heard about the TFT chapter but the more broadly reported one was the saga with Carmack / Palmer / Zenimax eg -><p>- Zenimax bought ID software for >$100m(1) on June 24, 2009.<p>- Carmack signed up with Zenimax for an earn-out / golden-handcuffs agreement that ended in June of 2013.<p>- Carmack was enthralled with VR.<p>- Carmack found Palmer via an internet forum, reached out to get a rift to try.<p>- Carmack tinkered with the Rift, adding sensors, building calibration, etc. while on the clock / using hardware from zenimax.<p>- Carmack brought a prototype of the Rift working on Doom 3 to E3 with him providing Oculus with their early press.<p>- Zenimax realized the extent to which Carmack was enabling Oculus and worked to negotiate equity with Brendan Iribe.<p>- Oculus sent Zenimax a proposal to discuss a partnership Sept 21, 2012 but never followed up / followed through.<p>- Carmack quit Zenimax the day his contract was up in June 2013, joined Oculus as CTO a few months later and took his 5 best guys with him.<p>- FB bought Oculus March 2014, Zenmix got pissed and sued.<p>From my memory of the early rift I am positive that outside of Palmer it was Carmack's genius that made this viable and Carmack's video lent credibility to the campaign.<p>No major comment here just a wild history, not unusual for breakthrough & derivative technology!<p>(1) <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/274211118/Judge-denies-Facebook-motion" rel="nofollow">https://www.scribd.com/document/274211118/Judge-denies-Faceb...</a><p>(2) <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/articles/zenimax-raised-105-million-to-buy-id/1100-6213068/" rel="nofollow">http://www.gamespot.com/articles/zenimax-raised-105-million-...</a>