UPDATED 15:01 EDT / AUGUST 08 2013

NEWS

Doom and Quake Creator John Carmack Presence Will Boost Augmented Reality Portfolios for Oculus VR

John Carmack, one of the most distinguished and important figure in the whole gaming history, has officially announced his entry into the team Oculus VR, the company engaged in the development of the Oculus Rift for augmented reality. The father of the legendary DOOM and Quake series will play company’s Chief Technology Officer, but without leaving his role at id Software.

Pete Hines, vice president of PR and marketing at Bethesda Softworks, confirmed to Polygon that Carmack will also remain at id.

“John has long been interested in the work at Oculus VR and wishes to spend time on that project,” Hines said. “The technical leadership he provides for games in development at id Software is unaffected.”

In the past year Carmack spoke repeatedly about the Oculus, recognizing it as the future for all the electronic entertainment industry. His commitment to the promotion of the product was so great that it seems natural to be a part of the team.

Carmack will work in the company’s soon-to-be-opened Dallas office, where he could easily divide his time between the various duties for both Oculus and ID software.

“I have fond memories of the development work that led to a lot of great things in modern gaming — the intensity of the first person experience, LAN and Internet play, game mods, and so on,” Carmack said in a statement posted on the blog. “Duct taping a strap and hot gluing sensors onto Palmer’s early prototype Rift and writing the code to drive it ranks right up there. Now is a special time. I believe that VR will have a huge impact in the coming years, but everyone working today is a pioneer. The paradigms that everyone will take for granted in the future are being figured out today; probably by people reading this message. It’s certainly not there yet. There is a lot more work to do, and there are problems we don’t even know about that will need to be solved, but I am eager to work on them. It’s going to be awesome!”

According to the statement by Oculus VR, John Carmack will resume the role of technical director of the studio and contribute to the finalization of the Oculus Rift product, unanimously presented as one of the major technological innovations in the coming years the video game industry.

Oculus Rift has grown to become one of the hottest topics in the gaming industry in the past year. The Kickstarter project campaign earned almost $2.5 million and attracted 9,522 backers. The firm has shipped 17,000 developer kits and there are more than 3000 units ready to ship off to developers all over the world, an indication that the world’s first consumer friendly VR headset is stepping closer towards mass release.

In his time at id Software, Carmack was responsible for a number of technical innovations. His contribution to the Doom series game is considered an important factor to the rise of gaming over the internet. He also made an important contribution to the transition from 2D images to 3D graphics in games.

Born August 20, 1970, John Carmack was added in 1999 by Time magazine in the Top 10 of the most influential people in the tech world. At the beginning of the new millennium he has founded Armadillo Aerospace, a company engaged in a project that has its purpose to launch vehicle into orbit.


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