Oculus, the company behind the virtual reality headset Oculus Rift, has issued an official statement in response to Zenimax’s claims that id Software co-founder and Oculus staffer John Carmack took technology that belonged to Zenimax when he departed for his new job at Oculus.
In a statement prepared for the press, Oculus denied all allegations made by Zenimax last week, stating that there is no Zenimax code or technology in the Oculus Rift or any other product. The company also alleges that Zenimax cancelled VR support for Doom 3 BFG Edition after Oculus refused to give them a stake in the company.
Here’s their official statement in full:
We are disappointed but not surprised by Zenimax’s actions and we will prove that all of its claims are false. In the meantime, we would like to clarify a few key points:
- 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.
- A key reason that John permanently left Zenimax in August of 2013 was that Zenimax prevented John from working on VR, and stopped investing in VR games across the company.
- Zenimax canceled VR support for Doom 3 BFG when Oculus refused Zenimax’s demands for a non-dilutable equity stake in Oculus.
- 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.
- Despite the fact that the full source code for the Oculus SDK is available online (developer.oculusvr.com), Zenimax has never identified any ‘stolen’ code or technology.
Expect to hear more about the situation as it develops.
