It would have been a ”huge win,” if a deal could have been brokered, and he’d probably have stayed at the studio. Instead he left to pursue his dream at Oculus VR.
He proposed bringing virtual reality tech into the development of Machine Games’ Wolfenstein: The New Order and the long in development DOOM 4.
“It would have been a huge win. It seemed like a sensible plan for me,” John Carmack said. “I would have been content probably staying there working with the people and technology that I know and the work we were doing,” but instead he signed on as chief technical officer with Oculus VR.
”But they couldn’t come together on that which made me really sad. It was just unfortunate. When it became clear that I wasn’t going to have the opportunity to do any work on VR while at id software, I decided to not renew my contract.”
“We’d create majestic, wonderful things at the end that we have every right to be proud of,” he said. “While Oculus is still kind of scary fast in terms of all the people coming on there is still the sense that a handful of us are going to crunch really hard and get something done by next Thursday.”
Carmack is working on first-party projects for Oculus Rift.
