Speaking with USA Today, John Carmack discussed his reasons for leaving id and working at Oculus full time. He would have stayed with id, he reveals, if parent company ZeniMax Media has been willing to allow games Carmack had been involved in to appear on the Occulus Rift.
Wolfenstein: The New Order and eventually Doom 4 would have made their way to the Rift. “It would have been a huge win,” said Carmack. ZeniMax decided not to move ahead with this, spurring on Carmack’s decision to leave id. “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.”
Carmack also likens the rise of VR to the shift from 2D to 3D graphics, a process he was involved with back in the days of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom.
“I’ve seen this when we transitioned from 2D games to 3D games and everybody has seen the mobile transition, right now in the last five years,” said Carmack. “After you have been around for a while, you can notice some of the trends. It really feels like VR has the possibility to be something really huge.”
Cheers, USA Today.