Oculus: Not A Single Line Of ZeniMax Code In Any Oculus Products

Oculus today responded pretty forcefully to allegations that John Carmack, the creator of Doom, violated his non-disclosure agreement with ZeniMax when he joined Oculus shortly before the company was acquired by Facebook for $2 billion. According to Oculus, “there is not a line of ZeniMax code or any of its technology in any Oculus products.”

ZeniMax claimed that it was its software — which Carmack supposedly took with him after leaving ZeniMax — that helped push Oculus’s VR technology forward to the point where Facebook and others were interested in an acquisition. Carmack left ZeniMax’s subsidiary id Software in late 2013.

The company also repeated John Carmack’s claims that he joined Oculus after ZeniMax itself shelved its plans for releasing support for virtual reality in its games. “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,” the company wrote in an email today.

Oculus also stressed that ZeniMax never contributed any IP or technology to its products and that the company only pursued these claims only “after the Facebook deal was announced.”