John Carmack "Spearheading" Mobile Development At Oculus VR

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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John Carmack "Spearheading" Mobile Development At Oculus VR


Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe says the challenge of developing quality virtual reality experiences for mobile devices is right up Carmack's alley.

John Carmack, as part of the id Software team, made Wolfenstein 3D. He made Doom. He made Quake. He is an undisputed and unparalleled genius of the code who almost single-handedly created the most dominant videogame genre of all time. So why is Oculus VR, the company that lured him away from id Software, wasting his talent on mobile devices?

"There's a big challenge there. That's the kind of thing that a guy like John Carmack loves to sink his teeth into and pull something off there, something where people look at it and say, 'How is that possible?'" Iribe said in an interview with VentureBeat.

"Tim Sweeney was quoted recently at the Doom anniversary, talking about when he saw Doom in 2.5D. He didn't know how that was possible at the time on such a low-end computer," he continued. "That was a bit of what Carmack was known for. He and his group are very focused on the mobile side. We are throughout the company, but he's spearheading a lot of that mobile work. We can't give any details on it, but so far, from the glimpses we've seen, we're going to see another 'How did he make that work?'"

Carmack became the later [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/126644-John-Carmack-Becomes-Oculus-VR-CTO-UPDATED]. Despite his executive-sounding title, Iribe also revealed that Carmack is a "head-down" guy who works remotely from Dallas with a handful of others, while most of the Oculus engineering team is in California. "We're trying to respect his wishes, where he wants to get in and code and solve these problems on such a small platform," he said. "To do that well, he needs to focus and have his isolation. That's what he's doing."

Source: VentureBeat [http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/14/oculus-vrs-brendan-iribe-on-raising-75m-and-building-the-next-generation-consumer-virtual-reality-interview/2/]


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aaronexus

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dochmbi said:
Why would you ever want to use the oculus rift with a mobile device??
*Why wouldn't you want to use the Oculus Rift with a mobile device?

There. Serious lack of imagination fixed. You're welcome!
 

Andy Chalk

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dochmbi said:
Why would you ever want to use the oculus rift with a mobile device??
Imagine: You're out on the road, and lost. You turn on your mobile's GPS, slap on a headset and bammo, 3D map with head-tracking functionality and can't-miss directions to wherever you want to go. Ideally, while someone else is driving.

Practical? Not really. Awesome? Oh yes indeed.
 

josemlopes

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aaronexus said:
dochmbi said:
Why would you ever want to use the oculus rift with a mobile device??
*Why wouldn't you want to use the Oculus Rift with a mobile device?

There. Serious lack of imagination fixed. You're welcome!
I get what he means though, we should first be more concerned about making this tech actually perform well both on the technical side and in sales to guarantee its survival rather then jumping straight to mobile where it is kind of an afterthought for this.

Andy Chalk said:
dochmbi said:
Why would you ever want to use the oculus rift with a mobile device??
Imagine: You're out on the road, and lost. You turn on your mobile's GPS, slap on a headset and bammo, 3D map with head-tracking functionality and can't-miss directions to wherever you want to go. Ideally, while someone else is driving.

Practical? Not really. Awesome? Oh yes indeed.
Fuck yeah someone else is driving, if that shit malfunctions then the driver wouldnt see anything without removing the headset, and even for the co-pilot I doubt that putting a headset on is more pratical then simply looking at the mobile (but I get it, it was a quickly arranged idea, I still dont see the appeal on having VR combined with mobiles though).
 

aaronexus

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josemlopes said:
I get what he means though, we should first be more concerned about making this tech actually perform well both on the technical side and in sales to guarantee its survival rather then jumping straight to mobile where it is kind of an afterthought for this.
I don't know, Brutal Doom running on my iPad with Oculus support sounds like something I'd pay for. Honestly though, while I agree with the overall sentiment that mobile is not what is so intriguing about the device, tablets make bank, and if anyone can work out the tech it's probably Carmack. It's a little silly to discount a medium in its infancy. Sure, Doom on MS-DOS is primitive next to a modded Skyrim on a PC, but there's only thirteen years between the two releases, and the rate of improvement of this stuff means it'll likely take a lot less time to get a Skyrim mobile. Personally, I'm holding out for those supercomputer contact lenses Michio Kaku promises are coming down the pipe.
 

josemlopes

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aaronexus said:
josemlopes said:
I get what he means though, we should first be more concerned about making this tech actually perform well both on the technical side and in sales to guarantee its survival rather then jumping straight to mobile where it is kind of an afterthought for this.
I don't know, Brutal Doom running on my iPad with Oculus support sounds like something I'd pay for. Honestly though, while I agree with the overall sentiment that mobile is not what is so intriguing about the device, tablets make bank, and if anyone can work out the tech it's probably Carmack. It's a little silly to discount a medium in its infancy. Sure, Doom on MS-DOS is primitive next to a modded Skyrim on a PC, but there's only thirteen years between the two releases, and the rate of improvement of this stuff means it'll likely take a lot less time to get a Skyrim mobile. Personally, I'm holding out for those supercomputer contact lenses Michio Kaku promises are coming down the pipe.
The thing is you can have Occulus Rift with Brutal Doom on the PC too, I mean, its not that I dont want them to try it with mobiles, its just that I dont think that its the right time when they still have to make it work well enough (and by well enough I mean really fucking well otherwise we get what we got with the other VRs where a lot of people remained skeptical and the device just didnt sell enough to have long lasting support) with PCs.
 

cahtush

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I have to say, that is the most mischievous picture of John Carmack I've ever seen.

Like he's playing one of those Oculus games and knows none else in the room can see it.
 

aaronexus

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josemlopes said:
The thing is you can have Occulus Rift with Brutal Doom on the PC too, I mean, its not that I dont want them to try it with mobiles, its just that I dont think that its the right time when they still have to make it work well enough (and by well enough I mean really fucking well otherwise we get what we got with the other VRs where a lot of people remained skeptical and the device just didnt sell enough to have long lasting support) with PCs.
I see what you mean, but by that logic every mobile game that doesn't rely on multi-touch can be put on PC. The point isn't that I can play it on my huge tower. It's that I can leave my huge tower at home and just take my portables with me on vacation. I have taken my tower with me before and it's a huge pain. Being able to have great gaming experiences anywhere is something I'm very much interested in. Furthermore, you really missed my point with the Doom to Skyrim comparison. If Carmack hadn't developed Doom for low end, personal PCs, gaming would have been horribly stunted compared to what we have now. Mobile needs these early, primitive games because it is, again, in its infancy. The fewer people who try, the longer it takes. After Doom came the ever infamous Doom-clones(as that was all they were: clones), but it didn't stay that way. People quickly branched out and all of a sudden there were no clones, only a genre. The power of mobile devices, especially tablets, is far more than that of what Doom needed to run. Mobile doesn't need more power, we need boots on the ground making a ton of shots in the dark until someone strikes upon a success. That's what is necessary to make it run "really fucking well." These things don't just happen by magic after all.

I'm not really sure what you mean by comparing the Oculus to previous attempts. By all accounts the thing actually works really well, unlike every other device which were hamstrung by crappy tech, not games. It's impossible to draw any conclusions from them. I mean, you could be right, and it will end up abandonware, but the causes of that would be totally different. If the Oculus guys are to be successful, they need as broad a market as possible. If mobile can bear the early brunt of the costs by attracting the Wii type gamers out there so much the better for us. Really though, it doesn't even matter. Right now all they're doing is creating tools for developers, not sinking all their cash into a costly game for any device. If games get built for mobile it will be on others' heads. The PC community can get by just fine if the mobile division doesn't bear fruit. It's not a zero sum game after all.
 

Raziel

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What good is this tech without a controller? Sure hey I look at 3d space. But how do you input an action aside from camera motion? Your phone offers nothing, and even a regular keyboard is too complicated if you cannot see it.

Frankly I'm still incredibly dubious this whole thing will pan out. I expect this to be super cool in a demo and fizzle out in regular gameplay.
 

Keneth

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Raziel said:
What good is this tech without a controller? Sure hey I look at 3d space. But how do you input an action aside from camera motion? Your phone offers nothing, and even a regular keyboard is too complicated if you cannot see it.
Do you own a Nintendo DS? How often do you need to look at the touchscreen to input commands? Especially once you've gotten the control scheme down to muscle memory?

The touchscreen on the phone/tablet IS THE CONTROLLER!
 

weirdee

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oh, so that means you get just one, sorta nebulous button to work with instead of an actual controller

ds has buttons too y'know
 

Raziel

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Keneth said:
Raziel said:
What good is this tech without a controller? Sure hey I look at 3d space. But how do you input an action aside from camera motion? Your phone offers nothing, and even a regular keyboard is too complicated if you cannot see it.
Do you own a Nintendo DS? How often do you need to look at the touchscreen to input commands? Especially once you've gotten the control scheme down to muscle memory?

The touchscreen on the phone/tablet IS THE CONTROLLER!
No I don't own a 3ds. As for a phone how in the world do you image playing a real game on a touch screen you cannot even see? Mobile games are already crap because of how limited touch controls are. How do you image using it for a flight sim or survival horror game? I'm not looking for vr fruit ninja, I want to experience real games (AAA games).

The whole mobile market is such a dead end. Putting aside the whole control issue, the kiss of death is the fact that mobile gamers don't pay worthwhile amounts of money. Yeah, you can be successful with a $5 game if several million people buy it. But guess what, no worthwhile install base is going to pay $300 for a phone peripheral. And no one is going to spend $60 on a phone game.

They should stick with pc and even better go to console if they want to have any hope of getting this thing off the ground.

More and more though I expect this to be DOA. Just like the ouya.

It might be too late to even get it on the consoles. After market optional peripherals are a real tough sell. Perhaps if they could get bundled with the steambox.