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Oculus CTO John Carmack is suing ZeniMax for $22.5 million

Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2017 2:30
by lemm
The feud between Oculus and ZeniMax Media is opening back up once again, this time with the CTO of Oculus, John Carmack, suing his former employer for earnings that he claims are still owed to him.

The suit is largely unrelated to the $6 billion trade secrets suit which ended last month with a $500 million judgment against Oculus. Instead Carmack is suing Zenimax Media for $22.5 million that he says has not been paid to him for the 2009 sale of his game studio, id Software, known for such pioneering video game classics as Doom and Quake.

The lawsuit reveals that ZeniMax Media paid $150 million for the game studio behind such pioneering video gaming classics as Doom and Quake.

The document details that Carmack was set to earn $45 million from the id acquisition. In 2011, Carmack converted half of that note into a half-million shares of ZeniMax common stock, but has yet to receive the other half of his earnings in cash or common stock from the company, despite formal requests being made.

Carmack stayed on at ZeniMax Media, a game publisher behind such titles as Skyrim, until late 2013 when his contract expired, at which point he joined Oculus VR as its CTO.

In the suit, reported first by Dallas News, Carmack claims ZeniMax Media has not paid the remaining sum due to, what the suit calls, “a series of allegations regarding claimed violations of Mr. Carmack’s Employment Agreement,” this assumedly relating to ZeniMax’s suit against Oculus regarding the theft of trade secrets.

ZeniMax, however, never brought charges of breach of contract against Carmack in that lawsuit, and Oculus was not found guilty for stealing trade secrets. The judgment was instead levied against Oculus and two of its founders for copyright infringement, false designation and the violation of Palmer Luckey’s NDA.

Carmack’s suit claims “sour grapes” on ZeniMax’s part in not paying back the money he says he is owed, something that has caused Carmack “serious injury” to the tune of more than $22.5 million.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/09/oculu ... 5-million/

Re: Oculus CTO John Carmack is suing ZeniMax for $22.5 million

Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2017 3:41
by ScarletFlame
I remember a quote from the SBFC that went along the lines of "Zenimax is a better law firm then they are a game company". Anyway, good luck John.

Re: Oculus CTO John Carmack is suing ZeniMax for $22.5 million

Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2017 4:32
by Levellass
Hope he stomps them into the dust. They're not worth even to have a cameo in his games where they're executed.

Re: Oculus CTO John Carmack is suing ZeniMax for $22.5 million

Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2017 19:05
by Roobar
Facebook can eat zenimax for breakfast.

Re: Oculus CTO John Carmack is suing ZeniMax for $22.5 million

Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2017 5:04
by Zilem
So they have only payed Carmack 45/150 Million for ID software...
i wonder how much they earned on Doom(4)...

On top of what they got for Suing Oculus over, for data they had no interest of using...
Trade secrets is really a silly thing, when it's no secret they had no interest in using it...
as didn't Carmack leave ID and join Oculus, due Zenimax not wanting to invest further into VR then he already had done?

If they have only payed 29% the the full amount, would they'd not only own 29% of what carmack made on company time?
and would that not make 71% of the 500 Million Zenimax got over the Law suit about code carmack bough to Oculus
and would 71% of that not also be he's code... and how much of it was made on company time...
not to mention the last 71% of the payment is 7-8 years overdue...
and half of what they paid is in Stocks in Zinemax, that they don't want to buy of carmack?

With Carmack only suing them for amount he put into Zinemax stocks, clearly shows that he wants nothing to do with them anymore.
I seriously Hope Zinemax losses the rights to ID software over this. as they pretty much have stolen ID software by the looks of it.

Re: Oculus CTO John Carmack is suing ZeniMax for $22.5 million

Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 12:50
by guynietoren
To quote the Space Quest 6 ending.
(during the game credits)
"These are the credits. We call them credits because we can't really afford to pay anybody until more people buy the game."