52-year-old John Carmack is well known to video game enthusiasts. Indeed, the man is at the origin of many FPS launched by Identification software in the 90s, such as: Wolfenstein 3D, Doom or Quake. In 2013, this same John Carmack joined the ranks of Meta, as technical director of Oculus VR, with obviously ambitious projects regarding virtual reality. A little less than ten years later, the programmer throws in the towel, without forgetting to expose without half measure all his frustration with the evolution of VR at Facebook.
John Carmack frustrated with Meta, leaves the company
This weekend, John Carmack therefore decided to resign from his position at Meta, which obviously manages Facebook, but also WhatsApp, Instagram and Oculus. In all likelihood, John Carmack’s and Mark Zuckerberg’s visions for the future of VR were very different, with the Doom creator referring to a “noticeable lag” and a certain impossibility for him to develop his vision internally.
I resigned from Meta and my internal message leaked to the press resulting in fragmented quotes. Here is the full: https://t.co/iUcr8TYMLD
— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) December 17, 2022
John Carmack does not hide his immense frustration. “I’ve always been quite frustrated with the way things have gone at Meta/Facebook. Everything you need to be phenomenally successful is there, but it’s not put together in the most efficient way. he explains on Twitter. Proposals that seem to corroborate those of Phil Spencer, boss of the Xbox division, according to which Facebook’s metaverse is just a poorly designed video game.
After just under ten years with Meta, John Carmack also says the Quest 2 headset is “almost“The culmination of his vision, a product that is both modern and mobile. Still, the man regrets a real waste within Meta, and even evokes a “self-sabotage“as well as”wasted effort“. John Carmack will now focus on his start-up Vivid Technologiesspecializing in artificial intelligence.
While Mark Zuckerberg’s Metavers project continues to disappoint even the most optimistic, the departure of John Carmack, accompanied by various challenges against the CEO of Meta, continues to play against Horizon Worlds, and VR”made in meta” in its entirety.
On the side of Mark Zuckerberg, we still seem convinced of the bright future of the house metaverse, and too bad if it has to cost him a few billion dollars more…