Carmack Wasn’t Expecting Oculus Rift Facebook Buy-Out

Following  the huge news of last week, chief technology officer and auteur developer John Carmack says that he was surprised by Facebook’s acquisition of the company.

“The fairly rapid involvement of the Titans is inevitable, and the real questions were how deeply to partner, and with who,” he said. “Honestly, I wasn’t expecting Facebook (or this soon). I have zero personal background with them, and I could think of other companies that would have more obvious synergies. However, I do have reasons to believe that they get the Big Picture as I see it, and will be a powerful force towards making it happen. You don’t make a commitment like they just did on a whim.”

Following that, he also commented of Facebook’s reputation as a company that keeps your personal identity safe.

“I’m not a ‘privacy is gone, get over it’ sort of person, and I fully support people that want remain unobserved, but that means disengaging from many opportunities. The idea that companies are supposed to interact with you and not pay attention has never seemed sane to me,” he said.

“Being data driven is a good thing for most companies to be. Everyone cheers the novel creative insight and bold leadership that leads to some successes, and tut tuts about companies ending up poorly by blindly following data, but cold analysis of the data is incredibly important, and I tend to think the world will be improved with more and better data analysis.”

There you have it, so if his words are true, there really should be too much to worry about regarding this buy-out. Hopefully this just stems more creatives into embracing VR as a viable means to creating more immersive gaming experiences. It is the future after all.