John Carmack, the video game industry veteran who is best known for co-founding id Software, has officially joined the Oculus Rift team as its new chief technology officer.
Carmack has been an integral part of the Oculus Rift technology since early into production, and has been a pioneer of VR hardware in general for a long time. He was the first developer to integrate the Oculus Rift into a game.
This latest move will see him working alongside the Oculus Rift team at its new Dallas offices. Neither the Oculus Rift team or Carmack himself have confirmed whether or not he has left id Software. Gamasutra has contacted Oculus and id's parent company Zenimax for more details.
Update: A spokesperson for Bethesda has told Gamasutra, "John has long been interested in the work at Oculus VR and wishes to spend time on that project. The technical leadership he provides for games in development at id Software is unaffected."
Meanwhile, an Oculus spokesperson has told us, "He's full time at Oculus VR."
Following the communications with company spokespeople, Carmack said via his Twitter account:
My time division is now Oculus over Id over Armadillo. Busy busy busy!
— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) August 7, 2013
It is a big change of pace to go from working on carefully engineered code for the long haul to PANICKY STARTUP CODING FOR THE NEXT DEMO.
— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) August 7, 2013