Despite what you may have thought, id’s John Carmack would have liked to have stayed on at id and not completely jumped ship to Oculus.
In an interview with USA Today Carmack revealed that his decision to leave id was purely down to Zenimax not allowing him to work at id and at the same time bring the games he was working on to the Oculus Rift. This would have included Doom 4 and Wolfenstein: The New Order. If Zenimax had agreed to Carmack working on the Rift and their titles, Wolfenstein would have been shown at the CES in January as part of the Oculus demonstration.
“Doom 4 eventually would have been part of the deal, too, and playable on the VR headset. “It would have been a huge win,” says Carmack. “It seemed like a sensible plan for me.”
Had Zenimax and Oculus agreed on a deal then Carmack would still be at id today.
“But they couldn’t come together on that which made me really sad. It was just unfortunate,” Carmack says. “When it became clear that I wasn’t going to have the opportunity to do any work on VR while at id software, I decided to not renew my contract.”
Carmack started working Oculus last August and finally resigned in Decemeber. The Carmack name has helped put Oculus on the map, especially with gamers. There’s no doubt that Oculus has benefited from Carmack’s decision.