John Carmack resigns from Meta

[Mr. Freeze]

48 minutes ago, Bucket said:

Look at all the effort, the man-hours, the several fortunes, sunk into making VR what it is. It's definitely cleared some bar of convenience but it still, after ALL this, has zero momentum. The instant you stop pouring endless money into R&D and focused testing, people are going to drop it like a ton of bricks. Sorry about that sunk cost, John, but you might have to come to terms with the possibility that maybe consumers don't a shit.

 

I never even realized it until recently, but no amount of R&D can take away the requirements to gear up with specialized, expensive equipment...to do things you can already do on a desktop. It's just adding speedbumps in the way of talking in a chatroom and calling it "progress", unless you go full blown fantastical in VRchat or something. 

[Budoka]

My favourite use of vr so tech so far is stuuf like this:

 

https://www.vresportarena.com/

 

Setting aside the part where this particular company is mostly shilling it to investors since I have no idea whether this can actually take off or not. But I know I want it to, because playing those games sure is great. Normal, small space VR arcade venues are cool too. 

 

Home VR is... not the same, to be sure, but some projects make something genuinely special out of it, like Half-Life: Alyx for example.

[Quasar]

Even before Oculus was acquired it had long since lost the narrative by establishing its own store instead of just being a general appliance. The "store" for the Rift could have just been Steam. But nope gotta attach a service to everything, and make sure everything's closed-source and DRM'd. Then of course after the buy-out they could impose the requirement of a Facebook account on people who had already long ago bought devices, that was really loltastic. What was surprising was really how Carmack's supposed previous values were all tossed out the window on this project.

 

Figures its former owner would go on to design Terminator killbots for the express purpose of murdering brown people while defaming the lore of Lord of the Rings without a license. The only taste that guy has is for things that are utterly revolting.

[Kinsie]

On 12/18/2022 at 12:53 AM, Mr. Freeze said:

Come home, id man.

 

22 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Oh, really? I did not know that. I wonder if John Carmack would be willing to work with John Romero again. Maybe he would be able to make sure his first-person shooter project gets released.

Carmack has nothing left to prove in the world of games.

 

21 hours ago, Skeletonpatch said:

I'm glad to see Carmack leave this dumpster fire, regardless of his reasons for doing so. If his focus is still on VR, I hope he's able to find a home that lets him really spread his wings instead of... whatever the hell Meta thinks they're doing.

Carmack already has a new company he was setting up on the side, Keen Technologies, which is focusing on Artificial General Intelligence, or human-like AI.

[chemo]

Honestly, I can't say that I'd be enthusiastic about the idea of Carmack returning to id Software. He's a programming guy first and foremost and yet the decisions he made with id Tech 5 were questionable to say the least. Plus, id Tech 6 and especially 7 show that the company's engine team is still more than capable without him.

[Caffeine Freak]

Even if he were potentially interested, and even taking into account the Microsoft buyout that has happened since, I'm sure Carmack and his former company being sued by Zenimax would make a tentative return to his old stomping grounds at id a complicated matter, to put it lightly. 

[Gez]

1 hour ago, Quasar said:

Figures its former owner would go on to design Terminator killbots for the express purpose of murdering brown people while defaming the lore of Lord of the Rings without a license. The only taste that guy has is for things that are utterly revolting.

Oh yeah, that guy is a piece of work.

 

This is some prime "Torment Nexus" thing.

 

[Rudolph]

48 minutes ago, Gez said:

Oh yeah, that guy is a piece of work.

What the fuck?!? I can get the (twisted) logic of wanting to create killer robots that will murder your enemies as well as those you consider undesirable, but this is just... why? Why would you want to kill your own customers?!? :o

[ARMCoder]

On 12/17/2022 at 11:56 AM, Budoka said:

It was always dead and still is, but they're keeping it going regardless.

 

They cannot simply shutdown the Metaverse and admit defeat, Meta's stock price has already plunged and by killing Metaverse could have even more dramatic effects. So it's best to keep going on borrowed time and maintain the delusion alive.

[AndrewB]

Can someone explain to me what their grandiose vision was for VR? I've yet to hear anyone explain how VR was going to be anything more than a small niche in the video game market. Why did a dying social media company think this technology would save it?

[Mr. Freeze]

6 minutes ago, AndrewB said:

Can someone explain to me what their grandiose vision was for VR? I've yet to hear anyone explain how VR was going to be anything more than a small niche in the video game market. Why did a dying social media company think this technology would save it?

 

They want to make IRL Ready Player One with Meta at the helm AKA actual hellworld 

[Rudolph]

To think that I previously compared Fallout 2's Myron to Mark Zuckerberg... I mean, as annoying and disgusting as the former is, he was at least competent.

[Dr. Zin]

36 minutes ago, AndrewB said:

Can someone explain to me what their grandiose vision was for VR? I've yet to hear anyone explain how VR was going to be anything more than a small niche in the video game market. Why did a dying social media company think this technology would save it?

 

It's them grasping at straws. IMO Zuckerberg & Co. originally bought Oculus as a speculative bet that they could make a VR games service that would compete with and eventually usurp Steam. Now the cultural zeitgeist is moving away from centralized social media and Facebook looks like it's in a terminal death spiral, so the company is desperate for anything that will staunch the bleeding. The real reason that the management is pushing the Metaverse isn't because they actually believe in it, it's that they need a product to show Facebook has a plan for the future so they can convince investors not to pull their money out. I heard someone else put it best (paraphrasing): Zuckerberg sees the road running out in front of Facebook, and when the road runs out the company crashes. He'll throw money at anything that might stretch the pavement a little further to keep the ride going, since he doesn't really have a choice. You can sell a drowning man a faulty life vest, because he'll always take the slim chance that it might save him over certain death.

[AndrewB]

I guess the answer to the question of "why would anyone use Metaverse" is "they wouldn't", and they're just hoping their investors are too lazy or delusional to realize this.

[Kinsie]

49 minutes ago, AndrewB said:

Can someone explain to me what their grandiose vision was for VR? I've yet to hear anyone explain how VR was going to be anything more than a small niche in the video game market. Why did a dying social media company think this technology would save it?

They want to create a VR ecosystem designed around more stuff than just games, with a particular interest in getting businesses to use it for business stuff (Meetings... in cyberspace!)

 

In theory, this is sound. VRChat has really shown the potential for 3D social experiences as casual (just kinda WASDing around on your desktop PC) or hardcore (VR headsets coupled with custom body tracker arm and legbands so you can take virtual aerobics classes) as desired.

 

In practice, Meta is a website company. Real time 3D worlds on proprietary low-spec hardware are another jar of marbles altogether. And they're currently finding that out by way of financial bonfire. So it goes!

[Gifty]

I liked it better when John Carmack was making video game engines for art's sake instead of spending decades tinkering away aimlessly on doomsday tech for sociopaths.

[Chezza]

In regards to judging the potential of any application (software and hardware) there is an important factor I always consider.

 

How easily accessible is it?

 

I'm not quite referring to the common definition of accessibility (e.g. colourblind friendly) although that definitely counts. I'm referring moreso to things like being readily available, minimal effort installing, affordability, quick load times, good UX / UI and valuable content vs time invested getting it.

 

For example, most of the world has embraced the mobile phone. I believe because it's small / easily storable, has vital calling / texting functionally coupled with all the fun stuff like music playing, camera, games, email access etc. It makes sense to always have one on hand for both practical and fun reasons with minimal hinderance carrying it around.

 

Now think of VR head sets. Expensive, the user needs to stand up with an X amount of space instead of sitting comfortably at any location, the kit requires room to store and powerful hardware to support it, limited content available, pro-longed use can make the user feel uncomfortable, some users feel instantly bad and it doesn't really serve any practical function or proven to be a superior experience to our current platforms.

This stuff feels so obvious. Either I have no idea about Meta's solid plans to address these issues or they are really relying on hopes and dreams.

[Graf Zahl]

15 minutes ago, Chezza said:

Now think of VR head sets. Expensive, the user needs to stand up with an X amount of space instead of sitting comfortably at any location, the kit requires room to store and powerful hardware to support it, limited content available, pro-longed use can make the user feel uncomfortable, some users feel instantly bad and it doesn't really serve any practical function or proven to be a superior experience to our current platforms.

This stuff feels so obvious. Either I have no idea about Meta's solid plans to address these issues or they are really relying on hopes and dreams.

 

We could have told that those tech geeks ten years ago, they still wouldn't have listened. If they think it's great, everybody else would do, too, right?

 

Anyway, Meta going down on this nonsense would be great. The world does not need these toxic companies - the quicker they die, the better.

[RDETalus]

 

6 hours ago, AndrewB said:

Can someone explain to me what their grandiose vision was for VR? I've yet to hear anyone explain how VR was going to be anything more than a small niche in the video game market. Why did a dying social media company think this technology would save it?

 

Second Life, but with VR hardware.

If you've played Second Life before, you can see that it has an economy of sorts. It has gameplay, and roleplay, creativity, and even some real world business applications. These are things that Facebook thought that it was well suited to managing.

I think it's strange that in all this discussion about Meta, a lot of people forget about Second Life.

[markanini]

I surprised he stayed as long as he did. Unless he bought a lot of Meta stock back when the the valuation was still going up.

[LadyMistDragon]

John Carmack won't be returning to gaming in any form I suspect. Too bad. We should petition him to develop Shadow Knight II!!

 

More seriously @Bucket makes a good point. While I'm no expert on the target audience of VR, I really think Meta should've probably looked a little more in the long as opposed to the short term. I greatly admire John's enthusiasm but honestly, I don't think most people care, certainly not about its creators out-there and disturbing vision of VR they propose.

[Rudolph]

Maybe John Carmack could join Valve, given the success of Half-Life: Alyx.

[Chezza]

I have a small hope John might return to games to some capacity.

 

To me, something like Nvidia RTX Remix software sounds like a fun little side project he would build while enjoying his dominos pizza break.

[Budoka]

8 hours ago, RDETalus said:

 

 

Second Life, but with VR hardware.

If you've played Second Life before, you can see that it has an economy of sorts. It has gameplay, and roleplay, creativity, and even some real world business applications. These are things that Facebook thought that it was well suited to managing.

I think it's strange that in all this discussion about Meta, a lot of people forget about Second Life.

Indeed, the first time I heard the news that the Metaverse was going to exist, Second Life is the first thing I immediately thought of. And as it happens, I've never liked the concept of Second Life very much.

[ZethXM]

On 12/18/2022 at 12:29 PM, AndrewB said:

Can someone explain to me what their grandiose vision was for VR? I've yet to hear anyone explain how VR was going to be anything more than a small niche in the video game market. Why did a dying social media company think this technology would save it?

 

The actual reason is that the social media industry itself is about to slam headfirst into a wall as the ad spend model runs out of runway and the platforms go bankrupt.  They're desperately trying to reformulate their business model to rotating hardware/licenses and maybe VR software service subscriptions so they can work more like, say, Apple.  Their operation being run like dogshit complicates things considerably.

[Rudolph]

This reminds me of some corporate newsletter I read not so long ago where a technology company was getting all excited about the possibilities of the Metaverse and all the usual platitudes. Boy, are they in for a disappointment now...

[cybdmn]

Let's be real, this generation of VR is just a technical upgrade to older experiments. But where is the point?

 

VR as a gaming device is more or less a geek niche. For the mass market it is (if it will be affordable for the mass market) the "new Wii". People will be hyped about it, and half a year later it will collect dust, because people realize that sitting in front of a TV with a controller in hand, or in front of a monitor with mouse and keyboard is far more relaxed.

 

And VR as a social media platform? In business there is no need for that stuff, they use Teams or something like that, which didn't need any expensive hardware. There is more to business than mindless babbling in meetings, most people have to do actual productive work to do.

 

And as a general social media platform? Well, look what is going on in this world. Social media today means people watching 30 second videoclips on Tiktok, now show me how that need a VR helmet.