John Carmack Joins Oculus Rift Developers as CTO

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By Chelsea Stark2013-08-07 15:20:57 UTC

John Carmack, the legendary cofounder of id Software, is joining Oculus VR — the makers of the Oculus Rift virtual reality gaming headset — full-time as the company's chief technology officer, according to a release on Wednesday morning.

Meanwhile, id Software confirmed on Twitter on Wednesday that Carmack would still "provide leadership" at the game studio.

See also: Oculus Rift: Hands On With the Future of Gaming

Carmack will work in Oculus VR's new Dallas office. He is a longtime supporter of the Oculus Rift and virtual reality in games; he helped demo an early Rift prototype at E3 last year.

"The dream of VR has been simmering in the background for decades, but now, the people and technologies are finally aligning to allow it to reach the potential we imagined," Carmack said in a press release. "I'm extremely excited to make a mark in what I truly believe will be a transformative technology."

Carmack has been involved with id Software since he founded the company with John Romero in 1991. The two created game franchises like Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein.

The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset still in development. Currently, thousands of developer versions of Oculus exist in the wild, which are used to create all kinds of virtual reality games. While developer kits are available for $300, Oculus Rift doesn't have a price tag or release date attached.

Image: Flickr, Official GDC

Topics: Entertainment, Gaming, id software, Oculus Rift, virtual reality