John Carmack departs Facebook

[BFG10K]

John Carmack Departs Meta Citing A Big Company That Can’t Get Out Of Its Own Way

CTO John Carmack announced his departure from Meta, saying it should 'Make better decisions and fill your products with 'Give a Damn'!'

hothardware.com

I'm surprised he stayed so long at the parastic scum data-mining company that is Facebook.

VR/metaverse is an absolute gimmick and will go nowhere for the simple fact that no-one wants to wear a Darth Vader mask to play games.

I wonder if he'll come back to ID, or found his own gaming company? He could bring back the old guard from early ID and make some new IP.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Whoa, didn't even know he was there. Last I remember he was trying to get in on the private space industry game.

Doubt he ever goes back to games, seems like the kind of guy that's always looking for new horizons and gaming is a mountain he's already peaked.

That said, 10 years in Meta and... Occulus 2 and a VR industry that appears to be in a perpetually failing state isn't much to show for the time. Then again there are a lot of good engineers that make terrible managers for the same reason they make great engineers: they have all the good ideas.

Might have just been the old peter principle at work.

 

[Racan]

I wonder if he'll come back to ID, or found his own gaming company? He could bring back the old guard from early ID and make some new IP.

No chance of that, he has a startup now working on AGI.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1560728042959507457

 

[igor_kavinski]

JC's problem is that he has a wandering mind. He can't help himself from working on the "next big thing". With the great talent he had at making game engines, he should have kept at it, in his spare time, to push the boundaries of what's possible. I think he gave up once Unreal engine and Crytek's engine and the Frostbite engine etc. took off. He could have easily been a billionaire like Tim Sweeney, but no. He had to pursue his geeky interests. THAT'S why he had to be employed for so long at that scummy data mining company. I hope he gets back to his senses soon.

 

[Stuka87]

I am surprised he lasted as long as he did.

Maybe he will start posting here again with his spare time. He always has some insightful posts.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[igor_kavinski]

Maybe he will start posting here again with his spare time. He always has some insightful posts.

What's his handle? Not the "John Carmack" I've seen a few times here, is it?

 

[Mopetar]

That said, 10 years in Meta and... Occulus 2 and a VR industry that appears to be in a perpetually failing state isn't much to show for the time. Then again there are a lot of good engineers that make terrible managers for the same reason they make great engineers: they have all the good ideas.

Might have just been the old peter principle at work.

From the sound of things it was having to deal with people above him who had the decision making power but not the technical knowledge or expertise that ultimately made him quit. I don't know how he is as a manager, but he's probably the person you want as a technical lead.

The problem is that there aren't that many companies that want to invest hundreds of millions or even billions into developing VR if they can't see a good return. Facebook was happy to act like a money pit for Carmack, so it's little wonder he went to work there. You would too if the company gave you an effective blank check to pursue your passions.

 

[gorobei]

facebook buying oculus really was the death knell for vr development. giving them money drove out the lower end headset devs and the corporate agenda meant few indies would jump onboard with a walled garden.

if oculus remained a hardware startup operating lean and iterating slowly building an open standard ecosystem, it would have had a solid but slow organic growth where each year/hwcycle they could add a small feature.

once the big money hit everyone expected perfect apple like products, there was way too much to figure out in those early days. if it was bunch of little devs focusing on one aspect, people would have been more forgiving of little flaws and quirks with each release..

his resignation memo via twitter

https://twitter.com/x/status/1603931899810004994

I resigned from my position as an executive consultant for VR with Meta. My internal post to the company got leaked to the press, but that just results in them picking a few choice bits out of it. Here is the full post, just as the internal employees saw it:
-------------
This is the end of my decade in VR.
I have mixed feelings.
Quest 2 is almost exactly what I wanted to see from the beginning – mobile hardware, inside out tracking, optional PC streaming, 4k (ish) screen, cost effective. Despite all the complaints I have about our software, millions of people are still getting value out of it. We have a good product. It is successful, and successful products make the world a better place. It all could have happened a bit faster and been going better if different decisions had been made, but we built something pretty close to The Right Thing.
The issue is our efficiency.
Some will ask why I care how the progress is happening, as long as it is happening?
If I am trying to sway others, I would say that an org that has only known inefficiency is ill prepared for the inevitable competition and/or belt tightening, but really, it is the more personal pain of seeing a 5% GPU utilization number in production. I am offended by it.
[edit: I was being overly poetic here, as several people have missed the intention. As a systems optimization person, I care deeply about efficiency. When you work hard at optimization for most of your life, seeing something that is grossly inefficient hurts your soul. I was likening observing our organization's performance to seeing a tragically low number on a profiling tool.]
We have a ridiculous amount of people and resources, but we constantly self-sabotage and squander effort. There is no way to sugar coat this; I think our organization is operating at half the effectiveness that would make me happy. Some may scoff and contend we are doing just fine, but others will laugh and say “Half? Ha! I’m at quarter efficiency!”
It has been a struggle for me. I have a voice at the highest levels here, so it feels like I should be able to move things, but I’m evidently not persuasive enough. A good fraction of the things I complain about eventually turn my way after a year or two passes and evidence piles up, but I have never been able to kill stupid things before they cause damage, or set a direction and have a team actually stick to it. I think my influence at the margins has been positive, but it has never been a prime mover.
This was admittedly self-inflicted – I could have moved to Menlo Park after the Oculus acquisition and tried to wage battles with generations of leadership, but I was busy programming, and I assumed I would hate it, be bad at it, and probably lose anyway.
Enough complaining. I wearied of the fight and have my own startup to run, but the fight is still winnable! VR can bring value to most of the people in the world, and no company is better positioned to do it than Meta. Maybe it actually is possible to get there by just plowing ahead with current practices, but there is plenty of room for improvement.
Make better decisions and fill your products with “Give a Damn”!

 

[BFG10K]

Comedy gold.

This $200 VR muzzle lets you strap a second bulky device to your head

Virtual reality accessory startup Shiftfall unveiled a unique microphone that users can wear. Dubbed "Mutalk," the mic looks similar to a VR headset but for your mouth....

www.techspot.com

Now all they need is a neck girdle and VR will be the ultimate BDSM tool. What a farcical joke the whole thing is.

 

[pj-]

facebook buying oculus really was the death knell for vr development. giving them money drove out the lower end headset devs and the corporate agenda meant few indies would jump onboard with a walled garden.

if oculus remained a hardware startup operating lean and iterating slowly building an open standard ecosystem, it would have had a solid but slow organic growth where each year/hwcycle they could add a small feature.

once the big money hit everyone expected perfect apple like products, there was way too much to figure out in those early days. if it was bunch of little devs focusing on one aspect, people would have been more forgiving of little flaws and quirks with each release..

his resignation memo via twitter

https://twitter.com/x/status/1603931899810004994

Totally disagree, VR doesn't need a constant stream of minor updates, it needs gigantic advancements in multiple extremely complex fields. After nearly 7 years of the modern VR era, even the best headsets are still uncomfortable, the best displays are still sub-retina, the best lenses still have distortion issues, the best tracking still has jitter or blindspots or both. VR hardware has had billions of R&D investment and needs billions more before we approach something that's even remotely suitable for sustained mainstream use.

While Oculus spent and spends a ton on R&D, until recently they have followed a product strategy of low end headsets which was actually originated with Carmack. While he said there was value in getting VR in as many hands as possible as early as possible, I think he mostly liked the optimization challenge of getting VR working well on extremely modest hardware. IMO that was the wrong approach because even though they got VR into the hands of millions of people, most of those people experienced it as a gimmick and quickly lost interest.

On the plus side, Carmack's largest contribution to humanity may be convincing Zuckerberg to blow tens of billions of dollars on VR / metaverse junk, as opposed to whatever evil they would have otherwise pursued.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

VR/metaverse is an absolute gimmick and will go nowhere for the simple fact that no-one wants to wear a Darth Vader mask to play games.

Even worse, no one wants to make themselves sick to play games. I finally tried VR a couple of days ago when I took my niece and nephew to play at the arcade, and did this one called Rabbids VR or something like that which was like 3 minute roller coaster ride. First trip was mindblowing, second thirty minutes later was fun but got a little queasy at the end, third trip thirty minutes after got sick and had to just sit at a table for 2-3 minutes, against my good judgment went a fourth time 30 minutes later when the game card was about to expire and felt like I drank a 12-pack for an hour after (and let their dad drive back haha). So 6 minutes of VR a day is way too little to spend $500 on say an HP Reverb G2 or $600 on PSVR 2. Definitely cured my desire to ever buy a VR headset.

 

[igor_kavinski]

So 6 minutes of VR a day is way too little to spend $500 on say an HP Reverb G2 or $600 on PSVR 2. Definitely cured my desire to ever buy a VR headset.

You did experience the worst VR game: a rollercoaster!

Ginger tea before VR may help with the motion sickness if you are too prone to it. Or just dramamine.

I agree it's a lot to spend on something that you will use occasionally. But some VR experiences you want to go through over and over. Like there was a music video on Playstation Store that I watched several times in a single day on PSVR. And youtube VR videos can look seriously real with a headset. There was one with a cam set up in a zoo with lions. Damn, up close, they look super scary!

 

[pj-]

Even worse, no one wants to make themselves sick to play games. I finally tried VR a couple of days ago when I took my niece and nephew to play at the arcade, and did this one called Rabbids VR or something like that which was like 3 minute roller coaster ride. First trip was mindblowing, second thirty minutes later was fun but got a little queasy at the end, third trip thirty minutes after got sick and had to just sit at a table for 2-3 minutes, against my good judgment went a fourth time 30 minutes later when the game card was about to expire and felt like I drank a 12-pack for an hour after (and let their dad drive back haha). So 6 minutes of VR a day is way too little to spend $500 on say an HP Reverb G2 or $600 on PSVR 2. Definitely cured my desire to ever buy a VR headset.

One of the biggest problems with VR is that many people, both consumers and developers, try to ignore its limitations which leads to stuff like that experience.

If you tried a game where there was no "artificial locomotion", which basically means your in game body only moves 1:1 with your physical body, I would bet you could play for hours without getting sick.

The reason a lot of games use artificial locomotion is that without it, you either narrow the navigable area of the game to match the player's physical space, or use unsatisfying mechanics like teleportation to cover larger distances.

Lots of attempts have been made to make artificial locomotion more comfortable but in the end it basically comes down to "get used to it", which doesn't work for everyone. Also I personally think getting used to it has an impact on immersion because it feels like my brain's way of dealing with the conflicting sensory info is to treat what I'm seeing as not real.

 

[igor_kavinski]

It can also depend on the game engine. Some 3D non-VR game engines, I can play for hours. Others (like Duke Nukem 3D) will make me motion sick within 30 minutes.

 

[JustViewing]

Even worse, no one wants to make themselves sick to play games. I finally tried VR a couple of days ago when I took my niece and nephew to play at the arcade, and did this one called Rabbids VR or something like that which was like 3 minute roller coaster ride. First trip was mindblowing, second thirty minutes later was fun but got a little queasy at the end, third trip thirty minutes after got sick and had to just sit at a table for 2-3 minutes, against my good judgment went a fourth time 30 minutes later when the game card was about to expire and felt like I drank a 12-pack for an hour after (and let their dad drive back haha). So 6 minutes of VR a day is way too little to spend $500 on say an HP Reverb G2 or $600 on PSVR 2. Definitely cured my desire to ever buy a VR headset.

Always the initial reaction is jaw dropping. But soon as it wears off, it will be just like playing with regular monitor. If the game is not designed with VR in mind, basically if the head movement not matching VR world movement, it is an instant vertigo and had throw the headset out. For me HL-ALex is very well made game and almost perfect, I was able to play for long hours without getting dizzy. On the other hand, half life2 VR Mod gives me vertigo within few minutes. I wish they make more game like HL-Alex.

VR is also good for watching regular movies and 3D movies, you can have you own large 3D-Theater right at your face.