Recently Bethesda’s parent company, ZeniMax, won a $500 Million dollar lawsuit against Facebook. While ZeniMax was initially hoping for $2 Billion from this trial, leaving both companies involved insisting they will appeal. This whole situation revolves around the Oculus VR console that was purchased by Facebook, and how Bethesda’s owner ZeniMax sued Oculus over for allegedly stealing company secrets.
This whole lawsuit revolved around whether or not Luckey was truly the inventor of the Oculus Rift or if it was ZeniMax. The trial also involved the co-creator of Doom, John Carmack, who left id Software to go and work with Oculus.
ZeniMax insists that John Carmack took information from the company and used it to create the Oculus Rift, putting the whole company in hot water because this could mean that the hardware, software, and everything that makes the Oculus Rift unique could be the intellectual property of ZeniMax.
While the US courts have ruled that Oculus was guilty of copyright infringement and that Luckey had broken a non-disclosure agreement, they did not accept that Carmack had smuggled secrets to the new company he was employed by.
It is uncertain what the future holds for Oculus after this court case, but I am confident that things are looking up for ZeniMax.
