John Carmack wearing the Oculus Rift headset
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Doom, Quake guru John Carmack officially leaves id Software for Oculus Rift maker

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 1 min

John Carmack, the programming genius who cofounded id Software and created titles like Doom and Quake, has left the company. He has taken a full-time job at Oculus VR as its chief technology officer.

Oculus makes the Rift virtual-reality 3D headset, a Kickstarter success story that has reignited the interest in VR and 3D in gaming.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.