What happened when Reality met Oculus Rift’s Virtual Reality
So, in the late 2014 Facebook acquired $2 billion Oculus VR company and made everybody clear about the game Facebook is planning for. Virtual Reality is a thing of this time, and Mark Zuckerberg was smart enough to judge it at the quite right moment. After this acquisition, Facebook said that their plans with virtual reality would not be just limited to gaming. Mark stated that they are planning to the next level by using the VR technology in studies and classrooms, patient and doctor direct consultation can also be possible all by putting on some glasses.
Facebook sees the VR thing as an integral part of the company’s future, but unfortunately, it is to a rocky start as of now. Facebook’s Oculus just lost half a million lawsuit against ZeniMax.
What was the lawsuit about? And who all are involved?
ZeniMax whose co-founder John Carmack who is not working for Oculus as the chief technology officer is a parent company of ID software. Back in time, they made popular games like Doom and Quake. ZeniMax sued Oculus because they somehow found that they’ve (Oculus) been improperly using their codes.
All of this further can be explained by the fact that the present CEO at Oculus, Plamar Luckey, allegedly exchanged emails with Carmack who was still at that time was with ID Software when the Rift’s prototype was still in the pipeline. The Jury later determined that Luckey failed to comply with a non-disclosure agreement.
ZeniMax not only puts allegations on Oculus co-founder and Rift inventor but also half a dozen ex-ZeniMax employees who are not working for Oculus. They said that Oculus have been building Rift headsets for years and making millions of dollars out of it
Arguments put forward by both the Companies.
Alongside there have been many arguments that were placed by the attorneys of both the companies. ZeniMax attorney Anthony Sammi argued that they should be awarded $2 billion in compensation and $4 billion in punitive damages. On the other hand Oculus attorney, Beth Wilkinson explained that multi-billion dollar lawsuit was driven by ZeniMax because of their embarrassment, jealousy and anger and has no proven facts.
The Verdict
The case was tried in a district court in the north district of Texas. Out of the total amount of $500 million, Palmar Luckey will have to pay $50 million alone while the former Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe has been ordered to pay $150 million. The company is ordered to pay further a sum of $200 million for the violation of non-disclosure agreement, $50 million for infringements of the copyrights and %50 million for false designation. And furthermore, the jury also declared that Oculus didn’t steal any trade secrets from ZeniMax and dismissed all such allegations.
As far as the industry is concerned such things are often seen nowadays sometimes because of even inevitable miscalculations. But it is still unclear if there will be any impact on the daily retail sale of the oculus rift headsets or not.
What will be the long-term effects of this lawsuit on the stakeholders?
As far as the stakeholders are concerned, Facebook that is the biggest market player in social media such lawsuits and fines will tarnish their image up to a certain extent. But if we look at the success and possibilities with the Rift VR technology then it is beyond expectations. Nonny de la Pena, who used to work with Luckey at USC’s MxR Lab also have similar thoughts to share about the VR’s success.
She says, the VR hasn’t been able to reach up to its limits there is still more left for the industry to develop. Alongside, Google’s VR which they called Glasses failed badly, but Rift is doing pretty fine. Rift have taken the VR industry to the next level. She seems optimistic about the future of Rift’s VR technology.
At this point, it can only be said that this lawsuit can leave a pretty bad impression on VR industry. Stakeholders will not be happy with all sorts of allegations that have been put, and there might be a change in the board leaders too.
Oculus Backfires
Oculus denies all sorts of claims, saying that the lawsuit came into the picture after Facebook’s acquisition as a chance of ‘quick payout’. Whether all these facts and figures are true or not we are sure to say that the history that Luckey, Carmack and the ZeniMax-ID software is messed up in some sense or the other.
In a statement, an Oculus spokesperson characterised the judgment as a limited victory. “The heart of this case was about whether Oculus stole ZeniMax's trade secrets, and the jury found decisively in our favour,” they said.
What have the critics to say about the whole drama?
If we take the thoughts of come critics into consideration then, they say even without the lawsuit the Oculus Rift is seeming to fail and making Oculus collapse. As there are several stores and demo stations that have been shut down lately. Oculus says that these changes are made because of some seasonal change. But the critics seem to think the other way round. They say that it is because of its fewer sales in such small stores that are making Oculus move to bigger stores for better sales.
State of Facebook’s Revenue in the last quarter got doubled even after such bad publicity.
As far as the Facebook’s revenues in the fourth quarter are concerned, they are in a pretty good shape as they announced a 51% jump in its fourth quarter. Most of this is generated by mobile based advertising business which accounted for 84%. Such bad publicity and some fake news left no mark of negativity in the quarter, and their revenue rose from $8.81 billion which make the quarterly revenue double.
So, we get it Facebook can afford $500 alone. But is it about just paying the fines? Well, only time will tell the answer, whether or not is it going to be a tough ride for Facebook and Oculus or they both will be able to manage the loss and continue to devote in their Rift VR technology with the same pace.
Is that it? We think there is more to this case apart from arguments, allegations and the $500 million loss.
Though the jury has declared their verdict, there are many other factors that are at play here. For example, if ZeniMax can prove that Carmack worked on the oculus rift even after its acquisition by Facebook, and he being still employed at ZeniMax, this all could mean that ZeniMax owns the work. And the remaining ‘much more’ about the case is still hidden from the public’s eyes. We can only guess as this was a case of involving trade secrets claims many filings have been sealed by both ZeniMax and Oculus. On the other hand, jurors won’t have to guess, but they will have to think very hard to differentiate between innovation, originality and at the same time when copying a billion dollar idea is a simple Ctrl-X and Ctrl-V.