Oculus Rift
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ZeniMax is taking Oculus VR to court
ZeniMax Media and its subsidiary, id Software, filed suit against Oculus VR and the company's founder, Palmer Luckey, claiming that Oculus illegally misappropriated ZeniMax trade secrets and infringed on ZeniMax copyrights and trademarks while developing the Oculus Rift. ZeniMax filed the suit in federal court in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The suit claims that Oculus exploited ZeniMax IP, code and "technical know-how" (that is the technical term) regarding VR technology. ZeniMax said it gave Oculus "valuable intellectual property" under a strict NDA, and that Oculus illegally used its IP to create the Oculus Rift. ZeniMax said it sought compensation from Oculus but was repeatedly denied. In May, The Wall Street Journal reported that ZeniMax asked Oculus for compensation after developer John Carmack left ZeniMax to become Chief Technology Officer at Oculus VR. At the time, ZeniMax said in a statement, "The proprietary technology and know-how Mr. Carmack developed when he was a ZeniMax employee, and used by Oculus, are owned by ZeniMax."
Oculus Rift joins the Chuck E. Cheese cast
Ah, Chuck E. Cheese. Where a kid can be a kid and a giant rat runs around your table while you eat. A giant singing rat. And now it has Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets, too. Chuck E. Cheese is adding Oculus Rift to its restaurants with the Chuck E. Cheese's Virtual Ticket Blaster Experience, starting today with locations in Dallas, and later this month in San Diego and Orlando. The Virtual Ticket Blaster puts a 3D Chuck E. (that's the big rodent) in the ticket-collecting tube with the lucky birthday kid. "Kids today have unprecedented access to game consoles and tablets," CEC Entertainment President Roger Cardinale says. "Our challenge is to deliver an experience not available at home, and there is no doubt virtual reality does just that. Oculus Rift technology is the next frontier in the gaming industry, and we're thrilled to be able to say it's part of the Chuck E. Cheese's lineup." Following Facebook's $2 billion acquisition of Oculus Rift, we'll take "Chuck E. Cheese integration" as another sign that the mainstream entertainment industry is ready for virtual reality. See how the Virtual Ticket Blaster works in the video below. [Image: CEC]
Oculus Rift is coming to... Chuck E. Cheese's?
Sure, a spin in the ol' ticket grabber machine on your birthday can be fun, but trying to capture the small pieces of paper as they whiz by your head? That's a lot of work. Luckily, Chuck E. Cheese's is offering a new, less physical way to reach prize station glory using Oculus Rift. The pizza party giant is offering a "Virtual Ticket Blaster Experience" at parties for the guest of honor that uses the VR headset to simulate the high-speed grabbing experience.
Google Glass lead electrical engineer joins Oculus VR team
Building a new entertainment medium requires lots of money and very talented engineers. Facebook ensured that Oculus VR has plenty of the former, and now the company has set its sights on the latter goal, by hiring Google Glass lead electrical engineer Adrian Wong. Though neither Wong nor his new employers have publicly announced the move, TechCrunch recently discovered that Wong's LinkedIn profile now lists him as an Oculus VR employee. According to LinkedIn, his tenure at Oculus began earlier this month, following an April 2014 departure from Google. It's currently unknown what Wong is doing at Oculus VR, though he describes his role as "building the metaverse." Normally that would read like a succinct, non-answer designed to avoid offering any useful information, but it takes on interesting connotations following recent comments from Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe in which the executive envisions a massively multiplayer online world populated by a billion living, breathing humans. We've attempted to contact both Facebook and Oculus VR for more information on Wong's new role, but have yet to receive a response. [Image: Oculus VR]
Oculus first-party team being built by ex-343 art director
Kenneth Scott, former art director for 343 Industries and id Software, has joined Oculus VR to help build a first-party development team. Oculus tweeted the news Monday, listing Scott's new title as Oculus Art Director. Before taking up the mantle of responsibility at Oculus, Scott worked as a visual design consultant for 343, having left his position of art director in January. What Scott and the numerous other Oculus converts will be working on is unkown, though CEO Brendan Iribe tossed around the idea of a billion-person MMO metaverse last week. In any case, something is drawing developers to Oculus, and we doubt the potential to drastically increase their Facebook friend count - seeing as Mark Zuckerberg now owns them - is the only reason. [Image: Microsoft Studios]
Auto Club Revolution 2.0 closed beta starts June 16
Auto Club Revolution, a free-to-play motorsport MMO thing developed by Eutechnyx, is gearing up for its 2.0 closed beta that begins on June 16th. The 2.0 is significant because the game initially launched in 2012. The new version is "nothing less than a full remodeling," according to the latest Eutechnyx press release. Oculus Rift support is also on the way, so if you've ever wanted an MMO featuring Fords, BMWs, and Bentleys instead of casters, healers, and tanks, ACR is probably worth a look. [Source: Eutechnyx press release]
EVE Evolved: Eleven years of EVE Online
It seems that every year another few MMOs have closed their doors or convert to free-to-play business models to stay afloat. EVE Online has always enjoyed a level of insulation from these market trends elsewhere in the genre, and just last week on May 6th it celebrated its 11th year of year-on-year subscription growth. Following on from my previous column celebrating the EVE Evolved column's sixth year of operation, this week I'll be summarising all the major EVE news stories throughout the year. It's been a big year for EVE fans, one that many of us can be proud to have been a part of. The EVE community turned its financial wizardry toward the real world and raised over $190,000 US in relief aid following a typhoon hitting the Philippines, and CCP even built a monument dedicated to the community. Several massive player battles once again put EVE on the global media's radars, and the Odyssey and Rubicon expansions revitalised the game for explorers and PvPers alike. But not everyone can hold his heads up high this year, with details of more cyberbullying within EVE coming to light and several players being banned for defacing the EVE monument in Reykjavik. In this anniversary retrospective, I summarise all the major EVE news from the year in one place and take a look at what the future may hold for the EVE universe.
Birdly VR rig invites users to soar like an eagle, look like a lazy mole
Mankind has long dreamed of soaring through the clouds like the majestic albatross. That feat remains firmly in the realm of comic books and sci-fi novels, but thanks to students at the Zurich University of the Arts and the Oculus Rift VR headset, we can now fake it pretty well. Dubbed "Birdly," the contraption seen in the above footage offers users a bird's-eye view of their virtual flight, while a fan provides faux headwind and scent emitters waft the surrounding smells directly into a the would-be bird's all too human nose. Motors in the apparatus shift a user in relation to what the Oculus Rift headset is depicting, and sensors translate arm movements into the flapping of an bird's wings. Granted, it's not actual flight, and will probably cause a number of people to vomit from vertigo or simple sensory overload, but you take the good with the bad. A few puke stains are a small price to pay to glimpse the future of virtual reality. [Image: Birdly]
Massively's hands-on with EVE Valkyrie on the Oculus Rift DK2
At last year's EVE Fanfest, the press and attendees got a rare glimpse into something other than CCP's major IPs -- a virtual reality tech demo produced by a handful of developers during their down time. Originally codenamed EVR, this VR dogfighter on the original Oculus Rift development kit drew a surprising amount of attention and went on to win several awards at E3. It's now been a year since that project first sprouted legs, and last week at EVE Fanfest 2014 it sprouted wings as well. Now named EVE Valkyrie, what started as a side-project has become one of CCP's key intellectual properties and the poster-child for virtual reality gaming. The game's success now ultimately relies on the adoption of VR tech and the appeal of its gameplay, both of which are still open questions at this point. I got some hands-on time with the latest build of Valkyrie during Fanfest to see how the game and the technology that powers it have come along in the past year, and I was pleasantly surprised. Read on to find out how Valkyrie has changed in the past year and for a first look at the new Oculus Rift Development Kit 2.
Engadget Daily: NYC's smartest neighborhood, pulsing pill for pooping and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Oculus wants to build a billion-person MMO
Say what you will about the Oculus-Facebook marriage, but one thing the partnership doesn't lack is ambition. Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe told a TechCrunch Disrupt audience that his firm is looking to build "an MMO where we want to put a billion people in VR." How MMO this MMO will actually be is at this point theoretical, and Iribe admitted that it's both far in the future and that it may end up as a number of separate worlds rather than a single one.
Oculus CEO envisions billion-person MMO
Adding a handful of zeroes to your bank account overnight can inspire lofty goals, such as Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe's plot to create a virtual world populated by over a billion real people. "This is going to be an MMO where we want to put a billion people in VR," Iribe told an audience at the recent TechCrunch Disrupt conference. Iribe admits that this project is a long ways off (and may not be a single world, so much as a number of disparate, connected worlds forming a virtual metaverse), but claims that Facebook's substantial monetary resources grants Oculus VR the freedom to tackle big ideas. Iribe believes Oculus wouldn't have the same opportunities if it has joined forces with a gaming developer or even one of the major console manufacturers. "Do you want to build a platform that has a billion users on it, or only 10, 20, or 50 million?" Iribe added, underlining the massive reach of Facebook. While Iribe's dream of a billion-person MMO is a ways off, Oculus is taking the first steps toward that goal by improving virtual conversations. Perfectly photorealistic faces are still a ways off, but Iribe remains confident in his team's ability to escape the uncanny valley. "[I]f you let go, you can have a real conversation with a person," Iribe said. "That's the holy grail we're trying to get to." [Image: Facebook]
Oculus VR responds to claims of IP theft from ZeniMax
When John Carmack left ZeniMax to work for Oculus VR, claims were made that he took some important intellectual property with him. "The proprietary technology and know-how Mr. Carmack developed when he was a ZeniMax employee, and used by Oculus, are owned by ZeniMax," a ZeniMax statement to Engadget said. Now the Oculus folks are responding to these accusations for the first time in an official capacity stating that all claims are false. Read on past the cut for the official statement from Oculus VR. [Source: Oculus VR press release]
Stick and Rudder: How Star Citizen is turning the game industry on its ear
When this column began, the first thing I talked about was Star Citizen's then-unique development model and how important it was both for fans and the game industry as a whole. Over a year later, the jury's still out on whether or not Cloud Imperium's opus will bring balance to the Force and give starving hardcores a home of their own. It's already safe to say that Star Citizen has turned the industry on its ear, though.
Oculus accused of stealing ZeniMax IP [Update: Carmack responds]
[Update: John Carmack has responded to ZeniMax's claims. "No work I have ever done has been patented," he said. "Zenimax owns the code that I wrote, but they don't own VR."] The Elder Scrolls series publisher ZeniMax Media is seeking compensation for the Oculus Rift VR headset technology following the recent departure of associated developer John Carmack, The Wall Street Journal reports. ZeniMax alleges that Carmack performed "extensive VR research and development" while employed at ZeniMax, entitling the company to "ownership of key technology used by Oculus to develop and market the Oculus Rift." Carmack joined Oculus as Chief Technology Officer shortly before departing the ZeniMax-owned id Software last year. ZeniMax notes that Carmack first contacted Oculus founder Palmer Luckey in 2012 regarding the company's virtual reality technology. While at ZeniMax, Carmack allegedly iterated on a prototype VR headset he received from Luckey, later demonstrating a modified version at a ZeniMax convention booth in Los Angeles.
Jet Set Radio and Mirror's Edge had a baby and named it Hover
Hover: Revolt of Gamers is inspired by Jet Set Radio's "crazy and fun" atmosphere, parkour aspects of Mirror's Edge and the sci-fi vibe of Star Wars – so it's no wonder it reached its crowdfunding goal weeks before the deadline. Hover has raised more than $60,000 of a $38,000 goal, with 23 days to go. It's an open-world, futuristic-city freerunner that makes you the leader of a group of Gamers rebelling against the anti-video game laws controlling the city. You're tasked with freeing incarcerated allies, infiltrating government control centers, recovering confiscated gaming consoles and ultimately dethroning the mayor. Hover has nonlinear missions and multiplayer components, and it's in development for PC, Mac, Linux, PS4 and Xbox One, with support for Oculus Rift. Hover comes from three developers at Midgar Studio: Marine Baron, Pierre Raffali and Charles Vesic. "Our goal is to develop innovative games with a gameplay that pushes back the limits of the genre, resting on creative artistic directions," Midgar's Kickstarter bio reads. "It's out of question for our studio to restrict itself to a specific register. Our goal is to revisit the entire genre, dusting off some, hijacking others and creating totally new, still-unseen concepts." [Images: Midgar Studio]
What lag looks like in reality with Oculus Rift
This experiment is a huge relief. It turns out that we're not "clumsy" – we have real-life lag. Four people strapped on an Oculus Rift headset that displayed the immediate outside world at a delay, imitating the effects of shoddy internet speeds (if the real world ran on an ethernet connection). They then attempted a series of relatively standard tasks – dancing, ping pong, cooking, bowling – and failed pretty miserably at all of them. If poor dancing, trouble cooking and uncoordinated athletic moves are a symptom of real-life lag, we've been sick for years. [Image: UMEA Energi]
EVE Evolved: Six years of EVE Evolved
Six years ago to this exact day, I joined the Massively crew and published the first edition of this column dedicated to the ins and outs of EVE Online. The column has been home to over 300 featured articles since its creation, offering everything from guides and expansion reveals to opinion pieces, fiction, and tales of real in-game events. It's been my pleasure in the past six years to offer the Massively readers a digestible glimpse into the ordinarily somewhat impenetrable world of EVE Online and to introduce new players to the only game (other than Master of Orion II) that's managed to keep me hooked for over a decade. It's been a fantastic year to be a fan of EVE Online, with CCP announcing its long-term vision for deep space colonisation and the game being revitalised through the Odyssey and Rubicon expansions. I've had the opportunity to explore both expansions in this column and to share some hands-on experience with DUST 514 and CCP's upcoming dogfighter EVE Valkyrie. There's been no shortage of opinion pieces this year either, with articles on everything from PvP consequences and twitch controls to whether Star Citizen and Elite are a threat to the sandbox giant. In this edition of EVE Evolved, I round up the best articles from the column's sixth year of operation in one place.
Sonic The Hedgehog's gotta go fast on Oculus Rift
The Oculus Rift and other virtual reality devices might be gaming's future, but who says we can't use them to enjoy a bit of our past, huh? The Sonic GDK for the Rift gives players a chance to see the world from the Blue Blur's point of view, and it looks ... pretty cool, actually. But then, there's a reason The Sonic Cycle exists. Chadtronic, the Rift owner playing the demo, warns that those who get woozy on rollercoasters and other such rides may want to steer clear, and we can't say we disagree. It's one thing to watch someone play the game on a single screen - we can't imagine what it would be like to have the game completely take over our vision via virtual reality. Well, at least we learned one thing today: despite having two irises and pupils attached to one eyeball - which you would think would mess up depth perception, at least - Sonic seems to have perfect vision. We always wondered about that. [Image: Chadtronic]
Omni VR treadmill gets $3 million in seed funding
Following Virtuix's announcement earlier this month that its virtual reality treadmill will arrive in July for its early adopters, the company revealed this morning that it received seed funding. Virtuix received $3 million to "expand production and distribution of the Omni," the $500 platform that has players strapping in to a harness and wearing special shoes to run, walk and jump using their real-life legs in games. The seed investment round was led by Tekton Ventures and Maveron. One of the other investors onboard with the Omni is Radical Investments, a venture capital firm founded by Mark Cuban. Virtuix took a trip to the entrepreneurial ABC reality television series Shark Tank, which Cuban stars on, in an episode that aired in December. In it, Cuban pointed out that Virtuix's Omni is "pretty much based around Oculus Rift" and that "as Oculus Rift goes, you guys go." Virtuix valued its idea at $20 million, which Cuban and the rest of the cast didn't buy into. "I could see you creating 20 million in sales, 25 million in sales with this, but you're competing just like headsets are going to be competing," he said. "You haven't told me that there's a way to get to 50 million in sales." Given Facebook's recent acquisition of Oculus VR for $2 billion, which was cleared by the FTC this week, Cuban now appears to see more hope for the Omni. Aside from private investors, the other groups that funded Virtuix's efforts this week are Scentan Ventures, Scout Ventures and StartCaps Ventures. [Image: Virtuix]
