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After almost three years, the lawsuit between Zenimax and Oculus has finally concluded.
After two and a half days of deliberation, the jury concluded that, while Zenimax’s claims of the VR company stealing tech when recruiting id founder John Carmack were false, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey did break an NDA signed with Zenimax during discussions of a partnership with the company. Because of this, Oculus will be forced to pay Zenimax half a billion dollars in damages.
This is, however, a fraction of what Zenimax wanted. If found guilty of stealing trade secrets, Zenimax wanted to fine Oculus four billion dollars.
It’s unknown how this will effect Oculus going forward, however, we may find out soon when Facebook releases their fourth-quarter earnings report later today.
Chino Gambino
February 1, 2017 at 5:29 pmThat’s an insane amount of money for a product that hasn’t hit market yet, what does the court know that we don’t?
I’m a layman so how does a court determine these fines?
dogmentation
February 1, 2017 at 5:54 pmGood. Fuck facebook and fuck Palmer Luckey.
草薙 素子
February 1, 2017 at 6:52 pmThis sum of money is nothing compared to what Zenimax wanted.
I was really hoping Facebook would have been gutted. Jury should have been vetted lol. “Do you use Facebook?” If Yes, GTFO.
OSad
February 1, 2017 at 7:10 pmI thought Palmer was a good boy?
Well, apart from that whole selling the company to FB.
Battlegum
February 1, 2017 at 7:32 pmThe damages are based off estimated future market value of the technology and potential profits based on product/licensing sales. In other words, a number some accountants have pulled out of their rears that would sound reasonable to a judge.
Himegami Aisa
February 1, 2017 at 7:34 pmPretty sure it hit market like a year ago, dude.
SmugMidna.png
February 1, 2017 at 10:31 pmGood riddance
AR7777
February 1, 2017 at 11:33 pmHalf a billion is pocket change for the facebook leeches
Nagato
February 2, 2017 at 12:05 amZenimax simply highballed it with the amount they demanded, because getting that full figure almost never happens anyway.
Fandangle
February 2, 2017 at 9:31 pmNot good. Zenimax is by far the worst thing next to EA and they only did this because they wanted to make a quick buck out of it. I am by no means a fan of facebook and I really don’t see any reason to hate or love Luckey, but the true villains won in this case.
Himegami Aisa
February 3, 2017 at 3:22 amAre you fucking serious? Facebook makes some two-bit vidya publisher look like Medecins sans Frontières. It whores its users’ info to info brokers, facilitates mass surveillance, degrades the whole concept of privacy, conducts completely unethical psychological experiments with no oversight, lobbies for actually distopian laws, attempts to control political discourse, and I haven’t even got to the government censorship and monitoring that make the Stasi look like amateurs. Yeah, fucking Zenimax with their horse armour and their dime-a-dozen MMO are the *real* villains.
JoeSislack
February 3, 2017 at 2:09 pmSo basically a bunch of assholes wanting money from other assholes.
Fandangle
February 3, 2017 at 8:51 pmYes. Zenimax are the true villains. Using facebook is completely and totally optional, everything they do is perfectly legal even though some of it shouldn’t be. They’re also progressing the industry.
As for Zenimax, they’re up there with EA in terms of evilness. They’ve raped and gutted so many franchises and developers so far. Like seriously, go look up what they did to human head studios and then come back and tell me that every single suit at Zenimax isn’t total cancer on the industry.
Himegami Aisa
February 3, 2017 at 9:51 pmBuying Zenimax games is also completely and totally optional, their games “progress the industry” (at least Zenimax’s progression isn’t in the degradation of online rights), and like every other fucking company everything they do is legal until they get sued (Facebook was started by fucking over fellow college students as you may recall).
Sorry, but calling a company evil for shitting on their franchises trivialises the concept of evil. Fucking over other companies I can understand calling evil, and Facebook isn’t a stranger to that in the least. Zenimax is cancer, sure, but they’re a games company. They don’t have the power to, for example, conduct a psychological experiment on 700,000 unsuspecting, unconsenting people to manipulate their emotions simply because they can. Now *that’s* evil.
SiliconNooB
February 3, 2017 at 10:21 pmIt hit the market like a body hitting the pavement!
SiliconNooB
February 3, 2017 at 10:23 pmNow I guess we’ll see how much Zuckerberg loves Oculus. If it was me I’d just write off my losses and let Oculus go under.
Fandangle
February 3, 2017 at 10:30 pmAnd neither is Occulos. Facebook’s ownership of it doesn’t magically make it the new threat to online rights. You’re using the guilt by association fallacy here.
It’s not only their franchises. They’re openly taking out and gutting devs and names to sell as brands and franchises. Sure, you can point at facebook and scream “EVIL!” but really, they just own oculus. Meanwhile Zenimax literally sat on the idea for VR googles for years until the Oculus happened and looked for an in to get a cut of something they literally had no part in.
This isn’t only a failure in logic here, it’s a failure in ownership rights. The fact that you’re siding with Zenimax on this when Oculus and Facebook were clearly in the right on the matter PURELY because you have a vendetta against them is kind of ludicrous.
Himegami Aisa
February 4, 2017 at 5:29 amWere we talking about Oculus or were we talking about Facebook as a whole? I don’t recall anyone mentioning Oculus before this post. Obviously Oculus is a benign subsidiary of Facebook, but no-one drew the distinction, so I didn’t either. My point is that Facebook’s wrongs are an order of magnitude higher than anything a publisher could manage, so you being hysterical by calling Zenimax TRUE VILLAINS and EVIL is retarded.
You’re projecting way too hard dude, I haven’t even expressed an opinion on the case. From what I’ve read it basically sounds like Oculus violated an NDA they signed with Zenimax. I really don’t care enough about fucking legal agreements between companies I don’t care for to form much of an opinion over it, but the court ruled mostly in Zenimax’s favour (though not on the trade secret part), so I’m just gonna take that at face value. As I recall Zenimax got their fingers in the pie in the first place because John Carmack was working on the Rift on the clock and Zenimax saw dollar signs when they put two and two together. Shitty? Sure, but most other companies would do the same.
Fandangle
February 4, 2017 at 5:28 pm….
Fenrir007
February 5, 2017 at 7:25 pmFacebook reshapes society through their censorship and mass surveilance efforts. Zenimax doesn’t. The true evil is clear to me.
Fandangle
February 6, 2017 at 4:00 pmnah, zenimax is more cancer. Theyre still around purely because their shirts tactics and trickery and we’re clearly in the wrong here. Facebook is just the typical mega corporation doing the same shit as Google or Amazon.