John Carmack: lawsuit against ZeniMax over id Software acquisition money

The lawsuit between John Carmack and ZeniMax has come to an end. The co-founder of id Software and Oculus CTO tweets that ZeniMax has fulfilled “his duty” to him in full. Carmack sued ZeniMax because he would receive $22.5 million for the acquisition of id.

According to Carmack, it was agreed in 2009 that he would earn a total of $45 million from ZeniMax’s acquisition of id Software, but he would have received only half of that. That was half that would be paid out to him in the form of ZeniMax shares. The cash half had to wait until now. Carmack does not provide further details. Well tells he goes on to say that the legal battle between Oculus and ZeniMax continues.

That lawsuit revolves around the intellectual property behind the Oculus Rift headset. ZeniMax accuses Facebook subsidiary Oculus of using ZeniMax’s intellectual property in developing its Rift headset. ID co-founder Carmack is said to have developed that technology during his time at id Software and took it without permission to Oculus, where he is now CTO.

In 2017, a jury sentenced Oculus to pay a $500 million fine to ZeniMax, but that was reduced to $250 million on appeal. According to Carmack, the repeated appeal against that $250 million fine is still ongoing.