Team Oculus has been very busy this week.
On Wednesday John Carmack became the Chief Technology Officer for Oculus…
Now another (former) member of id Software has joined the team. According to a report from GameFront, ids’ Matt Hooper (the Creative Director for Rage) is now the Director of Development at Oculus.
In an official statement from Oculus VR…
“We are thrilled to have Matt Hooper join the Oculus VR team as our Director of Development. Hooper will be working out of the Dallas, TX office. He’s a top talent who had been out of id for a few months and ended up being a great fit for the Oculus team. We’re looking for more all-stars!”
Hooper was with id for a decade before leaving in February of this year. Speculation was that he departed due to Rage‘s lackluster performance and the cancellation of Rage 2.
He’s not the only one who left id recently though. After 17 years, Todd Hollenshead – the company’s President – stepped down in June to “pursue other personal interests.” No word on if Hollenshead has joined Team Oculus… yet. It wouldn’t surprise us if he did since they are actively “looking for more all-stars.”
Back in June the company landed $16 million in investor funding (on top of the $2.4 million generated during their Kickstarter campaign). Oculus CEO Brendan Rift has gone on record saying they were going to use that money to hire “more smart people.”
He was not kidding. As we mentioned… Oculus means business, and if you haven’t been paying attention to its development before, you better start. They are legit. There’s a lot of momentum going on with this new piece of VR tech; according to all the signs it’s the real deal… and it’s going to revolutionize how we play games.
Stay tuned… because The Matrix may be a lot closer than you think.
Published: Aug 9, 2013 12:26 pm