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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

How do you profit from virtual reality without the need for customers or products? You sue! Fresh from winning a $500 million judgment against Facebook/Oculus, ZeniMax Media is now suing Samsung [theverge.com]:

Carmack, whose company id Software was acquired by ZeniMax in 2009, was one of the driving forces behind the Gear VR. While the headset was released by Samsung, it's described as "powered by Oculus," with heavy software optimizations developed by Carmack. But the lawsuit alleges that Carmack owed much of his success at Oculus to software he developed as part of a team at ZeniMax.

Among other things, the Texas court filing claims that Carmack secretly brought Oculus (and former ZeniMax) employee Matt Hooper into id Software's offices to develop an "attack plan" for mobile VR, which Oculus would later take to Samsung. The Samsung Gear VR was also built on some of the same code as the Oculus Rift, which was the subject of ZeniMax's earlier lawsuit.

Also at Ars Technica [arstechnica.com] and PC Gamer [pcgamer.com]. Zenimax v Samsung lawsuit [scribd.com]. Gear VR [wikipedia.org].

Previously: Zenimax Sues Oculus on Trade Secrets [soylentnews.org]
Mark Zuckerberg Will Testify in Oculus VR Trade Secrets Trial [soylentnews.org]
Facebook/Oculus Ordered to pay $500 Million to ZeniMax [soylentnews.org]
John Carmack Sues ZeniMax for $22.5 Million [soylentnews.org]
Founder of Oculus VR, Palmer Luckey, Departs Facebook [soylentnews.org]

Related: Samsung to Open VR Movie Studio in New York [soylentnews.org]
Goodbye Cardboard: Google to Create VR Headset to Compete with Samsung's Gear VR [soylentnews.org]
Samsung Gear VR Adds a Tracked Controller [soylentnews.org]

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