DOOM'd! Quake god John Carmack lobs $22m sueball at ZeniMax

Wizard programmer John Carmack is suing his former employer ZeniMax alleging $22.5m in unpaid stock options. Carmack, now chief technology officer of Facebook's Oculus VR, claims games developer Zenimax owes the money as part of the 2009 deal ZeniMax made to acquire Carmack's id Software, the studio behind Wolfenstein 3D, Doom …

[davidp231]

He should deathmatch them... winner gets the cash.

[Ugotta B. Kiddingme]

"He should deathmatch them..."

chainsaws only

[lglethal]

From reading elsewhere...

From a report I read elsewhere, it seems that the due date for the share buy back hasnt even passed yet for Carmack's shares. Which means he's suing to try and get them to purchase them now, when they legally dont have to do any such thing until the due date comes around. Crazy!

If that report was right, then damn, Carmack SHOULD be smacked down for this in court. And hard.

[Old Shoes]

Re: From reading elsewhere...

There are multiple dates on Options.

There's the vesting date, which is when you can cash it.

There's also the expiry date after which they become worthless.

http://www.theoptionsguide.com/exercise-and-assignment.aspx

[Your alien overlord - fear me]

"ZeniMax says it plans to fight the suit." - surely they should fight the man in the suit?

[Voland's right hand]

You never know

Maybe a new DOOM monster - "The Suit". Think of an Archvile which produces subpoena shaped lost souls in addition to other standard Archvile capabilities - reviving stuff you thought you killed long ago, inflicting immense pain from a distance, etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You never know

Time for a modder to do a courtroom arena then...

[macjules]

"ZeniMax says it plans to fight the suit."

Will that be DM or CTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

$22million

Thats a season pass for a Zenimax game isn't it?

If they do pay out, JC should offer them some skins, concept art and extra skill points as a gesture of good will.

Seriously though, that amount is probably less than his options are actually worth.

Zenimax woukd probably have fucked him come the due date anyway.

[eldakka]

Wonder how long before there's a doom or quake mod that has Zenimax management and lawyers as the monsters set in a maze that looks like their offices?

[davidp231]

Wouldn't be too difficult... I recall someone creating a funky mod for Q3 that turned the game into a net admin system of sorts.

[Raphael]

Pretty sure that was an old BOFH episode.

.... found it: https://bofh.subversivedata.com/story/1998/4

[davidp231]

And here it is: http://caia.swin.edu.au/urp/l3dge/tools/l3dgeworld_2.3/

El Reg article: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/23/l3dgeworld/

[John Smith 19]

Just sad

I liked the guy.

From 1000 Hp super cars to a sounding rocket called The Stieg he was quite a hoot and how many wives know the way to their mans heart is a 5 axis CNC machine?

But he's lost the trade secrets case so he's y'know guilty of stealing stuff (and IIRC encouraging others to jump ship) from them. It would be strange if there wasn't a "no shares for you if try to steal our IP and/or staff" clause in the options contract. So no pudding for him.

[Zmodem]

Re: Just sad

didnt loose nothing, just recoded what he already coded before zenimax told him to stop messing around with vr after a few weeks because they had rage to release

[Zmodem]

Re: Just sad

zenimax max took the free will out of id, and that is why he left in the first place

[vaguehit]

err... actually the trial jury absolved Carmack of liability, though Oculus and other corporate officers were held liable for trademark, copyright, and contract violations. Research!