I was quoted recently as saying “Oculus are like some crazy, out of control talent hoover!”, in reference of course to their relentless drive to suck up the best and brightest in fields related (and in some cases, seemingly unrelated) to virtual reality. Clearly the draw of this ever strengthening resurgence in immersive entertainment is awakening something in these industry stalwarts, soon there won’t be anyone left worth hiring.
This time, Oculus have announced that Cass Everitt and Brian Hook, both programmers with specialties in computer graphics and both with an impressive CV in the games industry.
Cass Everitt
Everitt has had a career in computer graphics and programming spanning almost 25 year. He worked as an Open GL engineer at nVidia for 8 years later moving on to id software, where he worked on the company’s game engine id Tech 5 (Rage, Wolfenstein: The New Order). Most recently he’s had a hand in mobile technologies at Epic (Unreal Engine) and he leaves a job as an engineer looking at “forward looking GPU architectures”.
Brian Hook
Hook similarly has held numerous posts in low level programming and graphics technologies. Starting life as a programmer at formerly pioneering GPU manufacturer 3DFX his career highlights include a stint at id working on Quake 2 and 3, Sony Entertainment Online working on Everquest 2 and the ill fated 3D Realms as a project lead – the house behind the legendarily delayed Duke Nukem sequel.
As with other recent recruitment, Everitt and Hook have strong standings in computer graphics in the gaming industry and both have links to the now Zenimax Media owned id software, from where John Carmack famously jumped ship. Zenimax is of course currently undergoing legal action against Oculus VR for alleged theft of intellectual property.
Everitt, posting on the subreddit /r/oculus, had this to say about joining Oculus VR and his hopes for the future:
The opportunity to work with John, Jan Paul, Gloria, and the gang again was a big motivation. Working with folks like Abrash, Atman, Tom F, and many more (for the first time) is a double bonus. It’s not often you get to contribute to something that has the potential to fundamentally change the nature of human computer interaction. So I feel pretty lucky (no pun intended) to be a part of it!
Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe recently stated that he believed the company is undergoing the formation of the “final platform”, a bold statement for how significant virtual reality will be in the near future – but clearly a sentiment that has rung true with people across the industry.
