Well, you are kind of a dolt for doing side work on company time with company equipment and expecting anything other than the company expecting ownership/equity of the results.
I mean, you have a point, but at the same time, Carmack and Romero have literally been pulling these kinds of shenanigan's since John^2 were working at Softdisk. It doesn't make for the best business or legal decision, but it's certainly not a surprise to hear. It's kind of his MO.
I would find it hard to believe that Zenimax was unaware of what was going on.
Continuing to do the same thing again and again does not make it right, nor justify the behavior. Stop doing it. Your life becomes much easier. If you don't have self-discipline, then consequences happen. Yeah, it sucks, but dems da breakz.
Also, you are not always in control of who your corporate overlords will be. They can be decent, then sell, then new owners are not cool. Happens all the time.
Reading this strongly reminds me of the book The Fountainhead, where those who refuse to follow the same playbooks as the majority, are the ones who not only are responsible for helping to drive their respective industries forward, but are persecuted for it.
I think it’s fair to call John Carmack a visionary who has moved his industry forward multiple times. I think while some investors and business owners did not benefit (as much as they could have) from his work, the rest of the gaming world absolutely did.
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
I think this depiction of corporate highlights why innovation becomes difficult for larger companies at some point and why good engineers should cut ties from time to time.
Fully agreed. While his life would have definitely been much easier if he followed the "reasonable rules", easier != better. And to be fair, I am glad Carmack went for what he thought was the right move vs. him going for the move that he thought would lead him to an easier life.
He is one of the very few people in the industry (not just gaming, but technology in general) who manages to move the entire industries forward not once, but many times, and consistently so. All while remaining true to himself, caring about what he thinks matters the most, and not jumping head deep into corporate games just for the sake of it.
Maybe I am fanboying a bit here, but after reading Masters of Doom (a biographical piece on the early life of both Johns [Carmack and Romero], how they started ID Software together, and how it all turned out; heavily recommended for everyone here), it feels like I am experiencing an even more exciting sequel to it happening in real life in front of my eyes.
I'm sure he's really enjoyed all of those meetings with lawyers and various depositions and what not. There's probably nothing better he could have been doing with that time instead. You're totally right.
The real lesson is not to work with blood sucking lawyers. They'll look for any excuse to steal from anyone they can, and they'll use the legal system to do it.
