Minecraft is stuck in the minds of millions of (mostly young) gamers — and game industry veteran John Carmack has said that he also has memories of being inside the blocky, stylized world.
"As far as my brain is concerned, it is something that happened to me," Carmack explained.
To Oculus's chief technology officer, who first made his name at id Software creating games likeDoom and Wolfenstein, Minecraft represented something bigger than a game. Carmack saw it as a metaverse full of connected worlds and players, with content being created by its users. And now that world is coming to Oculus, via Windows 10.
"Minecraft was my quest. I thought it would be critically important to get it into VR," he said during his keynote address at Oculus Connect, a now-annual gathering of virtual reality developers and enthusiasts in Los Angeles.
Carmack's "quest" took him to speak with Markus Persson — better known as "Notch,"Minecraft's creator. This was shortly after Notch famously blew up."
Carmack said Notch did eventually soften his stance — but by then, Microsoft had purchasedthe game and its creator for $2.5 billion. Notch famously exited Mojang at that time, saying he was done with Minecraft. At that point, Carmack had to approach Mojang and Microsoft directly, he said.
"I wanted to drive home this case: 'We don't want to ask anything from you. Just let us try. Let me try to build this. If you think it's cool, we'll figure out what we're gonna do from there. I am so confident it will be cool I’ll agree to just about anything here,'" he explained. "They gave me access, but we signed a contract that our lawyers were like, 'This is terrible. They own everything you do. We can't guarantee any of this will happen. John, you’re basically working for Microsoft by okaying this.'"
But to Carmack, it was worth it. After he spent several months tinkering with Minecraft on Gear VR, getting Minecraft: Pocket Edition to work smoothly, he said the final decisions were left up to the business heads at Mojang and Oculus.
"I said on the phone, 'If this doesn't happen, I'm going to cry.' This is the best thing we can do for the platform. I think it's the single most important application we can do for virtual reality, to make sure we have an army of fanatic, passionate supporters that will advocate why VR is great. It's part of this infinite playability we're currently lacking in our current set of titles.
"This was a huge win for me, and everyone at Oculus and Facebook that made this happen — you have my deepest gratitude."
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