November/December 2012
“VLATKO IS, UH, A COLORFUL CHARACTER,” IRIBE WARNED ANTONOV SHORTLY before they arrived in Maryland on November 21 to meet with Bethesda Softworks president Vlatko Andonov, who was now the point person on id Software’s negotiations with Oculus. It didn’t take long for Vlatko to live up to his, uh, colorful reputation—striking a hostile tone with Iribe and Antonov, and telling them, “You guys are just kids, you should be working with us.”1
Given the leverage that ZeniMax had (and the fact that Oculus had already promised Doom 3: BFG to thousands of backers), Iribe expected that Vlatko would demand some obscene number for each copy of the game. But instead, he said that if Oculus didn’t sign the deal that ZeniMax wanted, they would no longer let Carmack work on VR.
Iribe was shocked by Vlatko’s threat, though he probably would have been less surprised if he had known that, internally, Vlatko frequently referred to the Oculus guys as “clowns”; or that just a few weeks earlier Vlatko had complained to a contact at Sony PlayStation about how Carmack was wasting his time on “VR support for Doom 3 and the (stupid) Oculus Rift.”
“THAT’S CRAZY!” DYCUS DECLARED.
Luckey shrugged, dabbing a tiny screw with isopropyl alcohol.
“You’re crazy!” Dycus chided.
“Eh, maybe,” Luckey replied. “But do you know of a more efficient solution?”
Luckey and Dycus were at the office trying to determine the ideal eye-relief settings—the ideal distance between lens and eyeball—that ought to be implemented into the eyecups of DK1 before manufacturing began in China.
At a normal company, this would all be calibrated with some sort of fancy computer vision system. But this being a start-up, always short on time and money, they needed a faster and cheaper solution.
“Chris! I got it!” Luckey had shouted minutes earlier. “We’re going to drill a hole in the center of the lens and then run a flat-top screw through the opening so it’s jutting out, you know? We’ll start it out at a safe distance and then just keep rotating the screw until, basically, it ever-so-slightly pokes you in the eye!”
“What? No,” Dycus had replied. “You can’t do that. It’ll give you an infection.”
This was a valid point, which is why Luckey was now coating the head of a screw with isopropyl alcohol. As he did that, Dycus—ever skeptical—drilled a hole in the center of a lens; when they both finished, the disinfected screw was threaded through that opening.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Dycus asked. Before he finished the question, Luckey had the headset against his face.
As per the parameters of their rugged experiment, they had started with the screw placed at a safe distance from the eye. Even so, Luckey instinctively flinched.
“There’s no shame in backing out!” Dycus offered. “Seriously, Palmer: you’re going to scratch your eye.”
Luckey removed the headset to adjust the screw. “One: I’ve scratched my eye before and it’s not that bad. Two: it’s a perfectly smooth metal dome that is nice and polished. It’ll probably be the nicest thing that’s ever touched my eye! And three: let’s say—worst-case scenario—I do scratch my eye real bad and end up needing to wear an eye patch for a while? Boom: modern-day pirate!”
As a handful of employees came to gather around Dycus, they were surprised to see their beloved founder subject himself to this Clockwork-Orange-esque experiment; and even more surprised to see that it actually worked. After several rotations, the screw was flush against his eye. And—score!—they now had a way to measure the immeasurable.
“Got it!” Luckey cheered, the screw now barely grazing his eye.
“Aren’t you uncomfortable?” Dycus asked, surprised by Luckey’s cheer.
“I mean, it’s superspooky,” Luckey replied. “But not uncomfortable. You’ll see.”
“Me?”
“Yeah,” Luckey said. “You and the rest of those lookie-loos. We need to see how it differs by facial structure, eyeball shape, and everything else. So . . . who’s up next?”
“YOU!” MCCAULEY CALLED, POINTING TO THE FACTORY WORKER WHO WAS NOW at the front of a sixty-employee-long line at Berway. “You, it’s your turn.”
Like Luckey, McCauley was conducting an impromptu ocular experiment of his own, though what he wanted to determine was the ideal focal length—the distance between a person’s eye and the screen—that should be used for the next batch of prototypes. Since this was a somewhat subjective measurement setting, McCauley wanted to collect as much data as possible.
A week or so later, McCauley would visit the office in Irvine and bring with him the very first models of DK1. Although he would be satisfied with Berway’s initial pass, the rest of the team would not be. They would have issues with just about everything: the shape, the weight, the optics, and so on. They wouldn’t say anything too harsh, but it was clear that these kids were not pleased. And so, when they got to the focal length, McCauley wouldn’t hesitate to push back.
“Look,” McCauley would explain. “There’s a subjective aspect to all this. Especially the settings. But I tested them on sixty people and that’s what we came up with.”
Despite this explanation, the Oculus guys would remain displeased. Especially that kid Nirav Patel. But what does he know? Who cares what he thinks? McCauley would ask himself these questions many times during that visit because—to his surprise, to his horror—Brendan, Palmer, and Nate seemed to actually value his opinion. Why? How did that happen? As McCauley’s mind would begin to swirl with questions like these, he’d force himself to cut it out. Politics was the part he hated most about companies.
But that was a week or so away. Right now, running factory workers through his focal length experiment, he was at his finest; commanding, resourceful, and relentlessly focused. This, McCauley thought, is how it should be.
“NO,” ANNA YERSHOVA SAID, SHAKING HER HEAD. “IT SHOULD NOT BE LIKE this.”
Her husband, Steve LaValle, was moving through the apartment they had rented in Finland, conducting a last-minute electronics sweep while also layering up to brave the weather outside. “It’s sweet of you to worry, honey. But I’ll be fine. Besides, you get to stay home and play with the new robot!”
Snowy and hushed with only four hours of sunlight, this time of year was brutal on almost everybody. But, as Yershova liked to tease, her husband “looooooved the weather.” What could he say? The weather was brutal—cold, dark, and numb—but he greatly enjoyed its by-product tranquility. Intellectually, he found it conducive to clearer thought; and physically, he’d never felt better. For whatever reason, living in Finland had freed him from the chronic cases of asthma and allergies that had plagued him his entire life. Which is why, as he pedaled through the snow—searching for someone who might be able to repair the custom circuit boards McCauley had sent him from China—he sported a frosty, boyish grin.
For Yershova, however, living in Finland was brutal. Having grown up in Ukraine, it wasn’t so much the cold weather as it was the lack of sunlight. That was brutal. She also missed Chicago, where she received her Ph.D. and had been lecturing since 2011. The sense of purpose she had felt at the university was part of the reason she had encouraged LaValle to explore working with Oculus in the first place.
When her husband came back from that first trip and said, “They’re just kids, but I think they’ve got something special and they might be onto something,” it was enough to pique her interest; enough that she (and her husband) were willing to help Oculus solve their tracking issues. But as much as she relished the challenge (and enjoyed working closely with her husband), she still thought VR was kind of silly. Until after LaValle returned from his second trip (to Irvine this time) and he brought back one of Luckey’s prototypes.
“This is mind-blowing,” she said, after trying it out. “Yup, this is it.”
Yet despite now truly believing in this technology, both she and her husband were still reluctant to accept Iribe’s recurring offers to officially join the company, to go from consulting in Finland to working full-time in California. Because while the opportunity itself was incredible—a chance to be on the forefront of a new consumer technology; to solve the unsolved and shape the evolution of VR—there were some very real concerns. LaValle was a tenured professor, one currently on sabbatical to write an important book. Was he really willing to give that up? Were both of them willing to trade academia for life in the private sector? What were the chances that Oculus even survived its first year?
Then, of course, there was the financial component. If they were to join Oculus full-time, they’d basically be giving up their university salaries in exchange for a lottery ticket; they’d primarily be paid in company equity, which could very well end up worth nothing. Could they even take that risk? LaValle had two children from his previous marriage, and he and Yershova had plans to start a family of their own. And speaking of kids . . . Oculus had been founded by a teenager and was being run (mostly) by guys who were in their early thirties. Sure, several of those guys—the “Scaleform Mafia,” LaValle affectionately called them—had created a successful middleware business, but virtual reality was an entirely different beast. And last, when it came to age and experience, the generational difference could not be ignored. “For whatever it’s worth,” LaValle had said after his most recent trip to Irvine, “they’re all perfectly nice guys.” To Yershova, however, that wasn’t worth much. “Not because I don’t trust your opinion,” she had said. “But because it’s not about nice. Anybody can be nice. My worry is about the type of relationship this will be. I think it will be an abusive relationship.”
Yershova, of course, didn’t mean physically abusive. She didn’t exactly mean emotional abuse, either. Because even though she was a little worried that (based on what she’d seen over email) these guys didn’t quite appreciate how renowned LaValle really was, that wasn’t her concern. What concerned her was how transactional everything appeared to be: a question is asked, a request is made, a result is provided. If things go well: Awesome job, dude! If they go poorly: Can you just fix it? Maybe it just felt that way due to the asynchronous nature of emails. Or maybe this was just how things worked in the business world (and therefore had nothing to do with age). Either way, Yershova sensed something that felt antithetical to the (generally) collaborative nature of academia, in which ideas are presented, argued about, and built upon to construct a merit-driven solution. This felt dangerous; this felt abusive.
“And they always need it right away,” Yershova had said, before LaValle left their apartment for his bike ride. McCauley had sent some custom circuit boards that broke; LaValle tried to repair them on his own (he even got out his soldering kit!) but that didn’t work and instead of new ones being sent, her husband now had to ride through town and search for someone—if such a person even existed—who could solder these pieces back together. “I am hopeful,” she had said before he left. “But my worry: it is less about best and more about fast. And it should not be like this. No, it should not be like this.”
“DID PALMER TELL YOU WHAT VLATKO CALLED US?” IRIBE ASKED JOE CHEN, AS they drove through Orlando on the evening of December 2, searching for their hotel to get some rest before exhibiting the following day at I/ITSEC (the military’s annual Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education conference).
“Nah,” Chen replied. “What’d he say?”
“Kids!” Iribe said. “He said we were ‘just a bunch of kids.’”
Chen laughed. His new colleagues were young, sure, and maybe had a juvenile sense of humor, but they worked ’round the clock (sometimes to the point of forgetting to sleep or shower); and the groundbreaking work they were doing was anything but child’s play. Working at Oculus felt a lot like his time in the army, which was a comparison Chen felt guilty making because the stakes were so different. One was life and death, the other success or failure. But fair or not, Chen felt the two experiences shared a lot in common: the strong sense of mission, the us-against-the-world mentality, and the trial-by-fire bond that quickly formed with those who were there by your side.
For Chen and Iribe, that bond grew during their trip to Orlando. Starting with them arriving at the hotel and then hustling over to Kinko’s to print up flyers, business cards, and other assorted materials to try and look professional-on-a-budget for the next day’s show. At some point during their late-night Kinko’s excursion, Chen realized how much Iribe really loved this stuff. Not the actual grunt work, but the never-ending, under-the-gun feel of building up a little start-up. And he was good at it, too, Chen noted. Really good. The kind of guy who probably played his best Mario Bros. when the time started running out and that da-da-da-da-duh music kicked in.
“How’s the demo working?” Iribe asked later that night, back at the hotel.
“Good,” Chen said, his face pressed against one of the prototypes. “Probably not as impressive as Doom 3, if I’m being honest. Not as flashy. But this will definitely do the trick.”
To start distancing themselves from ZeniMax, the Oculus founders thought it would be best to demo something other than Doom 3: BFG Edition. The problem was that there was literally no other Oculus-ready software out there. Nothing even close, really. So they’d need to put together something in-house. There wasn’t enough time to build anything from scratch, but Andrew Reisse’s integration for the Unreal Engine was far enough along that (with some help from Epic, especially Nick Whiting) Oculus was able to sample some stock models from Unreal Tournament 3. While it worked, it didn’t necessarily flash the Rift’s top potential, which was what they needed to do at the January 2013 CES (Consumer Electronics Show).
“What do you think we’ll show at CES?” Chen asked.
“That’s definitely something we’ll need to figure out,” Iribe said. “For now, I just hope what we’ve got holds up.”
“It will,” Chen said, head still against prototype. “Andrew did a great job on the integration. Seriously: he crushed it. If there’s anything we should be worried about, it’s the PC. Just from wear and tear.”
“Good call,” Iribe said. With Oculus’s round-the-clock focus on building a headset (and building the software to drive that headset) it was easy to forget that all of that was moot without a PC powerful enough to make it all run smoothly and compatibly. This was a lesson that Luckey and Antonov had (kind of) learned the hard way during their trip up to Valve. It was something they would need to be conscious of going forward. In the meantime, they would just need to hope for the best at I/ITSEC.
Compared to the big annual game conventions (like CES, GDC, and E3), I/ITSEC was a small show. It attracted roughly fifteen thousand attendees each year, almost all of whom worked for militaries or governments.2 In this regard, it was kind of an odd show for Oculus to attend, but it was important to see how Oculus stacked up against the competition. “Remember,” Luckey had said to Chen a week earlier, “the military is essentially the only industry that has continued to invest in VR since the ’90s. They are essentially VR’s only actual ‘customer.’ But while that might make you think you’re about to see some crazy awesome shit, you’re probably not. Because that whole industry has been in a deep freeze for the past decade.”
After a keynote from Major General Glenn M. Walters (Commanding General, Second Marine Aircraft Wing) at the conference, Chen got his first glimpse of exactly what Luckey had meant, a sense of how truly deep that freeze had been.
MILITARY OFFICER [PREDEMO]: I suppose I’ll give this a try.
MILITARY OFFICER [POSTDEMO]: That was incredible! How much does it cost?
JOE CHEN: 300.
MILITARY OFFICER: Any chance you can do any better? Maybe closer to $250,000?
JOE CHEN: Sorry. I didn’t mean $300,000. I meant just $300.
MILITARY OFFICER: No way! Are you serious?
JOE CHEN: Absolutely, sir.
MILITARY OFFICER: [head explodes]
That’s US dollars? And the SDK is free? Wait, am I on Candid Camera? Over and over this pleasant surprise occurred. All these people—many of whom had been hardened by a lifetime devoted to combat—couldn’t help but beam like a giddy child who’d just seen his very first magic trick. Which left many with one question: How is it, exactly, that you guys plan to make any money?