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Former id Software designer John Carmack has finally settled his $22.5 million lawsuit against ZeniMax, which he filed in March 2017 on the grounds that ZeniMax owed him a chunk of change resulting from its 2009 acquisition of id Software. Yesterday, Carmack said on Twitter that ZeniMax has "fully satisfied their obligations" to him regarding its purchase of id, and that both parties have "released all claims against each other."
Carmack's lawsuit was filed shortly after a jury ruled in favor of ZeniMax in its lawsuit against Oculus VR, where Carmack now works as CTO. A court found that Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey broke an NDA with ZeniMax, who collaborated with Oculus on its Rift VR headset. Furthermore, it was ruled that Carmack not only stole documents and code when he left id to join Oculus, but also destroyed evidence - his hard-drive - when he learned of ZeniMax's lawsuit. As our sister site PC Gamer reported, Carmack expressed his, erm, frustration with the ruling in a Facebook post.
ZeniMax sued Oculus for $4 billion, was awarded $500 million, and pushed to pursue an injunction which could halt the sale of Rift headsets and force a fundamental redesign. However, Oculus VR only had to pay $250 million after a judge cut the case's initial settlement in half earlier this year. The updated ruling also effectively killed ZeniMax's attempt at a costly injunction, and Oculus plans to appeal the remaining $250 million in damages. Per Carmack's tweet, Oculus' appeal is still ongoing, but Carmack himself can rest easy now.
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