Michael Abrash, who has been working for Valve since 2011 on its virtual reality project, has joined Oculus VR. The move comes just days after Facebook’s $2 billion buyout of the virtual reality company.
Abrash joins former colleague Atman Binstock, Id co-founder John Carmack, and a growing roster of industry luminaries at Oculus. “Facebook's acquisition of Oculus means that VR is going to happen in all its glory,” Abrash writes. “The resources and long-term commitment that Facebook brings gives Oculus the runway it needs to solve the hard problems of VR – and some of them are hard indeed. I now fully expect to spend the rest of my career pushing VR as far ahead as I can.”
Abrash will serve as Oculus’ chief scientist, and in his introductory post on the Oculus website cites Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash as a significant inspiration. While at Valve, Abrash gave a compelling talk on the future of VR during the company’s Dev Days event in early 2014.
For more on Oculus, you can read up on the Facebook buyout and our interview with company leadership. You can also check out a roundup of virtual reality coverage from GDC.
[Source: Oculus]
Our Take
Oculus’ Brendan Iribe, Nate Mitchell, and Palmer Luckey told us that recruitment was going to kick into high gear. Bringing Michael Abrash aboard is another push forward that might give Facebook doubters a reason to reconsider. I don’t expect this is the last major hire at Oculus we’ll be reporting on.