Michael Abrash Leaves Valve to Join Oculus as Chief Scientist

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Michael Abrash's time at Valve has come to an end, but his journey in pursuing great virtual reality has only just begun. In a blog post on the Oculus VR website, Abrash announced that he's now working full-time for Oculus as their Chief Scientist.

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Abrash says that his reason for joining the company is that great VR is "clearly within reach," and he now expects "to spend the rest of [his] career pushing VR as far ahead as [he] can."

This is all thanks to Facebook's $2 billion acquisition of Oculus VR a few days ago. With that kind of capital and commitment, the expensive engineering feats that accompany VR technology are no longer, well, as big of an issue. "That worry is now gone," Abrash said. "Facebook's acquisition of Oculus means that VR is going to happen in all its glory."

Michael Abrash isn't the first employee to leave Valve for Oculus. Atman Binstock, who was a lead engineer in Valve's VR department, is now the Chief Architect working on virtual reality hardware at Oculus. The pair join John Carmack who was appointed to Chief Technical Officer after leaving id Software last year.

 

[Pikminiman]

Neat.

 

[Aizawa]

after so much time he is united with John Carmack

 

[SpotEnemyBoats]

Sans Steam Machines, I wonder if Valve's hardware team is falling apart. Maybe now Valve is actually working on video games.

 

[Danny_ZQ]

Maybe now Valve is actually working on video games.

pffffff

 

[Aizawa]

SpotEnemyBoats is here, im leaving

 

[Akkedis]

The time and money wasted by Valve, please stick to software Valve.

 

[Schru]

Valve has not wasted time or money, nor are its hardware projects falling apart. Mr Abrash's migration to Oculus is likely an extension of past co-operation between the two companies.

 

[Krynn72]

I'm waiting for Vegeta to come in and say "I told you so" in regards to Facebook buying Oculus being a good thing.

 

[Vegeta897]

I toll due soul.

Really though, this is far too early for an "I told you so." I already posted an article about how developers are embracing the buyout. Notch is a whiny little kid taking his toys home in a huff when he gets upset.

 

[Omnomnick]

Notch is a whiny little kid taking his toys home in a huff when he gets upset.

This.

I'm also still pretty confused as to why people really care about what Notch says or does, he has little control over Minecraft these days (after handing the reigns to Jeb at release), and he has done literally nothing else before Minecraft or after it.

Anyway, Abrash moving to Oculus isn't a bad thing at all, even though it might seem like Valve just lost one of their best hardware engineers. Valve had no plans to release their own VR peripheral, which means they're not more than likely going to continue focusing on helping develop/port software to get the Rift and other potential headsets off the ground. As for Atman, he is currently working at a new Oculus R&D centre in Seattle, which likely continues to have strong ties with Valve.

 

[Gloone]

Subtext: Valve aren't pushing boundaries on VR.

 

[MindCrack]

In Valve you can do whatever you want. Movie? Okay. Book? Sure! VR? That's even better! It's like "kickstarter" for people (that's my opinion).

 

[AYKO]

Today, Aaron Nichols left Valve to join Oculus VR.
https://twitter.com/AaronHelloWorld/status/450783580642230273

 

[Gloone]

Wow. Everybody's jumping ship.

What does Valve even do any more? They don't make games. Steam Machines were a complete dud, and now what was left of their VR team has deserted them.

 

[Eejit]

Steam Machines being spoken about in the past tense even before release. Credible.

 

[Schru]

It may be that a decision has been made at Valve that the willing employees working on VR should migrate to Oculus, seeing as speeding up the technology's development was their chief purpose.

 

[Aizawa]

Wow. Everybody's jumping ship.

What does Valve even do any more? They don't make games. Steam Machines were a complete dud, and now what was left of their VR team has deserted them.

They made a game last year, and one two years before that, and all their games get constantly updated. They obviously work on L4D3 and/or HL3. Stop being so mad.
Valve doesnt want to make their own VR thing, so its just the clever thing to do to go to Oculus if VR is the only thing you want to do.
And btw their game output is much much higher than any other developer. Except for the huge companys which have many companys under them which make games for them like Ubisoft, EA. Compare it to Rockstar, Dice (1 Battlefield per year doesnt really count, cause its always the same), Bioware, Irrational, Id, Bethesda (the developers of Skyrim etc., not the publishers), Arkane Studios, Eidos Montreal, IO Interactive, Crystal Dynamics, 4A Games, Riot and much more. The only company which makes more games is Blizzard, but that doesnt really mean anything, my point is: they do make games.

 

[-smash-]

Jumping ship? You don't understand Valve's intentions with VR. Valve only intended to help generate momentum for VR technology. Now that Oculus has all the momentum in the world to be successful, Gabe is more than happy to see that Abrash and others will be in good company at Oculus.