Many have speculated that after Facebook acquired Oculus that there would be an exodus of the VR company's top talent, yet the opposite is true. Michael Abrash, the VR expert of Valve has left to join Oculus as its Chief Scientist. The loss of one of Valve's most valuable assets in the realm of virtual reality could lead to them failing to other competition, such as Sony's recently revealed Project Morpheus, and the Oculus Rift, or Microsoft's rumored VR headset.
Abrash has stated on his blog that "Facebook's acquisition of Oculus means that VR is going to happen in all its glory. The resources and long-term commitment that Facebook brings gives Oculus the runway it needs to solve the hard problems of VR" and says "I now fully expect to spend the rest of my career pushing VR as far ahead as I can."
Valve has lost a vital part of its VR team. Gabe Newell, the CEO of Valve Corporation had stated that he kept "trying to hire Michael Abrash" when he joined the company back in 2011. Michael Abrash has code in all kinds of software, from Windows to Quake, as well as many engines that power many modern AAA video games. His books on programming are widely used today by coders for creating engines for new videogames.
Michael Abrash is the third person from Valve's VR team to join Oculus, starting with Tom Forsyth (who brought VR support to TF2) and Atman Binstock (Valve's lead VR engineer). This could lead to even greater losses at Valve if their developers find that the grass really is greener on the other side.
In the past, Valve has said they would share their VR research with the Oculus team, but it seems that Valve is going to have to cut ties with Oculus to better compete in the growing virtual reality market.
Source: Via Oculus via TechCrunch | Image via PC Gamer
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