The legal dispute between John Carmack and ZeniMax that began when Carmack sued the company in March 2017 has come to an end. Carmack said on Twitter yesterday that Zenimax "has fully satisfied their obligations" related to its acquisition of id Software in 2009, and each party has withdrawn its claims against the other.
The dispute arose shortly after ZeniMax was awarded $500 million in its lawsuit against Oculus VR, filed over allegations—which a jury agreed with—that Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey had violated an NDA prior to working with ZeniMax on VR technology in 2012-13. Carmack, who joined Oculus as CTO just prior to his departure from id Software (he worked at both companies simultaneously for a brief period), claimed that ZeniMax had failed to make the final payment on the acquisition, and thus owed him $22.5 million.
My personal legal disputes are over -- Zenimax has fully satisfied their obligations to me from the purchase of Id Software, and we have released all claims against each other. (The appeal for Oculus still goes forward)October 11, 2018
Carmack said nothing about the specifics of the settlement, but he did point out that the matter is completely separate from the courtroom between between ZeniMax and Oculus. A judge cut ZeniMax's big win in half earlier this year, and Oculus said at the time that it intended to appeal the remaining claims against it.
