virtual reality founded june 2012 ; 4 years ago 2012 06 irvine california u.s. founder palmer luckey brendan iribe michael antonov nate mitchell jack mccauley headquarters menlo park california united states key people palmer luckey brendan iribe ceo john d. carmack cto michael abrash chief scientist products oculus rift samsung gear vr partnership with samsung parent facebook website oculus.com oculus vr llc or simply known as oculus is an american virtual reality technology company founded by palmer luckey and brendan iribe founded in june 2012 at irvine california . in the summer of 2012 oculus announced the oculus rift a virtual reality head mounted display designed for video gaming and created a kickstarter campaign to fund development . the product proved highly successful collecting around 10 million for development and released two pre production models to the public the development kit 1 and the development kit 2 . the consumer product which was released on march 28 2016 includes integrated headphones a refreshed design and an ir led sensor . in march 2014 facebook s ceo mark zuckerberg agreed to acquire oculus for 2 billion in cash and facebook stock 1 2 3 to the criticism of many news reports and game figures such as minecraft creator markus persson who sold his company mojang to microsoft later that year at a valuation of 2.5 billion . 4 in 2015 oculus acquired surreal vision a british start up focusing on 3d reconstruction and mixed reality citation needed stating that it could be possible for oculus to develop products with the concept of telepresence . citation needed the company partnered with samsung to develop the samsung gear vr in november 2015 for the samsung galaxy models . contents 1 history 1.1 founding 1.2 funding for oculus rift and company 1.3 facebook acquisition and chief scientist 1.4 partnership with samsung 1.5 acquisition of surreal vision 2 oculus rift 2.1 conflicts with zenimax media 2.2 developers remove oculus support 3 references 4 external links history edit founding edit as a head mounted display hmd designer at the university of southern california institute for creative technologies palmer luckey earned a reputation for having the largest personal collection of hmds in the world and was a longtime moderator in meant to be seen mtbs s discussion forums . 5 through mtbs s forums 6 palmer developed the idea of creating a new head mounted display that was both more effective than what is currently on the market and inexpensive for gamers . to develop the new product luckey founded oculus vr with scaleform co founders brendan iribe and michael antonov 7 engineer jack mccauley 8 nate mitchell and andrew scott reisse . 9 coincidentally john carmack of id software had been doing his own research on hmds and happened upon palmer s developments as a fellow mtbs member . 10 after sampling an early unit carmack favored luckey s prototype and just before the 2012 electronic entertainment expo e3 id announced that their future updated version of doom 3 doom 3 bfg edition would be compatible with head mounted display units . 11 during the convention carmack introduced a duct taped head mounted display based on palmer s oculus rift prototype which ran carmack s own software . the unit featured a high speed imu and a 5.6 inch 14 cm lcd visible via dual lenses that were positioned over the eyes to provide a 90 degrees horizontal and 110 degrees vertical stereoscopic 3d perspective . 12 13 carmack later left id as he was hired as oculus vr s chief technology officer . 14 funding for oculus rift and company edit following the demonstration of the oculus rift prototype at e3 in june 2012 on august 1 2012 the company announced a kickstarter campaign to further develop the product . oculus announced that the dev kit version of the oculus rift would be given as a reward to backers who pledged 300 or more on kickstarter with an expected shipping date set of december 2012 though they did not actually ship until march 2013 . 15 there was also a limited run of 100 unassembled rift prototype kits for pledges over 275 that would ship a month earlier . both versions were intended to include doom 3 bfg edition but rift support in the game was not ready so to make up for it they included a choice of discount vouchers for either steam or the oculus store . 16 within four hours of the announcement oculus secured its intended amount of us 250 000 17 18 and in less than 36 hours the campaign had surpassed 1 million in funding 19 eventually ending with 2 437 429 . 20 on december 12 2013 marc andreessen joined the company s board when his firm andreessen horowitz led the 75 million series b venture funding . 21 in total oculus vr has raised 91 million with 2.4 million raised via crowdfunding . 16 facebook acquisition and chief scientist edit though oculus vr had only released a development prototype of its headset on march 25 2014 mark zuckerberg announced via his facebook profile that facebook would be acquiring oculus vr for us 2 billion pending regulatory approval . the deal includes 400 million in cash and 23.1 million common shares of facebook valued at 1.6 billion as well as additional 300 million assuming facebook reaches certain milestones . 1 2 3 many kickstarter backers and game industry figures such as minecraft developer markus persson criticized the sale of oculus vr to facebook . 22 23 on march 28 2014 it was announced that michael abrash had joined the company as chief scientist . 24 as of january 2015 the oculus vr headquarters has been moved from irvine california to menlo park california where facebook s headquarters is also located . oculus has stated that this move is for their employees to be closer to silicon valley . 25 partnership with samsung edit in 2014 samsung partnered with oculus to develop the gear vr after the success of the in development rift . 26 during the course of 2014 to 2015 two innovator editions in development versions of the gear vr mainly sold to developers for sole research and understanding were developed manufactured and sold . 27 the devices that the innovator editions used were the note 4 galaxy s6 and galaxy s6 edge . on 20 november 2015 the consumer edition of the gear vr was released to the public and sold out during the first shipments . the device supported the samsung galaxy note 5 samsung galaxy s6 samsung galaxy s6 edge samsung galaxy s6 edge and later the samsung galaxy s7 and samsung galaxy s7 edge . 28 acquisition of surreal vision edit on may 2015 oculus acquired british company surreal vision a company based on 3d scene mapping reconstruction and augumented reality . news reported that oculus and surreal vision could create mixed reality technology in oculus s products similar to the upcoming hmd microsoft hololens . 29 they also reported that oculus with surreal s help will make telepresence possible . 30 oculus rift edit main article oculus rift oculus rift worn at a research showcase the oculus rift is a virtual reality head mounted display . software most notably video games must be custom programmed to use the rift . developer kit preorders were made available for 300 through oculus vr s website starting on september 26 2012 . these kits sold at a rate of 4 5 per minute for the first day before slowing down throughout the week . 31 in march 2014 at gdc oculus announced the upcoming devkit 2 dk2 which they expected to begin shipping in july 2014 . 32 in january 2016 at ces 2016 oculus announced it will start shipping the oculus rift headset to customers in 20 countries on march 28 and it will cost 599 . 33 in january 2016 as a gesture of appreciation oculus announced it will give the 6 855 people who participated in the 2012 kickstarter project a special edition oculus rift one day before the new product goes on sale to the public on march 28 2016 . 34 oculus touch motion controllers start delivery by december 6 2016 for 199 . touch motion controllers will have 35 game options at launch . oculus rift earphones will also start delivery on december 6 2016 for 49 35 conflicts with zenimax media edit this section needs expansion with needs the full story . you can help by adding to it . may 2014 in may 2014 zenimax media parent company of carmack s former employer id software sent a letter to facebook and oculus asserting that any contributions that he made to the oculus rift project are the intellectual property of zenimax stating that zenimax provided necessary vr technology and other valuable assistance to palmer luckey and other oculus employees in 2012 and 2013 to make the oculus rift a viable vr product superior to other vr market offerings . on may 21 2014 zenimax media filed a lawsuit against oculus vr . 36 37 on june 25 2014 oculus vr filed an official response to the lawsuit . oculus claimed zenimax was falsely claiming ownership to take advantage of the acquisition by facebook . oculus also claimed that the oculus rift did not share a single line of code or any technology with zenimax s code and technology . 38 developers remove oculus support edit in 2016 it was reported that luckey palmer the founder of oculus vr donated 10 000 to nimble america who operates a popular reddit page dedicated to donald trump where alt right memes promoting white supremacy are created and shared in support of donald trump s candidacy for president . 39 40 41 42 43 this caused a number of developers to remove their support for oculus rift including scruta games who said they would cancel support for oculus rift games until palmer stood down . 44 45 in addition tomorrow today labs developers of newton vr said they would not support the oculus touch as long as luckey is employed by oculus . 44 46 references edit a b facebook to acquire oculus . facebook newsroom . facebook . march 25 2014 . retrieved march 26 2014 . a b plunkett luke march 25 2014 . facebook buys oculus rift for 2 billion . kotaku . retrieved march 25 2014 . a b welch chris march 25 2014 . facebook buying oculus vr for 2 billion . the verge . retrieved march 26 2014 . molina brett 15 september 2014 . microsoft to acquire minecraft maker mojang for 2.5 b . usa today . http www.telegraph.co.uk technology video games video game news 10723562 oculus vr the 2bn virtual reality company that is revolutionising gaming.html meant to be seen view topic oculus rift an open source hmd for kickstarter . mtbs3d.com . retrieved 2013 09 09 . hollister sean 16 august 2012 . under new management oculus intends to commercialize the virtual reality headset . theverge . retrieved 16 august 2012 . luckey palmer 16 august 2012 . expanding the team meet us at gamescom unite pax . oculus.com . retrieved 20 june 2015 . santa ana police chase pedestrian identified . retrieved march 26 2014 . neil schneider . the 1 stereoscopic 3d gaming vr gaming 3d gaming and vr resource meant to be seen john carmack talks vr at quakecon 2012 . mtbs3d.com . carmack makes virtual reality actually cool . welsh oli 7 june 2012 . john carmack and the virtual reality dream . eurogamer . retrieved 1 august 2012 . rosenberg adam 14 june 2012 . hands on with oculus rift john carmack s virtual reality goggles . g4tv . retrieved 1 august 2012 . gilbert ben 7 august 2013 . oculus rift hires doom co creator john carmack as chief technology officer . engadget . retrieved 7 august