Valve's Michael Abrash exits company to join Oculus

Michael Abrash was previously known as one of the faces of Valve's VR initiative, having most recently spoken about the potential of VR tech during January's Steam Developer Days. Today, Abrash has announced his depature from Valve, having joined the team at Oculus VR as its Chief Scientist.

Ozzie Mejia

March 28, 2014 4:15 PM

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Michael Abrash was previously known as one of the faces of Valve's VR initiative, having most recently spoken about the potential of VR tech during January's Steam Developer Days. Today, Abrash has announced his depature from Valve, having joined the team at Oculus VR as its Chief Scientist. The move reunites him with John Carmack, who he previously worked with on Doom and Quake, among other PC titles.

"It's great to be working with John [Carmack] again after all these years, and with that comes a sense of deja vu," Abrash wrote on the Oculus website. "It feels like it did when I went to Id, but on steroids – this time we're working on technology that will change not just computer gaming, but potentially how all of us interact with computers, information, and each other every day. I think it's going to be the biggest game-changer I've ever seen – and I've seen quite a lot over the last 57 years."

Abrash describes his path towards Oculus in great detail, discussing his time with the Oculus Rift prototype and generally praising the work of Carmack and company co-founder Palmer Luckey. He also addressed Facebook's recent acquisition of Oculus, touting it as a positive move that will only help move VR tech forward.

"Facebook's acquisition of Oculus means that VR is going to happen in all its glory," Abrash added. "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."

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?