The ongoing trial of ZeniMax’s $2 billion lawsuit against Oculus over the technology behind the Oculus Rift VR headset got heated yesterday when Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey took to the stand, according to an article from Polygon. Luckey traded his usual casual flip-flops for dress shoes and a tie as ZeniMax’s lawyers proceeded to grill him on his lack of qualifications. ZeniMax’s attorney pointed out that Luckey has no engineering degree and, in fact, dropped out of college. He then went on to say that Luckey couldn’t have developed the technology without the help of current Oculus CTO and former id Software CTO John Carmack.
This would have meant that Oculus had broken an NDA (Non-disclosure agreement) signed by Luckey regarding proprietary information owned by ZeniMax. ZeniMax’s attorneys also presented a series of emails between Luckey and Carmack which suggest that Luckey had circled the binding contents of the NDA.
It was at this point that both Luckey and the ZeniMax attorney lost their cool, with the attorney attempting to prove contradictions in the timeline while Luckey struggled to provide context for the events in question. It got so bad that at one point the judge had to quiet them both down when they were talking over each other.
Luckey later regained his composure when the defense came to his rescue, arguing that Luckey could have developed the technology himself given his history of developing VR technology all by himself, including his first prototype headset, the PR1, back in August 2010, almost two years before meeting Carmack.
Luckey eventually stepped down and was replaced by the much calmer Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe. The trial is expected to continue for the next two weeks.