Many VR enthusiasts are not thrilled that Facebook will begin forcing them to own Oculus, especially using a Facebook account instead of a separate Oculus account. In a post to Hacker News on Wednesday, John Carmack called the Facebook acquisition in early 2014 "not a perfect fairy-tale outcome, but ... In hindsight, it was the right thing for the company," he called it, and offered his own view.

"Perhaps unorthodox, but frankly, Oculus was a bit confused and I actually hoped FB would have made a stronger impression on Oculus after the acquisition. Instead, Oculus was given enormous freedom over the years," Carmack wrote.

While this post is in response to an article about working at Google and tech culture in general, Carmack's post sticks to his own experience at Oculus. It is light on details and provides a high-level view of how he was positioned as CTO from 2013 to 2019. Carmack was heavily involved in mobile VR technologies such as Samsung GearVR, Oculus Go, and Oculus Quest during his time at Oculus.

In November 2019, he left his full-time position to take on a consulting role at Oculus, which he says he is now "reasonably happy and effective."

Carmack said that during his six years at Oculus, he was never ordered to "shut up and soldier on," but that he had limited influence, in part because he did not move to Oculus headquarters in California and because the power structure was "built into the DNA of early Oculus."

"The political dynamics were never fully aligned with the optimal set of leadership personalities and beliefs that would allow me to have the best influence, but progress was made," he said. This post will not mention Oculus' leadership by name or delve into the specific decisions of the company during his tenure.

Carmack commented that the communication style between Oculus and Facebook was "a little passive aggressive," which he attributed to the nature of the larger organization, but did not go into detail. Another former Oculus developer, Tom Forsyth, commented on Twitter that it was a change that came with the Facebook acquisition.

Carmack did not say much about the direction of Oculus as a Facebook-controlled company or the decision that would leave new Oculus owners with no choice but to use their Facebook accounts to operate the headset. Last August, Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey commented on it, saying he "truly believes" that Facebook accounts will remain optional.