John Carmack Sues Zenimax for Sale of ID Software

cageymaru

cageymaru

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The Zenimax vs Carmack saga rolls on as John Carmack was denied the right to receive the remaining $22.5 million in cash owed to him for the sale of id Software to Zenimax in 2009 or convert it to Zenimax stock according to a legal challenge filed in Dallas, TX court on March 7, 2017. Zenimax is alleged to be withholding funds from Carmack because of the intellectual property lawsuit in which ]Zenimax was successful in suing Oculus, Palmer Luckey, Facebook, and John Carmack for $500 million. John Carmack states that the jury in the case found him not liable for misappropriation of trade secrets or copyright infringement. He says "Sour grapes is not an affirmative defense to breach of contract." Carmack goes on to assert that "ZeniMax's invocation of the same alleged acts that it just went to trial on is an exercise in bad faith and distraction, not a legitimate basis to avoid paying the money it owes from its purchase of id Software."

Seems like Zenimax is trying to antagonize John Carmack. This sounds similar to the Activision vs Infinity Ward case where the parent company just never wants to give you up. They never want to let you go. They never want to pay what you're owed and fear having to compete against you. Pay the man and move on Zenimax. If you owe him, then pay him.

A spokeswoman for ZeniMax sent an email to The Dallas Morning News calling the claims "completely without merit" and noting that a court had rejected a previous claim by Carmack that ZeniMax had violated his employment agreement.
"Apparently lacking in remorse, and disregarding the evidence of his many faithless acts and violations of law, Mr. Carmack has decided to try again," the statement said.
 
cageymaru said:
This sounds similar to the Activision vs Infinity Ward case where the parent company just never wants to give you up. They never want to let you go. They never want to pay what you're owed and fear having to compete against you. Pay the man and move on Zenimax. If you owe him, then pay him.
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:D

I do hope he gets his money though. Bullshit they are holding out on a deal they made.
 
zamardii12 said:
Just pay the man... Carmack's contributions to gaming as a whole are well over 22.5 million dollars. It's not like Zenimax doesn't make up that money in about a week anyway.
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zamardii12 said:
Just pay the man... Carmack's contributions to gaming as a whole are well over 22.5 million dollars. It's not like Zenimax doesn't make up that money in about a week anyway.
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They're not worth as much as I thought they were. According to Bloomberg as of last year they were worth 2.5 bn. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...to-weigh-options-for-video-game-maker-zenimax

Which is less than facebook's last quarterly profit. I wonder at what point this whole thing becomes so annoying to Zuckerberg that he doesn't just acquire the whole thing.
 
akaliel said:
They're not worth as much as I thought they were. According to Bloomberg as of last year they were worth 2.5 bn. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...to-weigh-options-for-video-game-maker-zenimax

Which is less than facebook's last quarterly profit. I wonder at what point this whole thing becomes so annoying to Zuckerberg that he doesn't just acquire the whole thing.
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I had that same thought...I wonder if that's even the motivation behind this. Annoy the big guy enough that they just buy you out and you can live on easy street.
 
This is why every studio should just go independent and break off from these toxic publishers. Only games I pre-order or day one purchase are form ID and Bethesda and I don't want to boycott them over Zeni's actions.
 
akaliel said:
They're not worth as much as I thought they were. According to Bloomberg as of last year they were worth 2.5 bn. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...to-weigh-options-for-video-game-maker-zenimax

Which is less than facebook's last quarterly profit. I wonder at what point this whole thing becomes so annoying to Zuckerberg that he doesn't just acquire the whole thing.
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If they were a public company I am sure that he would, but they are privately held and I doubt after all this they would sell to Zuck and Co.
 
Maybe Carmack should ask the court to place a lien on Zenimax physical assets and also their IP assets. Doesn't directly force payment but does prevent Zenimax from performing any transactions involving assets until the lien is cleared.
 
Is Carmack friends with anyone at iD/Zenimax, or before leaving did he storm out of a meeting while insulting everyone's children or something?
 
Pusher of Buttons said:
I had that same thought...I wonder if that's even the motivation behind this. Annoy the big guy enough that they just buy you out and you can live on easy street.
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They already do live on easy street. Look at the people that run Zenimax. Every single one of them were multi-millionaires even before the company was founded, some in the 100s of millions.
 
Pusher of Buttons said:
No, but I don't really want them owned by Zenimax either....like being asked which testicle to get punched in.
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Well, according to wiki, Bethesda was founded by Christopher Weaver in 1986. Then in 1999 he and Robert Altman (who's a lawyer) founded Zenimax, up to then Weaver was the sole stockholder and owner of Bethesda. There was never a case of Zenimax buying them

However in 2002 Altman ousted Weaver and there was a lawsuit that was dropped cause Weaver was snooping through other people's emails to make his case. So basically he was kicked out of his company and we have the sue happy Zenimax we all know and hate today.

Lesson is to never go into business with a lawyer as your partner. As for Facebook buying a privately owned company. Of course there's no such thing as a hostile takeover. But everything has a price.

Huh, Altman is married to Lynda Carter.

I should have been a lawyer...
 
I remember back in the day when living in Dallas meant two things. You didn't have to pay to drive on the every highway, and Id Software made lots of money.
 
Not paying him what is due has nothing to do with the recent VR lawsuit.

It's just more scumbag moves large companies make to screw over their own people.

Didn't Activision so the same thing to the original CoD people?
 
This case is a wheelbarrow of bullshit. Read the first page of the claim, they haven't even refused to pay him yet. He's not due the money until June but his lawsuit claims he feels like they aren't going to pay him. LMFAO, he's acting like a tool and you guys are lapping it up for whatever reasons.
 
Keep reading... you can't just bold some parts and ignore the rest! What's wrong with you? You even included section 21 but just refused to acknowledge it. They have 30 days to issue the stocks and regardless you can't preemptively sue someone. You have to wait until you're actually damaged.
 
Delicieuxz said:
ZeniMax's prior lawsuit against Oculus, and its final verdict that refuted Zeni's claims of any rights in Oculus, made it very clear that ZeniMax have their heads entirely up their ass, and are greedy and opportunistic liars in search of money that isn't rightfully theirs. I hope that John Carmack is successful.
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You really need to refresh your memory of the case. The jury found Oculus liable to the tune of 500 million dollars and completely rejected Carmacks counter claim against Zenimax. You have the entire situation backwards in your head as to who won both major issues.
 
Delicieuxz said:
I ignored none of it. I just understood it - while you haven't.

You said: "You have to wait until you're actually damaged."

I previously said: "He's suing because ZeniMax has, allegedly, already denied him a contractual right to convert that payment into shares"

That's called breach of contract.


You said: "They have 30 days to issue the stocks"

Again, I previously said: "ZeniMax has, allegedly, already denied him a contractual right to convert that payment into shares"


The lawsuit appears to be concerning ZeniMax already refusing to provide the shares, so it's not a matter of wait-and-see for Carmack.




You're wrong. The $500 million fine for Oculus had nothing to do with ZeniMax's claims over rights to Oculus, but were for something like a breach of NDA. The verdict of ZeniMax' lawsuit against Oculus found Oculus and Carmack completely cleared of ZeniMax' accusation of property theft, and rejected all of ZeniMax' claims of entitlement to any property or profits related to Oculus.

ZeniMax was seeking $4 billion in payment, and an ownership stake in Oculus. They got $500 million over a techincality, and no ownership stake.
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They don't have to provide the shares until March 18th, which you quoted and then subsequently ignored.

Continue arguing a legal case with a law professor and telling me I don't understand what I'm talking about. It looks like you're doing a great job explaining the law to me.

I'm well aware of the Zenimax suit. I can assure you that the result of both being rewarded $500m dollars by the jury ("technicalities" aside, the law is *all* about technicalities if you didn't know) and a full rejection of Carmack's counterclaim is considered a win in the legal realm. It's probably considered a win to reasonable laypersons, as well, but as we've seen you are particularly keen on cherry picking things that support your point of view and outright ignoring anything that would complicate how you understand something.
 
Delicieuxz said:
Here's the verdict for ZeniMax' lawsuit against Oculus: http://cdn.uploadvr.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/177110467696.pdf

If you scroll through the pages, all the allegations are listed and answered with either a Yes or No, concerning whether they are true or not. Almost all of them are No.
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You don't even understand what you're reading. On a very basic level, you can not simply count up the number of "no's" on a document to determine the victor in a lawsuit. I can't fathom how you consider whatever you're doing as reasoning.

I mean, even assuming you think this is actually how it works (just raw counting no vs. yes), most of those no's looks like the following and directly conclude against the interest of the respondents: "Who violated X principle of law: Oculus, Facebook, Carmack, Luckey, etc." Then on each question sometimes one entity did and sometimes another one did. That's not 5:1 no's therefore the no's have it like a freaking Congressional vote! Then the rest of the questions: Is there a legal doctrine preventing this suit against Oculus (no), what about against Luckey (no), was Oculus excused in their behavior (no), what about Luckey (no)...those are judgements against Oculus and Luckey. Do you even read?

ZeniMax won some money, but Oculus won the lawsuit (and are going to appeal the $500 they've been ordered to pay ZeniMax).
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Um, no. The party that wins the money won the lawsuit. That's how it works in our US system. On top of that, the jury rejected Carmack's counter-claim, which is considered a double win in our system.
 
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Pusher of Buttons said:
Carmack is still gaming royalty....I won't claim to know all the details or who's right or wrong....but letting this play out in public is NOT going to go well for Zenimax long term.
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Honestly it won't matter. There is a massive issue with most people on this site. Most people here think that their opinion matters to the world. That if we know something and are upset by it then so is 100% of the planet. In reality, Nobody gives a shit about this fight, nobody will even know it happen. When new games under the Zenimax umbrella are released nobody will know or care and will still buy them. With all the people here bitching about EA all the time and how they are shit there should have been zero copies of Battlefield 1 sold. There should be no sports games sold period. But instead people just go on and on about how fuck EA they hate them they will never buy another EA game every again... well except for these 3 games as they can't not play these series... but after this they are not going to buy any more games till the next ones in these series come out.


JosiahBradley said:
This is why every studio should just go independent and break off from these toxic publishers. Only games I pre-order or day one purchase are form ID and Bethesda and I don't want to boycott them over Zeni's actions.
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As long as they don't like money that is perfectly fine. The problem is that we are still far from independent being an acceptable way to make the type of money that they need to make to stay afloat. Self publishing has taken off for books, but you don't know the names of those books or authors like you do stuff sold by actual publishing companies. Same for movies or any other medium. Did you go see Logan last week? Are you going this weekend to see Colossal? Have you heard of Colossal? Have you been waiting for months for Colossal to come out? Probably not, because it is an independent film with almost no marketing. Many games are the same, you know of the big games because they have publishers behind them helping the push their game out there. You don't know about many of the games that are being independently made and published because they can't afford to by the marketing and get their name out there.
 
mope54 said:
They don't have to provide the shares until March 18th, which you quoted and then subsequently ignored.

Continue arguing a legal case with a law professor and telling me I don't understand what I'm talking about. It looks like you're doing a great job explaining the law to me.

I'm well aware of the Zenimax suit. I can assure you that the result of both being rewarded $500m dollars by the jury ("technicalities" aside, the law is *all* about technicalities if you didn't know) and a full rejection of Carmack's counterclaim is considered a win in the legal realm. It's probably considered a win to reasonable laypersons, as well, but as we've seen you are particularly keen on cherry picking things that support your point of view and outright ignoring anything that would complicate how you understand something.
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mope54, there is no freaking way you are a law professor. Part 21 of the complaint is ONLY about when the companies own internal shareholders agreement requires them to respond to an offer to sell shares to the company. It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with when they are required to provides shares to Carmack based on his contract with the company. The BREACH is their failure to issue the shares that they were contractually obligated to issue upon his request, not their failure to respond to the offer to sell. That is just there to illuminate the scope of the damage he will undergo due to the failure to issue the shares.

To put it another way:

CORE COMPLAINT (parts 2, 3, 20):
Carmack requested shares be provided per the contract.
Shares were not provider.
Carmack is suing for this, and fundamentally only for this. The other stuff (21 and 22) are there to help indicate the amount and immediacy of damages, not when the breach took place.

SEPARATELY FROM ABOVE (parts 21, 22):
Carmack offered to sell the shares (which according to Carmack, Zeni was contractually obligated to provide to him at some point in the past (apparently he feels almost immediately upon his request), NOT a month later like you think) that he should have by now to the company, which is a right any shareholder has at ALL TIMES. The fact that he has a PUT option that matures in a few months is 100% irrelevant to this fact. The company will be contractually obligated to buy at that price when the put matures, but that doesn't stop him from offering to sell at this time.
The reason it matters at ALL, that he made this offer, given that Zeni doesn't HAVE to buy them right now is the purpose of 21 and 22:
Per Zeni's shareholder agreement they must respond to the offer to sell ONLY, not to the request to issue the shares as you seem to think, and which technically has absolutely nothing to do with this part, by the 18th.
Per Zeni's shareholder agreement if Zeni refuses an offer to buy shares from a shareholder then the company is required to notify all shareholders of the offer to sell those shares so that the shareholders can separately and individually offer to buy the shares.
(21)Given that Zeni has already failed to issue the shares it seems unlikely they will respond to the offer to sell the shares they didn't give to Carmack by the 18th.
(22)If Zeni doesn't respond to the offer to sell, which seems likely since he doesn't have shares to sell that he allegedly should have to sell, then they also won't notify the shareholders of the offer to sell. Thus they will deny Carmack not ONLY of the shares to sell, but also of the opportunity to sell those shares to other shareholders, some of whom may be willing to pay more than $45 per share in order to increase their ownership stake in Zeni. Thus Carmack will be harmed not only by the failure to issue the shares weeks ago, but also by the lost opportunity to sell those same shares at their fair market value at the time of his choosing, which he has the absolute legal right to do....

But to reiterate yet again, the only thing that matters to your misunderstanding is the fact that 21 and 22, and March 18th, have NOTHING AT F'ing ALL to do with when Zeni was required to PROVIDE THE SHARES.
 
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