Bethesda Parent Company Awarded $500 Million in Lawsuit

Not quite the $2 billion ZeniMax was after.

By Seth G. Macy

A Texas jury awarded ZeniMax $500 million in its suit against Facebook.

According to Polygon, ZeniMax wasn't happy with the settlement, with lawyer Anthony Sammi saying ZeniMax should have been given the full $2 billion, plus another $2 billion in punitive damages.

John Carmack and Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe were named as defendants in the case in August.

Facebook claimed the suit was a response to ZeniMax having passed on its own chance to acquire Oculus. Both Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey took the stand during the case.

Zuckerberg said the case against his company showed a common occurrence in which people "come out of the woodwork and claim that they just own some portion of the deal."

ZeniMax's claim against Facebook and Oculus stemmed from accusations that Carmack, who worked at ZeniMax previous to moving to Oculus, returned to ZeniMax and took code and a tool used for developing VR, something Carmack denied. The jury determined Oculus didn't misappropriate ZeniMax's trade secrets.

We've reached out to both Oculus and ZeniMax for comment.

Seth Macy is IGN's weekend web producer and just wants to be your friend. Follow him on Twitter @sethmacy, or subscribe to Seth Macy's YouTube channel.

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