By Peter Rubin
In May 2012, a programmer named John Carmark—who, as a cofounder of id Software and the man behind games like Doom and Wolfenstein 3D, is widely seen as the father of 3D gaming—tweeted a picture of what looked like steampunk bifocals made out of a black shoebox. “This is a lot cooler than it looks,” read the caption.
He was right.
Since then, that awkward contraption—now more streamlined, and known as the Oculus Rift—has become the most anticipated new product in gaming since the Nintendo Wii got people off the couch. It’s a head-mounted display that promises to be a gigantic step toward what many had dismissed as an unrealizable dream: virtual reality.
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