The VR of the 1990s was a certified gimmick ; technology wasn’t there for the most part and a simple system then by today’s standards was worth millions of dollars. Fast forward to 2011 when an inventive young man “only 18 years old then” Palmer Luckey built the first prototype of a VR headset in his parents garage. By the 6th generation prototype he named it the Rift and had a Kickstarter project to be able to launch to the gadget gamer community “raising US $2.4 million or 974% of its original target”.
John Carmack the genius programmer of ID software fame had an Oculus prototype headset and was blown away by it; he modded it to better performance and was able to run a Doom 3 edition on the headset in 2012. Carmack is now the Chief technology officer CFO at Oculus VR. The interest in VR intensified and blew up right after the adoption of the technology by some of the best minds in the gaming industry. Mark Zuckerberg was so into it and the possibilities it could bring to the future of social media that Facebook acquired Oculus VR for 2 Billion USD in March 2014. Talk about a successful meteoric rise for such a young company!