Valve’s Michael Abrash joins Oculus as its new chief scientist

Valve's head of research and development Michael Abrash has joined Oculus VR as its chief scientist.

Abrash helped spearhead Valve's work in Virtual Reality tech.

"Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus means that VR is going to happen in all its glory," he said per a blog post. "The resources and long-term commitment that Facebook brings gives Oculus the runway it needs to solve the hard problems of VR – and some of them are hard indeed.

"I now fully expect to spend the rest of my career pushing VR as far ahead as I can. It's great to be working with John [Carmack] again after all these years, this time, we're working on technology that will change not just computer gaming, but potentially how all of us interact with computers, information, and each other every day.

"I think it's going to be the biggest game-changer I've ever seen – and I've seen quite a lot over the last 57 years."

Valve's lead engineer Atman Binstock also left the firm earlier this month to join Oculus as its chief architect.

Abrash said during Valve's Developer Days earlier this year that “compelling” consumer-priced VR hardware could make a splash by 2015.

Earlier this week, Oculus was purchased for $2 billion by Facebook. The acquisition was met with mixed feelings from both the gaming community and tech sectors.

Thanks, TechCrunch.