And it's not just Carmack and Abrash - they also have Tom Forsynth [0] and Atman Binstock [1], two other amazing people who've been pioneers in graphics programming and VR (and AR) development! And it's very likely that Valve will soon be firing most people who worked on their VR prototype, which means that it's possible that Oculus VR picks them up as well.
It's the closest thing to a dream team for nerds: Abrash and Carmack, two of the people who completely changed an entire industry in the 90s; Luckey, the definition of a true hacker who helped revive a dying market (if there ever was one in the first place); Forsynth and Binstock, who also played a key role in many areas in the games industry; and lastly, Zuckerberg, a ruthless nerd with impossibly-deep pockets.
I'm kind of curious as to why you think that Valve will be firing most of their VR team. Do you think that they have fully proven that VR is possible and done what they can without going in to production?
If I'm not mistake I believe that a handful of the VR people are also working on the steambox and controller which still has a ways to go.
Last year Valve did "mass" (relative to the size of the company and divisions) firings [0] after Jeri Ellsworth was fired. Right now it's just speculation, but I doubt Valve has either the time, money or motivation to compete against two giants, Facebook and Sony, and against the other new competitors that are starting to appear [1][2][3].
Valve's hands are already full with the SteamBox, the controller, Steam itself and however many games they have in development. But yes, you're right - some of the VR developers might simply be relocated to other projects within Valve. Who knows.
You say it's "very likely" that Valve will fire certain people, but when pressed your reasoning is that they fired some other people in the past and are involved in a number of projects.
But the AR guys' project was seen as a failure, or at least as a poor fit with Valve, they apparently weren't very interested in working on Valve's other projects, and there had been antagonism between them and the rest of Valve. I don't think there are similar problems in this case.
It's the closest thing to a dream team for nerds: Abrash and Carmack, two of the people who completely changed an entire industry in the 90s; Luckey, the definition of a true hacker who helped revive a dying market (if there ever was one in the first place); Forsynth and Binstock, who also played a key role in many areas in the games industry; and lastly, Zuckerberg, a ruthless nerd with impossibly-deep pockets.
[0] http://home.comcast.net/~tom_forsyth/ [1] http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/welcome-atman-binstock-chief-ar...