John Carmack Leaves id Software

Well, seems like John Carmack, "Our Fearless Leader", has decided to leave id for greener pastures.

I wanted to remain a technical adviser for Id, but it just didn't work out. Probably for the best, as the divided focus was challenging.

Right before the 20th anniversary of Doom. Kinda sad. Good luck John! Story via Kotaku.

I wonder how long before Id Software becomes Id Software in name alone. I would have liked it if he had been around for at least long enough for Id to finish Doom 4.

hardcore_gamer said:

I wonder how long before Id Software becomes Id Software in name alone.

We're on the brink. The last man standing who actually worked on the original Doom is Kevin Cloud. When he takes off, it will literally be a completely different set of people than the designers of our favorite pastime. :P

[Unless you count Willits, I suppose, though he didn't join until Master Levels / E4, which is somewhat post-Doom].

[EDIT] Missed a spot: Donna Jackson's still there too; while not a developer, she still sorta counts. :P

Also, Obligatory non-Kotaku corroborating news link.

So if all the founding members of Id are gone, what does that make it by by name?

This is probably a really good thing, I get the impression that zenimax/bethesda was only holding him back.

At least he's with a PC-focused (at present) company now.

hardcore_gamer said:

I wonder how long before Id Software becomes Id Software in name alone.

In some respects, I think that moment came and went a long time ago. Arguably when John Romero left after Quake. He just had sooo much input and direction on Doom... there's a reason one of the music tracks is called "Waiting For Romero to Play." Quake II was a good game, but it lacked the certain... aesthetic? spark? that Romero brought. And the games' quality has steadily declined since then, getting more and more generic.

I think the creative side behind Doom and Quake is long gone. id morphed into being "cool engines, generic games" because Carmack was still around. I think with him gone, id software is not only "in name only", but it might actually just be finished period.

I was a bit happy to see that Carmack was apparently the one behind rebooting Doom 4, saying it needed to be "demons and shotguns", but it's not as if he managed to make games like Doom 3 or Rage that great.

Oh well, their last good game was Quake 3, and even that was the culmination of consecutive rehashes. Out with the old etc. I'm sort of hoping for another game industry crash of sorts, something that would smash the current big budget paradigm and open the door for a small team to deliver something with cohesive vision.

Keep dreaming iori.

Thanks!

Wow, I wonder what this means for Doom 4

EDIT: apparently nothing. Cool he's moving on to other technology related stuff instead of.. say knitting or something.

40oz said:

Wow, I wonder what this means for Doom 4

EDIT: apparently nothing. Cool he's moving on to other technology related stuff instead of.. say knitting or something.

I, for one, would gladly buy a collection of Carmack's Christmas Sweaters™.

Regardless of your opinion about Carmack's decision you have to give the man the credit he deserves. He introduced lots of new ideas into his engines and at the same time tried to keep them as efficient as possible for hardware standards of the times. Carmack also possesses tremendous work ethic. That's what allowed ID Software to be competitive througout the years.

I don't know if ID has such good programmers available in their team right now, but if they don't.... well... good luck in beating Valve and their products.

I hope Carmack is happy with what he's doing right now. Even if he never gets back to video games, the man is nearly solely responsible for some of my greatest and most entertaining moments as a gamer.

Xaser said:

[EDIT] Missed a spot: Donna Jackson's still there too; while not a developer, she still sorta counts. :P

Donna to the rescue!

40oz said:

Wow, I wonder what this means for Doom 4

Oh it'll get released - along with sequels/reboots of every single other franchise Id owns. Carmack was holding back the deluge, I'm sure.

2013 sucks!

joe-ilya said:

2013 sucks!

Would you have preferred the apocalypse, then? :P

I'm on the everyone saw it coming bandwagon, but I'll take a finished Oculus Rift to play Doom over playing Doom 4 any day.

This is very disappointing now. If anything was well describing the id games, is that they were fun, well-balanced, monosyllabic, open-source shooters. I fear that now we'll start seeing story-driven, easy, "Realm of Location"-style named locked-down rail action games.

I really want id to reincarnate, though. There must be a simple-named company producing simple-named shooters for the people.

Obsidian said:

Would you have preferred the apocalypse, then? :P

I prefer 2003 even though I was born in 1999.
So who's left in the "ID" team?

None of the founders. There's Kevin Cloud (Wolf3D and onwards), Tim Willits (Ultimate DOOM, Quake and onwards). There're a lot of people from ~DOOM 3 era.

sux he left

printz said:

This is very disappointing now. If anything was well describing the id games, is that they were fun, well-balanced, monosyllabic, open-source shooters. I fear that now we'll start seeing story-driven, easy, "Realm of Location"-style named locked-down rail action games.

I really want id to reincarnate, though. There must be a simple-named company producing simple-named shooters for the people.

Id Software's current owners aren't really known for locked down rail action games, quite the opposite in fact. However, if you want a modding scene like Doom's, it's not going to happen with any modern AAA game anywhere, no matter what any executives do or don't do. The asset fidelity is way too high, which puts an extremely steep barrier to entry for any modders who want to make a really expansive project. To make a fully-featured expansion pack or TC for a modern AAA game would take many people with professional-grade talents working hours per day. Most people willing to do such a thing join a developer and get paid to do it. That's why you can find literally thousands of swords, suits of armor, boob mods, new houses, gameplay mods, etc. for Skyrim but not really any new full worlds (there's an extremely incomplete remake of Morrowind and um...uh....). It's just too much work.

And if you do make a 2.5D or '90s style 3D action game with mod support, you have to compete against the ones that already exist and everyone already knows how to make mods for. What is more likely, someone making a mod for a Doom clone with a completely new engine, or someone making a mod for Doom?

printz said:

I fear that now we'll start seeing story-driven, easy, "Realm of Location"-style named locked-down rail action games.

Wasn't this Rage? I mean, I liked the game, but locked down rail action sums it up perfectly. I still have no idea why there was a jump button.

sgtcrispy said:

Well, seems like John Carmack, "Our Fearless Leader", has decided to leave id for greener pastures.

I can't say I'm surprised, really. Doesn't Mike Maynard work at Id nowadays? They should bring in Jim Row too, and rename it JAM Productions!

Urban Space Cowboy said:

I can't say I'm surprised, really. Doesn't Mike Maynard work at Id nowadays? They should bring in Jim Row too, and rename it JAM Productions!

Maybe they're secretly working on Blake Stone 3?

In other news:

http://playtest.bethsoft.com/

printz said:

This is very disappointing now. If anything was well describing the id games, is that they were fun, well-balanced, monosyllabic, open-source shooters. I fear that now we'll start seeing story-driven, easy, "Realm of Location"-style named locked-down rail action games.

I really want id to reincarnate, though. There must be a simple-named company producing simple-named shooters for the people.

I seem to remember hearing that Bethesda ended the open source policy. That one true?

Magnetick said:

I seem to remember hearing that Bethesda ended the open source policy. That one true?

They have no intention of ever opening the id Tech 5 code. Not that they could anyway, because it uses tons of proprietary shit like Microsoft-patented image compression software, which John Carmack discussed in depth at QuakeCon 2012 if you can remember back that far.

Hell, they won't even license it out, which, for an id engine, is antithema. That's all they DID before - make tons of money by licensing out their engines. Up until UE3 and Source developed far enough to give them stiff competition, practically every AAA game was running on an id engine. The number of id Tech 2 and 3 licensees is extremely impressive (and it's probably worth mentioning that the almighty Source engine is even a distant descendent of the former).