John Carmack leaves id Software

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John Carmack, the programmer responsible for Doom, Quake, and more, has left id Software completely.

“John Carmack, who has become interested in focusing on things other than game development at id, has resigned from the studio," id's studio director Tim Willits told IGN. "John’s work on id Tech 5 and the technology for the current development work at id is complete, and his departure will not affect any current projects. We are fortunate to have a brilliant group of programmers at id who worked with John and will carry on id’s tradition of making great games with cutting-edge technology. As colleagues of John for many years, we wish him well.”
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http://uk.ign.com/articles/2013/11/22/doom-creator-john-carmack-officially-leaves-id-software


Kinda sad to hear as I've played id games since the very early days, loving both the Doom and Quake series. On one hand it makes you wonder, where will id go now? What are their future plans now that their head programmer (although he only a technical adviser for id Software for the past few years) has gone?
 
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No surprise there. Carmack's lost interest since the space thing and now Occulus Rift. Selling ID to Zennimax was him getting ready to leave and do the things that interest him.
 
Problem with ID is they didn't want to expand to become a fully supported middleware engine supplier (like Epic), so they just went on making distinctly average games on great engines that no one else wanted to buy for their own projects.

Carmack is just bored and wants to go and do something else, and now he doesn't own ID, he feels he can leave it behind for other interests.
 
mortals said:
everything after quake3 was fail from them :( (quake4, doom3 etc...)
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In what way was doom3 a fail?

Commercially a resounding success, plus it paved the way for a new generation of graphical developments that would be utilised for years to come.
 
Id hasn't really been relevant in the gaming industry beyond their engine for a while and its pretty clear that Carmack doesn't want to be spending his time working on just games any more.

Frankly I'm glad, his genius can be put to much better use.
 
mortals said:
everything after quake3 was fail from them :( (quake4, doom3 etc...)
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Agreed.

Problem is there is no market for a skillful competitive fps game these days, people want casual easy fps games like the cods and dayz. When Id tried to make casual game like rage it was a supreme fail.
 
Lysander said:
In what way was doom3 a fail?

Commercially a resounding success, plus it paved the way for a new generation of graphical developments that would be utilised for years to come.
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Hes probably a multiplayer gamer and is referring to how awful it was online lol.
 
jubei said:
Agreed.

Problem is there is no market for a skillful competitive fps game these days, people want casual easy fps games like the cods and dayz. When Id tried to make casual game like rage it was a supreme fail.
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Disagree with it being supreme fail - they totally messed up the pace of the single player though which did ruin what could otherwise have been a very enjoyable game and both the gameplay and engine tech ended up shackled by console considerations even though the engine was originally supposed to be able to scale up and down almost limitless to different performance target platforms :|
 
jubei said:
Agreed.

Problem is there is no market for a skillful competitive fps game these days, people want casual easy fps games like the cods and dayz. When Id tried to make casual game like rage it was a supreme fail.
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csgo is fairly skillfull all beit a bit slower than quake and shootmania is doing just fine as a free game
 
Spektor said:
There is one thing here I will truly miss... his keynote speeches at quakecon :(
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That was one of my first thoughts. :/


Funnily enough, I was only looking at one of the Doom 4 threads earlier today.

I'm quite shocked, though not surprised that he's left. I didn't even realize that Hollenhead had already gone. I haven't paid much attention to the discussions online about their business activities, but I always felt that when they were picked up by Zenimax it didn't bode well in some ways. I guess everything changes...nothing stays the same forever.

Thanks for the memories. :)
 
Quake 2 was good. I think that was probably the last id game I played?

RtCW was awesome, but not an id game, as they just produced it. Quake 4 was good, but Raven did that one.

I hear Rage was a turkey. I wonder if id as a brand is worth anything these days, or whether they'll just fold it into Bethesda.
 
Quake 3 was the last decent thing to come out of that studio. Q3 was and probably still is what I would call the gold standard of free flowing competitive FPS games that required you to have above everything else skill. It didn't rely on you grinidng out unlocks. It required you to have twitch skills and good knowledge of the amps.

I can't think of a single game since Q3 that has really kept me. I sunk years into that game with my clan and it was the only FPS i ever really played competitively.
 
wildman said:
Quake 3 was the last decent thing to come out of that studio. Q3 was and probably still is what I would call the gold standard of free flowing competitive FPS games that required you to have above everything else skill. It didn't rely on you grinidng out unlocks. It required you to have twitch skills and good knowledge of the amps.

I can't think of a single game since Q3 that has really kept me. I sunk years into that game with my clan and it was the only FPS i ever really played competitively.
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Was watching the QL duel tournie at the latest quakecon - scary how far the game has been pushed in terms of mental ability required - the stack macro is an order of magnitude more complex than back in the day (I could hang in on a good day with any top20 CPL player - these days I'd be completely outclassed). Was pretty impressive to see Zero4 still hanging in there with the top players despite it being dominated by a new generation of players and a different approach to duelling.
 
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