John Carmack Has Left id Software

[GSZX1337]

I opened my inbox and checked my usual Slashdot newsletter and saw the the second-to-bottom headline almost instantaneously: "John Carmack Leaves id Software."

Here's the Slashdot snippet:

"John Carmack 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, and continues: '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.' Carmack, a co-founder of id, recently joined Oculus VR as Chief Technology Officer, and at the time remained at id Software in some capacity. Earlier this year, id president Todd Hollenshead departed id as well."

IGN was the cited source, but their article stated the same information with a video and an extra comment.

Oculus recently revealed it was close to solving the motion sickness problem with its Rift device, which will achieve 4K resolution sooner than expected. Earlier this year, id president Todd Hollenshead departed id as well.

Oculus was unavailable for comment.

While this news does make me somewhat sad, I can't say that I didn't see it coming. John seems to be smitten with the Oculus Rift and its potential. Since Doom 3, he has also been gradually removing himself from id and this announcement is just the cutting of the last ties. On a happy note, I am confident that John and co. will make a killer VR headset with the Oculus Rift.

[Ack]

Wow.

Honestly, John Carmack has been moving away from id ever since the spat with John Romero all those years ago. I think the failing of that friendship never quite left either one of them. Carmack began focusing on his model rockets more and more shortly after that, but I wonder how much he's really doing with Armadillo Aerospace these days and how this will affect that.

That said, Carmack is in Oculus, so he's not entirely out of the PC development world. And his focus has shifted over the years to his current obsession with reducing latency, so he'll likely stay at Oculus until he gets bored and focuses on his next obsession.

[EllertMichael]

[Fragems]

Sad to see JC leave ID but I had no clue he was getting involved with the Oculus Rift. I am so excited I am seriously thinking about picking up a Rift Dev Kit for Christmas.

[Xeogred]

Not surprising and I'm sure others could suspect this, but it's worrisome to even wonder what or who id even is at this point. I don't think the Bethesda move was bad, but after reading into how messy Doom 4's production has been, it doesn't really sound like id are what they used to be or have much holding them together. It sounded like they were still kind of that garage based operation up until the Bethesda buyout.

I guess if anything, they have some legendary IP's and Bethesda can probably do a lot there. For better or worse? Who knows. id hasn't really felt the same to me since Doom 3 / Quake 4. Not really quality wise or them not wanting to push some crazy engine work out, I dug Rage, but yeah. Just seems weird and I'm worried about Doom 4.

[sakicfan84]

Not surprising and I'm sure others could suspect this, but it's worrisome to even wonder what or who id even is at this point. I don't think the Bethesda move was bad, but after reading into how messy Doom 4's production has been, it doesn't really sound like id are what they used to be or have much holding them together. It sounded like they were still kind of that garage based operation up until the Bethesda buyout.

I guess if anything, they have some legendary IP's and Bethesda can probably do a lot there. For better or worse? Who knows. id hasn't really felt the same to me since Doom 3 / Quake 4. Not really quality wise or them not wanting to push some crazy engine work out, I dug Rage, but yeah. Just seems weird and I'm worried about Doom 4.

I didn't see him staying with id for very long after the announcement regarding him joining the Oculus Rift team. He seems very excited and passionate about the future of Oculus Rift; much more than I've seen from him regarding any id title in a long time. Not sure how much this will matter to most people though as id hasn't exactly been on the leading edge of computer gaming in a while.

[marurun]

I think Bethesda wanted ID for the tech, not the licenses. Bethesda has a rather buggy relationship with code, and ID is known for pretty reliable and technically impressive code (at least until the Unreal engine grew to become the crazy modern behemoth it is now). But as ID grew bigger, even before Bethesda, it was pretty clear John was becoming less and less interested. He's always been more interested in 3D graphics tech than the actual games, and this gets him to where he's doing all tech.

Can't say I've really enjoyed an ID Software game in a little while, anyway. Doom 3 didn't do it for me, and while Quake 3 was fun, I was more of an Unreal Tournament guy. The various ID engines always seemed to produce more fun games in other people's hands (like Raven Software) anyway.

[MrPopo]

ID is known for pretty reliable and technically impressive code (at least until the Unreal engine grew to become the crazy modern behemoth it is now).

I think what happened was that Epic started iterating on their engine pretty hard, getting out Unreal Engine 2 before id Tech 4 and then Unreal Engine 3 at the start of the last console generation, while id Tech 5 didn't come until midway through, at which point no one wanted to take it up. AAA development had acquired such a budget that once you learned an engine you pretty much had to stick with it to shave off some of the monumental costs involved.

Can't say I've really enjoyed an ID Software game in a little while, anyway. Doom 3 didn't do it for me, and while Quake 3 was fun, I was more of an Unreal Tournament guy. The various ID engines always seemed to produce more fun games in other people's hands (like Raven Software) anyway.

Yeah, I thought UT did a better job in the arena shooting than Q3 since the weapons were much more interesting and could let you demonstrate more skill (thanks to alt fire and weapon combos). I still don't know how anyone at id thought Doom 3 was a good idea, especially when you compare it with every other id game ahead of it. If they had named it something else it might have been better received, but when you hear the name Doom 3 you expect a Doom game, not a survival horror-esque FPS. And Rage was decent but quite short and I felt like Borderlands already did what Rage did, but with a deeper experience.