Bummer but not really surprising as it seemed he was more interested in doing the rift thing anyway.
id Software in general (not necessarily speaking of Carmack) has slowly stagnated since Quake, Quake II was interesting…but suffered from quite a few problems and Quake III Arena ; well yes I played many hours multiplayer but it just was the first extremely obvious nail in the coffin that id Software was out of real inspiration.
Amazing engines aside what’s really that great about any 1st party id title since Quake?
Half Life showed the true future of FPS games and many companies have upped the ante and iterated to very incredibly refined and mature game play in both single and multiplayer that id got left behind. And since id Tech 5 (RAGE’s engine) sucess largely rested upon how successful RAGE was to gain momentum … and RAGE was a flop … well …
No surprise a man as accomplished as John Carmack is looking for different areas to innovate and enjoy himself. Best wishes and hopefully the fresh scene will inspire him to more greatness.
carmack/id sold out long ago…
so yeah time to move on and create a new studio
So, basically EVERY founder of ID had all left ID now. Carmack was the last one (and the “soul” of ID - to think at one time they bought insurance solely for Carmack incase he dies shows how important he is to the whole company).
Not surprising about the news though. I thought he left ID a while ago? Didn’t he became CTO of Oculus Rift back in August?
I knew he was going to leave ID sooner or later when ID got bought by ZeniMax back in 2009. At the time of ZeniMax merger, I was hoping at least they would be able to use some of the tech to enrich Fallout series, or maybe have some kind of CROSS OVER! Right now, ZeniMax must be kicking themselves right now because their golden goose just left the nest! (…without laying one last final golden egg…)
I think the future of ID is pretty much done. That DOOM 2 (or is it original DOOM) reboot seems to be scraped after several restart. Now without its “ground breaking” tech backbone (Carmack), its going to be very apparent how boring their games are when they are forced to use generic game engine (maybe even Unity! 
)
In a bit of FPS/3D Engine history, I think Tim Sweeney had an open competition with Carmack since the day of QUAKE vs UNREAL. Looking at it now, I think Sweeney won!
@I am da bawss ; I did some googling, I think you are right John was the last founder ? I thought some of the others were still there but it doesn’t look to be so!
This might actually be good for the franchises. Look at what ZeniMax did for Fallout?
I’m not saying DOOM needs to be a Oblivion/Fallout clone but they definitely don’t let their invaluable properties rot and languish. DOOM should be as big or bigger than Call of Duty, BattleField, Half Life and Halo if it were properly maintained.
I’m now excited for DOOM and Quake franchises for the first time in a decade!
i actually like rage it was just a bit shallow not enough fallout depth
That door swings both ways, though. Fallout is now played and loved by more people than the original two games ever reached, so from one perspective it’s definitely on the up. But from another perspective the new games are in many ways a huge departure from the old ones, and not just in ways that modernised it. Are they great games? Yes. Are they great Fallout games? I won’t say “no”, but I will point out that the first two had a pretty unique atmosphere to them that new new ones do not. (Though the survivalist mode in New Vegas went a long way towards it.)
Carmack joined Oculus Rift .
And Carmack is not a Game designer (not sure he has zero decision on it, but that’s not his official position in the company).
So it won’t change anything on the ID software’s game gameplay.
Games may be less pretty…
Rocket rally ruined that game.
When I first graduated from college, computer graphics knowledge was rare; so rare I was flow to an interview based on my computer graphics knowledge from taking one computer graphics course. Back then John Carmack was a technology leader, now he is another good programmer and the Zombie / War game genre has been worn out.
id lost relevance after quake with I didn’t bother with it but was still plenty popular, as if I was a bell weather. LOL. Based more on computer graphics technology than game play. This confirm computer graphics technology has passed him by, there is a somewhat huge supply of physicists, computer scientists, and mathematicians whose training and engineering skills are underutilized and misappropriated on get rich quick schemes.
Read the Hollenshead departure and you’ll see Doom4 and Rage2? I would be confident, despite all the computer graphics in those modern games, that Wolfenstein 3D and Doom have far more players than those grossout fests.
How the fuck did Carmack sell out or id for that matter.
Sad to see him go. One of my heroes.
Sad? He’s not a hero and he’s not wanting for anything.
Learn to read “One of MY heroes”. Doesn’t matter what you think.
ID certainly didn’t lose relevance after Quake 1 either.
The moment this movie entered the “In-Production” phase
Because it was shite? Would you think differently if it had been any good?
Did the Tolkein estate also sell out when they let movies be made of the books? No, cause they were are great films.
I think you guys are confused. Carmack is a programmer, not a manager or game designer. Whether or not any of their games have fun gameplay has very little to do with him, and he had literally nothing to do with the doom movie.
To be honest, don’t really care he’s leaving ID. He’s a programming legend and I’d rather see him using his talents for cutting edge, innovative products that actually need them, not engine development which other talented but lesser programmers can handle.
I find Ocid’s comments deeply disturbing. Carmak is a pioneer who helped shape both the game and hardware industry, and a legend of game development and research.
He is also a man. And a man is allowed to change his job if he can and does no longer feel passion for it. It’s his choice to push the boundaries of VR, having pushed boundaries of game programming.
I am excited what he will discover next.
Some of the puns in the comments cracked me up.
I love a good pun
^^ this. The article clearly states his reasoning and I can totally relate to, and agree with his reasoning.
If something is not floating your boat anymore, you move on and find something that will.