 | |
| Formerly | id Software, Inc. (1991–2009) |
|---|---|
| Company type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Video games |
| Predecessor | Ideas from the Deep |
| Founded | February 1, 1991; 34 years ago (1991-02-01) inShreveport, Louisiana, US |
| Founders | |
| Headquarters | , US |
Number of locations | 2 (2024) |
Key people |
|
| Products |
|
Number of employees | 200+[1] (2016) |
| Parent | ZeniMax Media (2009–present) |
| Divisions | id Software Frankfurt |
| Website | idsoftware.com |
id Software LLC (/ɪd/) is an Americanvideo game developer based inRichardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer companySoftdisk:programmersJohn Carmack andJohn Romero,game designerTom Hall, and artistAdrian Carmack.
id Software made important technological developments in video game technologies for thePC (runningMS-DOS andWindows), including work done for theWolfenstein,Doom, andQuake franchises at the time. id's work was particularly important in3D computer graphics technology and ingame engines that are used throughout thevideo game industry. The company was involved in the creation of thefirst-person shooter (FPS) genre:Wolfenstein 3D is often considered to be the first true FPS;Doom is a game that popularized the genre and PC gaming in general; andQuake was id's first true 3D FPS.
On June 24, 2009,ZeniMax Media acquired the company. In 2015, they opened a second studio inFrankfurt, Germany.[2]
The founders of id Software –John Carmack,John Romero, andTom Hall – met in the offices ofSoftdisk based inShreveport, Louisiana, developing multiple games for Softdisk's monthly publishing, includingDangerous Dave. Along with another Softdisk employee, Lane Roathe, they had formed a small group they called Ideas from the Deep (IFD), a name that Romero and Roathe had come up with.[3] In September 1990, Carmack developedan efficient way to rapidly side-scroll graphics on thePC. Upon making this breakthrough, Carmack and Hall stayed up late into the night making a replica of the first level of the popular 1988NES gameSuper Mario Bros. 3, inserting stock graphics of Romero's Dangerous Dave character in lieu of Mario. When Romero saw thedemo, entitledDangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement, he realized that Carmack's breakthrough could have potential. The IFD team moonlighted over a week and over two weekends to create a larger demo of their PC version ofSuper Mario Bros. 3. They sent their work toNintendo. According to Romero, Nintendo had told them that the demo was impressive, but "they didn't want their intellectual property on anything but their own hardware, so they told us Good Job and You Can't Do This".[4] While the pair had not readily shared the demo though acknowledged its existence in the years since, a working copy of the demo was discovered in July 2021 and preserved at theMuseum of Play.[5]
Around the same time in 1990,Scott Miller ofApogee Software learned of the group and their exceptional talent, having played one of Romero's Softdisk games,Dangerous Dave, and contacted Romero under the guise of multiple fan letters that Romero came to realize all originated from the same address.[6][7] When he confronted Miller, Miller explained that the deception was necessary since Softdisk screened letters it received. Although disappointed by not actually having received mail from multiple fans, Romero and other Softdisk developers began proposing ideas to Miller. One of these wasCommander Keen, a side-scrolling game that incorporated the previous work they had done on theSuper Mario Bros. 3 demonstration.[8] The firstCommander Keen game,Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons, was released through Apogee in December 1990, which became a very successfulshareware game. After their first royalty check, Romero, Carmack, andAdrian Carmack (no relation) decided to start their own company.[9] After hiring Hall, the group finished theCommander Keen series, then hired Jay Wilbur andKevin Cloud and began working onWolfenstein 3D.[10] id Software was officially founded by Romero, John and Adrian Carmack and Hall on February 1, 1991. The name "id" came out of their previous IFD; Roathe had left the group, and they opted to drop the "F" to leave "id". They initially used "id" as an initialism for "In Demand", but by the time of the fourthCommander Keen game, they opted to let "id" stand out "as a cool word", according to Romero.[3] In September 1991, they relocated toMadison, Wisconsin.[11] Later on April 1, 1992, they relocated to an office inMesquite, Texas.[12]
The shareware distribution method was initially employed by id Software through Apogee Software to sell their products, such as theCommander Keen,Wolfenstein andDoom games.[9] They would release the first part of their trilogy as shareware, then sell the other two installments bymail order. Only later (about the time of the release ofDoom II) did id Software release their games via more traditional shrink-wrapped boxes in stores (through othergame publishers).
AfterWolfenstein 3D's great success, id began working onDoom. After Hall left the company,Sandy Petersen andDave Taylor were hired before the release ofDoom in December 1993.[10]
Quake was released on June 22, 1996, and was considered a difficult game to develop due to creative differences. Animosity grew within the company and it caused a conflict between Carmack and Romero, which led the latter to leave id after the game's release. Soon after, other staff left the company as well such asMichael Abrash, Shawn Green, Jay Wilbur, Petersen and Mike Wilson.[13] Petersen claimed in July 2021 that the lack of a team leader was the cause of it all. In fact, he volunteered to take lead as he had five years of experience as project manager inMicroProse but he was turned down by Carmack.[14]
On June 24, 2009, it was announced that id Software had been acquired byZeniMax Media (owner ofBethesda Softworks). The deal would eventually affect publishing deals id Software had before the acquisition, namelyRage, which was being published through Electronic Arts.[15] ZeniMax received in July a $105 million investment from StrongMail Systems for the id acquisition, it's unknown if that was the exact price of the deal.[16][17] While the two companies were open to technology sharing, John Carmack ruled out larger changes like having Bethesda use id Tech forThe Elder Scrolls, or exchanging IPs to developDoom RPGs andFallout first person shooters.[18][19] id Software moved from the "cube-shaped"Mesquite office to a location inRichardson, Texas during the spring of 2011.[20][21]
On June 26, 2013, id Software presidentTodd Hollenshead quit after 17 years of service.[22] On November 22, 2013, it was announced id Software co-founder and Technical Director John Carmack had fully resigned from the company to work full-time atOculus VR which he joined asCTO in August 2013.[23][24] He was the last of the original founders to leave the company.
Tim Willits left the company in 2019.[25] ZeniMax Media was acquired byMicrosoft forUS$7.5 billion in March 2021 and became part ofMicrosoft Gaming.[26][27]
The company writes its name with a lowercaseid, which is pronounced as in "did" or "kid", and, according to the bookMasters of Doom, the group identified itself as "Ideas from the Deep" in the early days of Softdisk but that, in the end, the name 'id' came from the phrase "in demand".[28] Disliking "in demand" as "lame", someone suggested a connection withSigmund Freud's psychological concept ofid, which the others accepted.[10] Evidence of the reference can be found as early asWolfenstein 3D with the statement "that's id, as in the id, ego, and superego in the psyche" appearing in the game's documentation. Prior to an update to the website, id's History page made a direct reference to Freud.[29]
Arranged in chronological order:
Starting with their first shareware game series,Commander Keen, id Software has licensed the core source code for the game, or what is more commonly known as the engine. Brainstormed byJohn Romero, id Software held a weekend session titled "The id Summer Seminar" in the summer of 1991 with prospective buyers includingScott Miller,George Broussard, Ken Rogoway, Jim Norwood andTodd Replogle. One of the nights, id Software put together an impromptu game known as "Wac-Man" to demonstrate not only the technical prowess of theKeen engine, but also how it worked internally.
id Software has developed their own game engine for each of their titles when moving to the next technological milestone, includingCommander Keen,Wolfenstein 3D,ShadowCaster,[40]Doom,Quake,Quake II, andQuake III, as well as the technology used in makingDoom 3. After being used first for id Software's in-house game, the engines are licensed out to other developers. According toEurogamer.net, "id Software has been synonymous with PC game engines since the concept of a detached game engine was first popularized". During the mid to late 1990s, "the launch of each successive round of technology it's been expected to occupy a headlining position", with theQuake III engine being most widely adopted of their engines. Howeverid Tech 4 had far fewer licensees than theUnreal Engine fromEpic Games, due to the long development time that went intoDoom 3 which id Software had to release before licensing out that engine to others.
Despite his enthusiasm for open source code, Carmack revealed in 2011 that he had no interest in licensing the technology to the mass market. Beginning withWolfenstein 3D, he felt bothered when third-party companies started "pestering" him to license the id tech engine, adding that he wanted to focus on new technology instead of providing support to existing ones. He felt very strongly that this was not why he signed up to be a game programmer for; to be "holding the hands" of other game developers. Carmack commended Epic Games for pursuing the licensing to the market beginning with Unreal Engine 3. Even though the said company has gained more success with its game engine than id Software over the years, Carmack had no regrets by his decision and continued to focus on open source until his departure from the company in 2013.[41]
In conjunction with his self-professed affinity for sharingsource code, John Carmack has open-sourced most of the major id Software engines under theGNU General Public License. Historically, thesource code for each engine has been released once the code base is 5 years old. Consequently, many home grown projects have sprung up porting the code to different platforms, cleaning up the source code, or providing major modifications to the core engine.Wolfenstein 3D,Doom andQuake engine ports are ubiquitous to nearly all platforms capable of running games, such as hand-held PCs, iPods, the PSP, the Nintendo DS and more. Impressive core modifications includeGZDoom,[42][43] which adds to theDoom engine modern hardware accelerared renderers and a scripting system called ZScript, and was also utilized in the creation of ECWolf forWolfenstein 3D[44][45] and Raze for theBuild engine.[46] MeanwhileDarkPlaces adds stencil shadow volumes into the originalQuake engine along with a more efficient network protocol.[47][48] Other projects includeYamagi Quake II,[49]ioquake3,[50][51] anddhewm3,[52] which maintain the goal of cleaning up the source code, adding features and fixing bugs. Even earlier id Software code, namely forHovertank 3D andCatacomb 3D, was released in June 2014 byFlat Rock Software.[53]
The GPL release of theQuake III engine's source code was moved from the end of 2004 to August 2005 as the engine was still being licensed to commercial customers who would otherwise be concerned over the sudden loss in value of their recent investment.
On August 4, 2011,John Carmack revealed during hisQuakeCon 2011 keynote that they will be releasing the source code of theDoom 3 engine (id Tech 4) during the year.[54]
id Software publicly stated they would not support theWii console (possibly due to technical limitations),[55] although they have since indicated that they may release titles on that platform (although it would be limited to their games released during the 1990s).[56] They continued this policy with theWii U but forNintendo Switch, they collaborated withPanic Button starting with 2016'sDoom andWolfenstein II: The New Colossus.
Since id Software revealed their engineid Tech 5, they call their engines "id Tech", followed by a version number.[57] Older engines have retroactively been renamed to fit this scheme, with theDoom engine as id Tech 1.
IMF ("id music file" or "id's music format") is anaudio file format created by id Software for theAdLibsound card for use in their video games.[58] The format is similar toMIDI, in that it defines musical notes, and does not supportsampleddigital audio for sound effects. IMF files store the actual bytes sent to the AdLib'sOPL2 chip, which usesFM synthesis to produce audio output. The format is based on the AdLib command syntax, with a few modifications. Due to the limited features and relatively low sound quality, modern games no longer use IMF music.
A large number of songs in id Software's early games (such asCommander Keen andWolfenstein 3D) were composed byBobby Prince in IMF format. Other game developers likeApogee Software also used this format in their games (such asCosmo's Cosmic Adventure,Duke Nukem II, andMonster Bash).
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id Software was an early pioneer in theLinux gaming market,[59] and id Software'sLinux games have been some of the most popular of the platform. Many id Software games won the Readers' and Editors' Choice awards ofLinux Journal.[60][61][62][63] Some id Software titles ported to Linux areDoom (the first id Software game to be ported),Quake,Quake II,Quake III Arena,Return to Castle Wolfenstein,Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory,Doom 3,Quake 4, andEnemy Territory: Quake Wars. Since id Software and some of its licenseesreleased the source code for some of their previous games, several games which were not ported (such asCatacomb 3D,Catacomb Abyss,Wolfenstein 3D,Spear of Destiny,Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold,Blake Stone: Planet Strike,Super 3D Noah's Ark,Rise of the Triad,Doom 64,Strife,Heretic,Hexen,Hexen II,Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force Holomatch,Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast,Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy) can run on Linux and otheroperating systems natively through the use ofsource ports.Quake Live also launched with Linux support, although this, alongsideOS X support, was later removed when changed to a standalone title.[64]
The tradition of porting to Linux was first started byDave D. Taylor, with Zoid Kirsch doing some later porting.[65] SinceQuake III Arena, Linux porting had been handled byTimothee Besset. The majority of allid Tech 4 games, including those made by other developers, have a Linux client available, the only current exceptions beingWolfenstein andBrink. Similarly, almost all of the games utilizing theQuake II engine have Linux ports, the only exceptions being those created byIon Storm (Daikatana later received a community port[66]). Despite fears by the Linux gaming community thatid Tech 5 would not be ported to that platform,[67] Timothee Besset in his blog stated "I'll be damned if we don't find the time to get Linux builds done".[68] Besset explained that id Software's primary justification for releasing Linux builds was better code quality, along with a technical interest in the platform. However, on January 26, 2012, Besset announced that he had left id.[69]
John Carmack has expressed his stance with regard to Linux builds in the past.[70] In December 2000 Todd Hollenshead expressed support for Linux: "All said, we will continue to be a leading supporter of the Linux platform because we believe it is a technically sound OS and is the OS of choice for many server ops."[71] However, on April 25, 2012, Carmack revealed that "there are no plans for a native Linux client" of id's most recent game,Rage.[72] In February 2013, Carmack argued for improvingemulation as the "proper technical direction for gaming on Linux", though this was also due to ZeniMax's refusal to support "unofficial binaries", given all prior ports (except forQuake III Arena, viaLoki Software, and earlier versions ofQuake Live) having only ever been unofficial.[73] Carmack didn't mention official gamesQuake: The Offering andQuake II: Colossus ported by id Software to Linux and published byMacmillan Computer Publishing USA.[74]
Despite no longer releasing native binaries, id was an early adopter ofStadia, acloud gaming service powered byDebian Linux servers, and the cross-platformVulkan API.[75][76] A Linux version ofDoom from 2016 was tested internally,[77] while it and its sequelDoom Eternal can be run usingWine andProton.[78][79]
Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons, aplatform game in the style of those for theNintendo Entertainment System, was one of the firstMS-DOS games with smooth horizontal-scrolling. Published by Apogee Software, the title and follow-ups brought id Software success as a shareware developer. It is the series of id Software that designerTom Hall is most affiliated with.[citation needed] The firstCommander Keen trilogy was released on December 14, 1990.
The company's breakout product was released on May 5, 1992:Wolfenstein 3D, afirst-person shooter (FPS) with smooth 3D graphics that were unprecedented in computer games, and with violent gameplay that many gamers found engaging. After essentially founding an entire genre with this game, id Software createdDoom,Doom II: Hell on Earth,Quake,Quake II,Quake III Arena,Doom 3 andQuake 4. Each of these first-person shooters featured progressively higher levels of graphical technology.Wolfenstein 3D spawned a prequel and a sequel: the prequel calledSpear of Destiny, and the second,Return to Castle Wolfenstein, using theid Tech 3engine. A thirdWolfenstein sequel, simply titledWolfenstein, was released byRaven Software, using theid Tech 4engine. Another sequel, namedWolfenstein: The New Order; was developed byMachineGames using theid Tech 5 engine and released in 2014, with it getting a prequel by the name ofWolfenstein: The Old Blood a year later; followed by a direct sequel titledWolfenstein II: The New Colossus in 2017.
Eighteen months after their release ofWolfenstein 3D, on December 10, 1993, id Software releasedDoom which would again set new standards for graphic quality and graphic violence in computer gaming.Doom featured asci-fi/horror setting with graphic quality that had never been seen on personal computers or evenvideo game consoles.Doom became a cultural phenomenon and its violent theme would eventually launch a new wave ofcriticism decrying the dangers of violence in video games.Doom was ported to numerous platforms, inspired many knock-offs, and was eventually followed by the technically similarDoom II: Hell on Earth. id Software made its mark in video game history with theshareware release ofDoom, and eventually revisited the theme of this game in 2004 with their release ofDoom 3. John Carmack said in an interview at QuakeCon 2007 that there would be aDoom 4. It began development on May 7, 2008.[80]Doom 2016, the fourth installation of theDoom series, was released on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on May 13, 2016, and was later released on Nintendo Switch on November 10, 2017. In June 2018, the sequel to the 2016Doom,Doom Eternal was officially announced atE3 2018 with a teaser trailer, followed by a gameplay reveal atQuakeCon in August 2018.[81][82]
On June 22, 1996, the release ofQuake marked the third milestone in id Software history.Quake combined a cutting edge fully 3D engine, theQuake engine, with a distinctive art style to create critically acclaimed graphics for its time. Audio was not neglected either, having recruitedNine Inch Nails frontmanTrent Reznor to facilitate unique sound effects and ambient music for the game. (A small homage was paid to Nine Inch Nails in the form of the band's logo appearing on the ammunition boxes for the nailgun weapon.) It also included the work ofMichael Abrash. Furthermore,Quake's main innovation, the capability to play a deathmatch (competitive gameplay between living opponents instead of against computer-controlled characters) over the Internet (especially through the add-onQuakeWorld), seared the title into the minds of gamers as another smash hit.
In 2008, id Software was honored at the 59th AnnualTechnology & Engineering Emmy Awards for the pioneering workQuake represented in user modifiable games.[83] id Software is the only game development company ever honored twice by theNational Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, having been given an Emmy Award in 2007 for creation of the 3D technology that underlies modernshooter video games.[84]
TheQuake series continued withQuake II in 1997. However, the game is not a storyline sequel, and instead focuses on an assault on an alien planet, Stroggos, in retaliation forStrogg attacks onEarth. Most of the subsequent entries in theQuake franchise follow this storyline.Quake III Arena (1999), the next title in the series, has minimal plot, but centers around the "Arena Eternal", a gladiatorial setting created by an alien race known as the Vadrigar and populated by combatants plucked from various points in time and space. Among these combatants are some characters either drawn from or based on those inDoom ("Doomguy"),Quake (Ranger, Wrack), andQuake II (Bitterman, Tank Jr., Grunt, Stripe).Quake IV (2005) picks up whereQuake II left off – finishing the war between the humans and Strogg. The spin-offEnemy Territory: Quake Wars acts as a prequel toQuake II, when the Strogg first invade Earth.Quake IV andEnemy Territory: Quake Wars were made by outside developers and not id.
There have also been other spin-offs such asQuake Mobile in 2005 andQuake Live, a web browser based modification ofQuake III. A game calledQuake Arena DS was planned and canceled for theNintendo DS. John Carmack stated, atQuakeCon 2007, that theid Tech 5 engine would be used for a newQuake game.
Todd Hollenshead announced in May 2007 that id Software had begun working on an all new series that would be using a new engine. Hollenshead also mentioned that the title would be completely developed in-house, marking the first game since 2004'sDoom 3 to be done so.[85] At 2007'sWWDC, John Carmack showed the new engine calledid Tech 5.[86] Later that year, atQuakeCon 2007, the title of the new game was revealed asRage.[87]
On July 14, 2008, id Software announced at the 2008E3 event that they would be publishingRage throughElectronic Arts, and not id's longtime publisherActivision.[88] However, since then ZeniMax has also announced that they are publishingRage throughBethesda Softworks.[89]
On August 12, 2010, during Quakecon 2010, id Software announcedRage US ship date of September 13, 2011, and a European ship date of September 15, 2011.[90] During the keynote, id Software also demonstrated aRage spin-off title running on theiPhone.[91] This technology demo later becameRage HD. The game was ultimately released in October 2011.[92]
On May 14, 2018, Bethesda Softworks announcedRage 2, a co-development between id Software andAvalanche Studios.
During its early days, id Software produced much more varied games; these include the early 3D first-person shooter experiments that led toWolfenstein 3D andDoom –Hovertank 3D andCatacomb 3D. There was also theRescue Rover series, which had two games –Rescue Rover andRescue Rover 2. Also there wasJohn Romero'sDangerous Dave series, which included such notables as the tech demo (In Copyright Infringement) which led to theCommander Keen engine, and the decently popularDangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion.In the Haunted Mansion was powered by the same engine as the earlier id Software gameShadow Knights, which was one of the several games written by id Software to fulfill their contractual obligation to produce games forSoftdisk, where the id Software founders had been employed. id Software has also overseen several games using its technology that were not made in one of their IPs such asShadowCaster, (early-id Tech 1),Heretic,Hexen: Beyond Heretic (id Tech 1),Hexen II (Quake engine), andOrcs and Elves (Doom RPG engine).
id Software has also published novels based on theDoom seriesDoom novels. After a brief hiatus from publishing, id resumed and re-launched the novel series in 2008 withMatthew J. Costello's (a story consultant forDoom 3 and nowRage) newDoom 3 novels:Worlds on Fire andMaelstrom.
id Software became involved in film development when they oversaw the film adaption of theirDoom franchise in 2005. In August 2007,Todd Hollenshead stated at QuakeCon 2007 that aReturn to Castle Wolfenstein movie is in development which re-teams theSilent Hill writer/producer team,Roger Avary as writer and director andSamuel Hadida as producer. A newDoom film, titledDoom: Annihilation, was released in 2019, although id itself stressed its lack of involvement.[93]
id Software was the target of controversy over two of their most popular games,Doom and the earlierWolfenstein 3D. More recently in 2022, id Software found themselves mired in a controversy concerning libel againstDoom Eternal's composer.
Doom was notorious for its high levels ofgore[94] andoccultism along withsatanic imagery, which generated controversy from a broad range of groups.Yahoo! Games listed it as one of the top ten most controversial games of all time.[95]
The game again sparked controversy throughout a period ofschool shootings in the United States when it was found thatEric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who committed theColumbine High School massacre in 1999, were avid players of the game. While planning for the massacre, Harris said that the killing would be "like playingDoom", and "it'll be like theLA riots, theOklahoma bombing,World War II,Vietnam,Duke Nukem andDoom all mixed together", and that his shotgun was "straight out of the game".[96] A rumor spread afterwards that Harris had designed aDoom level that looked like the high school, populated with representations of Harris's classmates and teachers, and that Harris practiced for his role in the shootings by playing the level over and over. AlthoughHarris did designDoom levels, none of them were based onColumbine High School.[97]
WhileDoom and other violent video games have been blamed for nationally covered school shootings, 2008 research featured byGreater Good Science Center[98] shows that the two are not closely related.Harvard Medical School researchers Cheryl Olson and Lawrence Kutner found that violent video games did not correlate to school shootings. TheUnited States Secret Service andUnited States Department of Education analyzed 37 incidents of school violence and sought to develop a profile of school shooters; they discovered that the most common traits among shooters were that they were male and had histories of depression and attempted suicide. While many of the killers—like the vast majority of young teenage boys—did play video games, this study did not find a relationship between gameplay and school shootings. In fact, only one-eighth of the shooters showed any special interest in violent video games, far less than the number of shooters who seemed attracted to books and movies with violent content.[99]
As forWolfenstein 3D, due to its use of Nazi symbols such as theswastika and the anthem of theNazi Party,Horst-Wessel-Lied, as theme music, the PC version of the game was withdrawn from circulation in Germany in 1994, following a verdict by the Amtsgericht München on January 25, 1994. Despite the fact that Nazis are portrayed as the enemy inWolfenstein, the use of those symbols is a federal offense in Germany unless certain circumstances apply. Similarly, theAtari Jaguar version was confiscated following a verdict by the Amtsgericht Berlin Tiergarten on December 7, 1994. TheUnterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle lifted the outright ban in 2018 in favor of analysing depictions on a case-by-case basis, and the international version of the game was removed from the list of banned titles in 2019.[100][101]
Due to concerns from Nintendo of America, theSuper NES version was modified to not include any swastikas or Nazi references; furthermore, blood was replaced with sweat to make the game seem less violent, and the attack dogs in the game were replaced by giant mutant rats. Employees of id Software are quoted inThe Official DOOM Player Guide about the reaction toWolfenstein, claiming it to be ironic that it was morally acceptable to shoot people and rats, but not dogs. Two new weapons were added as well. The Super NES version was not as successful as the PC version.[citation needed][102]
In May 2020, after the Doom Eternal Original Soundtrack was released,[103] there was a serious backlash to the Doom Eternal OST and accusations of low quality work that did not match composerMick Gordon's usual standards. On April 19, Gordon confirmed onTwitter that it was not his work,[104] and Marty Stratton subsequently posted on May 20 a 2,500-wordopen letter[105] onReddit blaming Gordon for everything that went wrong with the process of creating music for the soundtrack.[104][105] Following this, public outcry against Gordon reached a level where he received explicit death threats and graphic messages of intent to harm him and his family. Gordon's message accounts, servers, and phones were allegedly inundated with abuse to extreme levels, seriously impacting his mental health.[106]
On November 9, 2022, Mick published a 14,000-word article onMedium[107] explaining his side of the story as a defensive rebuttal of the nine outlined accusations in Stratton's post (described as "an extensive series of lies"), substantiated with various forms of evidence including photographs of emails, receipts, and file metadata to verify his claims.[108][106][109] It included claims that Gordon had yet to receive over half of his payment for his work and awards from the soundtrack's nominations atThe Game Awards 2020 Stratton had reportedly claimed to deliver on Gordon's behalf; that his name had been listed on the OST's pre-order for weeks before Bethesda had contracted him to work on it just 48 hours before the game's release; Mossholder had been composing an alternate version of the OST as early as August 2019, and in response to request from Gordon's lawyers for Stratton's Reddit post to be removed, Gordon was offered six figures in exchange for a lifetime gag order, but never the possibility of Stratton's defamatory post being removed.[107]
On November 16, 2022,Bethesda released a statement backing Marty Stratton, Chad Mossholder, and everyone in the id software team. Their statement further claimed that they had evidence to rebut Gordon's claims, without releasing mentioned evidence, and expressed concern that his statement enticed harassment and violence towards the team.[110]
In 2003, the bookMasters of Doom chronicled the development of id Software, concentrating on the personalities and interaction of John Carmack and John Romero. Below are the key people involved with id's success.
Carmack's skill at3Dprogramming is widely recognized in the software industry and from its inception, he was id'slead programmer. On August 7, 2013, he joinedOculus VR, a company developingvirtual reality headsets, and left id Software on November 22, 2013.[24]
John Romero saw the horizontal scrolling demoDangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement and immediately had the idea to form id Software on September 20, 1990.[111] Romero pioneered the game engine licensing business with his "id Summer Seminar" in 1991 where the Keen4 engine was licensed to Apogee for Biomenace.[112] John also worked closely with the DOOM community and was the face of id to its fans. One success of this engagement was the fan-made gameFinal DOOM, published in 1996.[113] John also created the control scheme for the FPS, and the abstract level design style of DOOM that influenced many 3D games that came after it.[114] John added par times to Wolfenstein 3D, and then DOOM, which started the phenomenon of Speedrunning.[115] Romero wrote almost all the tools that enabled id Software and many others to develop games with id Software's technology.[116] Romero was forced to resign in 1996 after the release ofQuake, then later formed the companyIon Storm. There, he became infamous through the development ofDaikatana, which was received negatively from reviewers and gamers alike upon release. Afterward, Romero co-founded The Guildhall in Dallas, Texas,[117] served as chairman of the CPL eSports league,[118] created an MMORPG publisher and developer named Gazillion Entertainment,[118] created a hit Facebook game named Ravenwood Fair that garnered 25 million monthly players in 2011,[119] and started Romero Games in Galway, Ireland in 2015.[120]
Both Tom Hall and John Romero have reputations as designers and idea men who have helped shape some of the key PC gaming titles of the 1990s.
Tom Hall was forced to resign by id Software during the early days ofDoom development, but not before he had some impact; for example, he was responsible for the inclusion of teleporters in the game. He was let go before the shareware release ofDoom and then went to work for Apogee, developingRise of the Triad with the "Developers of Incredible Power". When he finished work on that game, he found he was not compatible with thePrey development team at Apogee, and therefore left to join his ex-id Software compatriot John Romero atIon Storm. Hall has frequently commented that if he could obtain the rights toCommander Keen, he would immediately develop another Keen title.
Sandy Petersen was a level designer for 19 of the 27 levels in the originalDoom title as well as 17 of the 32 levels ofDoom II. As a fan ofH.P. Lovecraft, his influence is apparent in the Lovecraftian feel of the monsters forQuake, and he createdInferno, the third "episode" of the firstDoom. He was forced to resign from id Software during the production ofQuake II and most of his work was scrapped before the title was released.
American McGee was alevel designer forDoom II,The Ultimate Doom,Quake, andQuake II. He was asked to resign after the release ofQuake II, and he then moved toElectronic Arts where he gained industry notoriety with the development of his own gameAmerican McGee's Alice. After leaving Electronic Arts, he became an independent entrepreneur and game developer. McGee headed theindependent game development studioSpicy Horse in Shanghai, China from 2007 to 2016.
He reiterated his support for improving emulation as the "proper technical direction for gaming on Linux," noting that native ports don't do much that a good emulator wouldn't be able to handle.
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