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> He has a team of artists who help realise the (visual) potential of the awesome new tech he has developed. The gameplay itself comes second. Heresy, I know, but this has been the pattern for a number of releases and if the id team are happy with that then more power to them.

What it really comes down to is that id games are basically showcases for their latest engine tech. The licensing income from the engines (which they call idTech if I recall) probably overshadows the games within a year of release.

I don't think they license engines anymore. I just hope their tech makes it into Fallout 4 or whatever Bethesda (which is now under the same corporate umbrella as id) ends up calling it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech

Still being licensed, just with less demand, and with the new restriction that games developed with id Tech have to be published through Bethesda Softworks. id Tech 4 is due for a GPL source code release sometime in the next few months.

Carmack definitely mentioned that they were not going to license id Tech 5 to companies that aren't being published by Bethesda.

All existing licenses they probably have to continue supporting because of the contracts that were signed before they were bought by Bethesda.

I really love most of the games they make, but Bethesda is a terrible company and lately they have been actively attempting to destroy the game industry. The only thing keeping Id software relevant is their ability to create amazing graphics engines. They haven't made a truly memorable game since Quake 3 Arena. John Carmack designs 3d engines, not video games. If Bethesda is restricting Id software's ability to license their engine, then Id software is being left to die. I had high hopes for Rage, I watched all of John's interviews and almost believed that this game would put them back on the map. Unfortunately when it released it was just like doom 3, a good game released in a market that is flooded with phenomenal games.

Why do you say that Bethesda is a terrible company? They always struck me as one of the few in the game industry that sort of "get it".

Their attitude towards the game industry in general. They have awesome developers who continue to make some of my favorite games. Unfortunately the people who manage the company don't understand the industry. They routinely make stupid trollish decisions. Here are a few examples.

- They signed a contract with Interplay, allowing the original creators of Fallout to make an MMO based on the Fallout franchise. As soon as the deal was inked, Bethesda regretted it and proceeded to do everything they could to delay the game's release. Then they cited the fact that Interplay promised to have the game finished by a certain date and used this as a basis for suing them.

- They tried to claim in court that the original creators of Fallout entered into a licensing agreement with the new owners not to make a game based on Fallout, but a completely different game having nothing to do with the franchise that just so happens to use the exact same name.

- As stated above, they are not allowing Id software to license their engine to anyone that doesn't publish their game through Bethesda. This is idiotic because as I stated above, the only thing that Id software is known for these days is for creating awesome 3d engines. Their games just aren't as good as they used to be.

- They are trying to claim that any games using the words "elder", or "scrolls" are deliberate violations of their intellectual property rights. Notch's game "scrolls" isn't even a competitor to anything Bethesda is working on, yet they are trying to sue a small developer out of existence.

- They claim that their game "The Elder Scrolls" is commonly known by it's fan base as "scrolls." This is a load of crap and I'm pretty sure that practically no one is referring to any of their games as "scrolls." The PC community commonly refers to the franchise as TES (The Elder Scrolls) and if they ever refer to it as anything else, it is normally by the episode's name (Daggerfall, Skyrim, etc.)

Disclaimer: I don't play Minecraft and I could care less about Scrolls. I just dislike it when software companies adopt selfish, cowardly practices in order to stifle innovation.

id Tech 4 is a weird beast. Carmack has said on multiple occasions that this engine is not made to generate a world like Elder Scrolls or Fallout. It will be interesting to see if they attempt to improve id Tech 5 and make all companies inside Bethesda use it or just give them the option if it fits their game.

And that is an argument that has merit.

The counter to that would be that if you hadn't noticed this pattern by now with recent id games you haven't been paying attention.

To say that id's releases are more tech demos than games is one thing. To come up with harebrained theories as to why this is the case is another.

Minor (very minor) quibble: You said "since Wolf3D"; but "since Commander Keen" would be more accurate.

Keen was possible due to a stroke of genius, letting him trick the monitor itself into becoming part of his "adaptive tile refresh" system. I'm a little hazy on the details, but... it's just a cool, little-known fact that Carmack made the very first "Mario-style" side scroller for the PC -- a feat that no one else managed to pull off.

Minor quibble accepted!

It's easy to forget how crap PC graphics were at the time of Commander Keen. It was the first PC platform game I can remember that wasn't an obviously-CGA sprite flickerathon :)

Carmack is a programmer. He is THE tech guy. He isn't a game designer, he isn't the one doing the gameplay. It isn't the artists or Carmack.

Well he was right too when he said that Doom 3 was some kind of rupture with the previous titles. I can't remember the last game when I fought more than 10 enemies in one room