John Carmack on keeping id small

I recommend watching Carmack's QuakeCon '09 keynote here: http://www.quakeunity.com/file=2919

It's 2 hours long, but he has a lot of interesting stuff to say about selling id Software to ZeniMax, Armadillo Aerospace, the Tesla Roadster, the future of games, and even the possibility of a Commander Keen game for iPhone. (The most interesting stuff is in the Q&A section at the end).

Seems like there would be an opportunity to license their game engine, provide a bunch of support staff and programmers, and sub-license it to other companies.

I highly recommend the book "Masters of Doom" (Amazon), an in-depth look at id Software from the modest beginnings until Quake III. A must for any geek!

Ok, so i genuinely clicked on this expecting his take on http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html. (I guess this supports the premise of the article).

You have to respect John for seeing what type of company, within the bounds of feasibility, would make him happiest and pursuing that instead of going for as much money as possible. Very 37 signals ish. Of course, it helped that John had passed a threshold level of wealth where it probably didn't make that much real difference to him. In any case, you see a lot of people -- in particular the delicious guy who has been on here -- who've made choices for financial reasons they've ended up regretting.