Id Software


id Software LLC is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack.
id Software made important technological developments in video game technologies for the PC, including work done for the Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake franchises at the time. id's work was particularly important in 3D computer graphics technology and in game engines that are used throughout the video game industry. The company was involved in the creation of the first-person shooter 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; and Quake was id's first true 3D FPS.
On June 24, 2009, ZeniMax Media acquired the company. In 2015, they opened a second studio in Frankfurt, Germany.

History

Formation

The founders of id Software – John Carmack, John Romero, and Tom Hall – met in the offices of Softdisk based in Shreveport, Louisiana, developing multiple games for Softdisk's monthly publishing, including Dangerous Dave. Along with another Softdisk employee, Lane Roathe, they had formed a small group they called Ideas from the Deep, a name that Romero and Roathe had come up with. In September 1990, Carmack developed an efficient way to rapidly side-scroll graphics on the PC. Upon making this breakthrough, Carmack and Hall stayed up late into the night making a replica of the first level of the popular 1988 NES game Super Mario Bros. 3, inserting stock graphics of Romero's Dangerous Dave character in lieu of Mario. When Romero saw the demo, entitled Dangerous 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 of Super Mario Bros. 3. They sent their work to Nintendo. 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". 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 the Museum of Play.
Around the same time in 1990, Scott Miller of Apogee 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. 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 was Commander Keen, a side-scrolling game that incorporated the previous work they had done on the Super Mario Bros. 3 demonstration. The first Commander Keen game, Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons, was released through Apogee in December 1990, which became a very successful shareware game. After their first royalty check, Romero, Carmack, and Adrian Carmack decided to start their own company. After hiring Hall, the group finished the Commander Keen series, then hired Jay Wilbur and Kevin Cloud and began working on Wolfenstein 3D. 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 fourth Commander Keen game, they opted to let "id" stand out "as a cool word", according to Romero. In September 1991, they relocated to Madison, Wisconsin. Later on April 1, 1992, they relocated to an office in Mesquite, Texas.
The shareware distribution method was initially employed by id Software through Apogee Software to sell their products, such as the Commander Keen, Wolfenstein and Doom games. They would release the first part of their trilogy as shareware, then sell the other two installments by mail order. Only later did id Software release their games via more traditional shrink-wrapped boxes in stores.
After Wolfenstein 3Ds great success, id began working on Doom. After Hall left the company, Sandy Petersen and Dave Taylor were hired before the release of Doom in December 1993.

The end of the classic lineup

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 as Michael Abrash, Shawn Green, Jay Wilbur, Petersen and Mike Wilson. 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 in MicroProse but he was turned down by Carmack.

ZeniMax Media and Microsoft

On June 24, 2009, it was announced that id Software had been acquired by ZeniMax Media. The deal would eventually affect publishing deals id Software had before the acquisition, namely Rage, which was being published through Electronic Arts. 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. While the two companies were open to technology sharing, John Carmack ruled out larger changes like having Bethesda use id Tech for The Elder Scrolls, or exchanging IPs to develop Doom RPGs and Fallout first person shooters. id Software moved from the "cube-shaped" Mesquite office to a location in Richardson, Texas during the spring of 2011.
On June 26, 2013, id Software president Todd Hollenshead quit after 17 years of service. 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 at Oculus VR which he joined as CTO in August 2013. He was the last of the original founders to leave the company.
Tim Willits left the company in 2019. ZeniMax Media was acquired by Microsoft for in March 2021 and became part of Microsoft Gaming.

Company name

The company writes its name with a lowercase id, which is pronounced as in "did" or "kid", and, according to the book Masters 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". Disliking "in demand" as "lame", someone suggested a connection with Sigmund Freud's psychological concept of id, which the others accepted. Evidence of the reference can be found as early as Wolfenstein 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.

Key employees

  • Kevin Cloud – Artist, executive producer
  • Donna Jackson – Office manager / "id mom"
  • Marty Stratton – Director of Business Development, executive producer, studio director
  • Hugo Martin – Creative director

    Former key employees

Arranged in chronological order:
  • Tom Hall – Co-founder, game designer, level designer, writer, creative director. After a dispute with John Carmack over the designs of Doom, Hall was forced to resign from id Software in August 1993. He joined 3D Realms soon afterwards.
  • Bobby Prince – Music composer. A freelance musician who went on to pursue other projects after Doom II.
  • Dave Taylor – Programmer. Taylor left id Software and co-founded Crack dot Com.
  • John Romero – Co-founder, game designer, programmer. Romero resigned on August 6, 1996. He established Ion Storm along with Hall on November 15, 1996.
  • Michael Abrash – Programmer. Returned to Microsoft after the release of Quake, but eventually worked with Carmack again at Reality Labs.
  • Shawn Green – Software support. Left id Software to join Romero at Ion Storm.
  • Jay Wilbur – Business manager. Left id Software after Romero's departure and joined Epic Games in 1997.
  • Sandy Petersen – Level designer. Left id Software for Ensemble Studios in 1997.
  • Mike Wilson – PR and marketing. Left id Software to become CEO of Ion Storm with Romero. Left a year later to found Gathering of Developers and later Devolver Digital.
  • American McGee – Level designer. McGee was fired after the release of Quake II. He joined Electronic Arts and created American McGee's Alice.
  • Adrian Carmack – Co-founder, artist. Carmack was forced out of id Software after the release of Doom 3 because he would not sell his stock at a low price to the other owners. Adrian sued id Software and the lawsuit was settled during the Zenimax acquisition in 2009.
  • Todd Hollenshead – President Left id Software on good terms to work at Nerve Software.
  • John Carmack – Co-founder, technical director. He joined Oculus VR on August 7, 2013, as a side project, but unable to handle two companies at the same time, Carmack resigned from id Software on November 22, 2013, to pursue Oculus full-time, making him the last founding member to leave the company.
  • Tim Willits – Level designer, creative director, studio director. He is now the chief creative officer at Saber Interactive.
  • Robert Duffy – Chief Technology Officer.