It may be time for another development studio to end up in ZeniMax Media's shopping cart again as the Bethesda parent gets $150m in pocket money. 3 years ago Providence Equity Partners stuffed ZeniMax coffers with $300m. The recent acquisition was of id Software, creators of Quake and Doom.
Super PC classic Doom was pulled from Xbox Live Arcade as rights expired say ZeniMax, but the id Software shooter will be "back up soon" they say. It was published by Activision at the time but developer id is now owned by ZeniMax, and they're putting their stamp on it. Double D Dodgeball as well.
John Carmack of id Software reveals he has "an itch to make a Kinect title" but admits he has no idea "what I'd want to do yet." No Doom or RAGE. Sorry but "real games" in the id collection won't fit; "there just isn't a place" for their FPSes. Whatever it is though it will be on the scale of an iOS device.
John Carmack of id Software has been doing a "fair amount of research" into the next-gen of graphics and how the industry will likely be applying them. There's no need to rush and "radically rework" their architecture just yet though. Carmack as mostly come back with "negative results" so far in his quest.
Universal Pictures is allegedly looking into another id Software Doom movie, which may be something to do with DVD sales making up a princely sum. Rumour also has it they want to reboot it and hopefully spin a full franchise; also the term '3D' keeps coming up. Will Bethesda play ball with Universal?
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has been talking with MTV about his various movie roles, including the unfortunate "Doom" film, which "didn't work out the way we wanted it to" said Johnson. Although he did feel that they "had an opportunity with DOOM." Doom wasn't the only video game movie Johnson could have played a role in, as a movie based on "Spy Hunter" was planned, although it was later cancelled. Now "The Rock" wants to be in a Call of Duty: Black Ops movie.
While Rage has been getting all the attention from id Software's stable, John Carmack has started talking about the next game in the prototypical first person shooter series, Doom 4, and has promised that it will be "more cinematic".
The development of Doom 4 is "going great" with the game shaping up to be "awesome," says id design director Matt Hooper. It's not a D3 sequel or reboot. Extremely little is known about the next instalment to Doom. There's no overspill between Doom and Rage teams though, the studio "keep them separate".
John Carmack of id Software reveals that as soon as Rage is completed, he and the other "core tech team" members will be focusing everything on Doom 4. While singleplayer on consoles is 30 frames per second so they can have "30 demons crawling all over," multiplayer will kick it back up to Rage's 60 FPS.
Shadows of the Damned director Massimo Guarini proclaims that singleplayer experiences are "nowhere close to being doomed." Production is the issue. How the games are sold and by how much matters. They're not "less engaging or interesting" without multiplayer, but price makes gamers "quite sensitive".
After Rage is released, id Software will be releasing the Doom 3 source code for free, allowing modders to make their own games using the graphic engine.
Todd Hollenshead of id Software, now owned by Bethesda, says it wasn't an "either or" thing when their studio was acquired - id sticks with FPS, Bethesda RPG. There's plenty of "cross-over interest" between studio fans with Skyrim performing extremely well at QuakeCon. They have "better games as a result" of buyout.
John Carmack of id Software has once again affirmed the studio's decision to have Doom 4's single-player campaign run at half of the multiplayer frame rate. This is so they can have "twice as many demons" pestering you. He pushed for Rage to have 60 across the board because of the racing segments 'needing it'.
It took 18 years, but the most famous first person shooter of all time, DOOM (and its sequel DOOM II) is no longer banned in Germany.
Industry whispers speak of Bethesda being thoroughly troubled by id Software's Rage and it's 'okay, but not great' reception among critics. Doom 4 on hold? A source close to the publisher claims a "company wide" meeting held in Dallas resulted in Bethesda slamming the brakes. There's a "serious lack of confidence".
One final hurdle stands between id Software's DOOM 3 source code and a public release, and it's the lawyers. The studio just needs to nail down legal specifics before launching it. QuakeCon 2011 held the news that the source code would be set free after Rage's release in October. It'll allow player mods to be stand alone games in their own right.
While the source code to id Software's Doom 3 was already primed for release it was the lawyers that kept it from going forth on the Internet, but now the ambulance chasers are satisfied. John Carmack twittered that it's finally in the hands of aspiring developers who want it. Apparently some of the code was rewritten because it made the legal suits nervous. Github has it.
A staff reshuffling is going on at Rage developer id Software to ensure their numbers meet "needs of the studio," say Bethesda. A number of staff has been made redundant. The Texas-based studio is still "recruiting and hiring qualified developers," with no ongoing projects suffering a setback. Rumours had swirled that shooter DOOM 4 had been binned.
Back in October 2010, Activision's rights to the classic 1990's shooter DOOM expired, forcing them to pull the game from Xbox Live Arcade. Fans of classic games can rejoice, as DOOM has returned to XBLA, thanks to the rights now fully belonging to Bethesda Softworks, who promised at the time that the game would return "shortly". That turned out to be a 15 month wait.
A rumor that id Software's next Doom title, Doom 4, had been canceled has been shot down, as Jim Reilly of Game Informer tweeted that Bethesda Softworks told him the game hadn't been axed.