Carmack Leaves ID

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

John Carmack leaves ID:

“John Carmack, who has become interested in focusing on things other than game development at id, has resigned from the studio," id's studio director Tim Willits told IGN. "John’s work on id Tech 5 and the technology for the current development work at id is complete, and his departure will not affect any current projects. We are fortunate to have a brilliant group of programmers at id who worked with John and will carry on id’s tradition of making great games with cutting-edge technology. As colleagues of John for many years, we wish him well.”

His focus on the space thing, now Oculus Rift, and the sale of ID to Zenimax pretty much guaranteed this IMO. He did a lot for the industry in the beginning, but I think his influence waned as did ID's dominance and his interest in the 3D games industry.

 

[Arwin]

He got too distracted with the space stuff and running a business. I do hope Oculus works out - if so, he could very well be back at the very forefront of games technology.

 

[PeterAce]

It has been great hearing the passion in his voice return during recent interviews. Working on the low-level tech at Oculus seams to be a great fit for him and the company

 

[Grall]

He's been doing what he did at id for 22 years; after that long basically anyone could use some change in their lives I think. Best of luck to everyone involved, etc.

 

[digitalwanderer]

It has been great hearing the passion in his voice return during recent interviews. Working on the low-level tech at Oculus seams to be a great fit for him and the company

I agree, he seems to have that old twinkle back in his eye/voice since he got involved with Oculus and I'm just happy to see him seeming to have fun again.

I was pretty excited about Oculus already, with the Carmack on it full time make that doubly so.

 

[RudeCurve]

Sad news but good for him if he's doing stuff he's passionate about.

 

[Davros]

I wonder what id tech 6 will end up like now he's left

 

[Grall]

I don't know if it will affect tech 6 so much as what tech 7 might be... 6 should be pretty much over and done by now I'd think, considering how much time has passed since it was first announced.

 

[swaaye]

Yeah but who knows what has happened during all the drama in the past few years. I imagine the engine has changed a lot and is being used for games never originally envisioned. Bethesda undoubtedly wants Gamebryo gone for example. We really have no clue what's up over there.

 

[Alexko]

Bethesda has had its own Creation Engine since Skyrim.

 

[Lefungus]

Creation Engine is just a modified gamebryo engine without, imho, significant changes

 

[Grall]

You can tell it's gamebryo in skyrim just by playing the game. It has all of gamebryo's peculiarities, including enemies and even players suddenly falling through the world and so on.

 

[idsn6]

I would not bet on there being an id Tech 6 in any meaningful sense. Zenimax filed a trademark for the "Void Engine Powered by id Tech", which is probably a preview of what id will be reduced to: scavenged parts and name/IP cachet. Certainly the era of open-sourcing its engines is over.

 

[Sxotty]

I am quite bummed honestly. I still liked what he had a part in better than many. I had hoped he could replace armadillo with oculus since his work there wasn't that ground breaking anyway. I hope at some point he gets involved again with gaming development, but hey I don't have much time for playing games now anyway

 

[Malo]

You can tell it's gamebryo in skyrim just by playing the game. It has all of gamebryo's peculiarities, including enemies and even players suddenly falling through the world and so on.

ESO is definitely not Gamebryo but they're also developed separately internally so I don't know whats going to happen with the engine for the next Elder Scrolls SP game.

 

[swaaye]

I thought it was strange that they even claimed a new name for Skyrim's engine. Bethesda's Gamebryo is certainly highly customized so perhaps they just wanted a new brand to attach and advertise. The company behind Gamebryo also essentially imploded a few years ago.

It will be interesting to see what Bethesda scrapes together and implements from id's remnants. I haven't had the impression that id has been doing much that is terribly interesting and their games in the past 10 years have been pretty lame.

 

[Colourless]

Bethesda got a full unrestricted license to Gamebryo source. Quite likely after getting the license they were just no longer required or perhaps even allowed to use the Gamebryo name. Elements of what was said about the engine has been misleading. There were a number of rewritten subsystems and Bethesda did end up fixing a number of Gamebryo quirks (and made their own in the process). Apparently the 'all new engine' part was supposed to only refer to the rendering engine.