http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=60616

Blues news has...uh news about some recent behind the scenes going ons at id software, with mention of a buyout offer from activision, the firing of a co-founder, and lawsuits.

If I were them I'd take the money. It's not like they have any awesome games coming out and the stuff they do have is old with pretty graphics.

and to think all they had to do was put a torch on the barrel of a gun and add co-op.

stubborn buggers

Yeh, but pandering to the lowest common denominator is for game developers that make kid games like Counter-Strike

This is pretty interesting news; it will be interesting to see if id are actually trying to 'cash out' in style or if they're still interested in making games. I think JC might have had enough by now and is more interested in family and his rocket thing, and without him they're not going to be doing much pioneering with technology.

Sell! Turning down $105million...that's a serious amount of pride (or greed in the hopes of a higher bid?)

If they sell I can't imagine carmack hanging around for long, and without him they're pretty much nothing, I guess activision is mainly paying for the IP to Wolf, Doom, Quake and uh...Commander Keen

They want the sale quickquickquick - the Doom movie is about to come out and Activision wants a slice of teh sequel pie...

Good bye id.

So long, and thanks for all the gibs.

They want the sale quickquickquick - the Doom movie is about to come out and Activision wants a slice of teh sequel pie...

AFAIK (which isn't much) id already sold the rights to whatever movie company is making it (Universal?). I don't know if they're getting a percentage of the profits or anything but I don't think that'd be much of a factor for ATVI, but who knows.

Wow, some news about the internal affairs of id. That doesn't happen very often. You'd think on one hand that they'd want to sell, but on the other hand you must wonder why some of them are still working there.

For example, John Carmack stated a while ago that he has enough money to not have to work another day in his life. So why is he still designing technology at id? He loves his work. If he loves his work, why would he want to help sell the company, which would degrade his future work? That seems against his interest.

Which leads me to believe .. I have no idea what's going on and won't speculate. Also if you would like to read some of the most uninsightful and baseless posts on the whole of the internet, read the Blue's News forum posts.

If they sell I can't imagine carmack hanging around for long, and without him they're pretty much nothing, I guess activision is mainly paying for the IP to Wolf, Doom, Quake and uh...Commander Keen.

I'm pretty sure Commander Keen went with Romero and Hall years back...

Also this is interesting, maybe David will write another book on it ^_^

yearh romero did a commander keen for handhelds or mobiles..or whatever, I figured he just lisensed the name from id, I would imagine id would still own it wouldn't they?

unless romero and co bought the IP outright

I find it interesting how Activision have enough money to buy out the entire ID empire. :/

Activision is a company with at least hundreds of staff and a US$1 billion dollar turnover, second only to EA. id is a small company with a handful of employees.

here @ "entire ID empire"

they're one of the smallest companies in the world that outputs such high profile titles

AFAIK (which isn't much) id already sold the rights to whatever movie company is making it (Universal?). I don't know if they're getting a percentage of the profits or anything but I don't think that'd be much of a factor for ATVI, but who knows.

If id were teh smrt, they would've signed a contract with a "Jack Nicholson clause" which would see them make a %age of any movie that featured id IP, regardless of future ownership.

But you're right, who knows. But given the potential for merchandise, sequels, a cartoon tv show, DVD sales, etc etc for the Doom movie...and perhaps any future plans for a Quake or Wolf3D movie - it'd sure be a tasty treat for whomever was the owner of said copyright.


As for Carmack's comments about having enough money to quit forever - did he not also say in much the same breath that his driving passion these days was rocket technology...not programming? I could have sworn he said he was pulling back on programming and 3D research to do more RL stuff including these rockets..

The rockets Armadillo made weren't particularly advanced from what i gather (was it peroxide fuel + platinum catylyst or something) what made the interesting was the fact jc programmed the flight control for them. Unfortunately the rockets became slower and less powerful with each successive version.

Haha nF, I didn't get teh funny at first.. Nice one :)