ZeniMax, Parent Company of Bethesda, Buys id Software

CelticLo writes "ZeniMax Media Inc., parent company of noted game publisher Bethesda Softworks, today announced it has completed the acquisition of legendary game studio id Software, creators of world-renowned games such as Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, and its upcoming title, Rage. In an interview with Kotaku, John Carmack said, 'We're really getting kind of tired competing with our own publishers in terms of how our titles will be featured. And we've really gotten more IPs than we've been able to take advantage of. And working with other companies hasn't been working out as spectacularly as it could. So the idea of actually becoming a publisher and merging Bethesda and ZeniMax on there [is ideal.] It would be hard to imagine a more complementary relationship. They are triple A, top-of-the-line in what they do in the RPGs. And they have no overlap with all the things we do in the FPSes.' The press release confirmed that id's projects will remain under Carmack's control."

Comments

Linux native games

[zebslash]

I hope they will carry on using OpenGL and providing Linux native binaries.

Re:Linux native games

[zebslash]

I am surprised. Wolfenstein is based on Doom 3 engine, which is OpenGL. Isn't the alledged switch for the future engines ?

Also, I wonder if Doom 3 engine will be GPLed. id always GPLed their code after a while.

Re:Competition.

[Heed00]

Looks like they might have a bonafide Atari stomping machine.

That job is already filled by Atari themsleves.

Chris Weaver

[BrookHarty]

So after reading about Zenimax on wikipedia, it said that Dr. Chris Weaver was forced out of the company. (Dual Doctorates at MIT). And zenimax didn't pay its 1.2 million severance in the contract.

Kinda interesting, Weaver broke into Zenimax's email server and used the copies in court. So the appeals court dismissed his case due prejudice. The other interesting thing is the CEO of Zenimax was in a banking fraud scandal and banned from banking industry by the feds.

Doesnt sound like a great team heading it up. I bet this comes back to bite Carmack in the ass down the road.

Re:Chris Weaver

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet this comes back to bite Carmack in the ass down the road.

As one of id's owners, Carmack has just become a very rich man at a point in time where id's flagship titles are fading from the limelight. Doom 3 is largely considered a disappointment.

He's been tinkering on rocketry and iPhone development rather than pushing the state of the art (megatexture?)

Despite the press release stating that all the key players have signed long term contracts, I suspect Carmack is angling to retire from the games biz in the next few years.

Posting anonymously because I am still a big fan but see the writing on the wall.

Re:Chris Weaver

[verbalcontract]

First, let me just say that I love John Carmack.

The reason I love him is because in the TFA he explains why they did this:

"We're really getting kind of tired competing with our own publishers in terms of how our titles will be featured... They are triple A, top-of-the-line in what they do in the RPGs. And they have no overlap with all the things we do in the FPSes."

They didn't sell because of Zenimax's leadership. They sold so they don't have to worry about the publishing end of the business. Zenimax now distributes id and Bethesda games, and since they don't compete in the market, id doesn't have to worry about Zenimax giving them the shaft. Meanwhile, id stays independent and keeps doing what its doing.

Sound familiar?

Re:No Overlap?

[larry bagina]

Reconsider with an emphasis on "top-of-the-line" part, not the "RPGs" part.

Valve and iD, twin snakes

[SixGame]

Their situation was very similar to Valve's before Steam became a viable platform. (ie: struggles with EA/Sierra) But the two roads diverged: We see that Valve's initially puzzling move of developing their own distribution channels has lead to a period of unbridled growth and creativity. iD's decision to innovate only on their core competencies (graphics,graphics,graphics) has lead to the events of today.

Re:Valve and iD, twin snakes

[dunezone]

Wasn't the core income of iD software from developing game engines and licensing them to other companies?

I might be wrong but the last major engine they built and sold was the one for Doom 3, and I don't remember many games that used that engine after that except Quake 4? And that title was repackaged garbage.

Valve on the other hand...well they haven't made a many mistakes, they built a complete distribution system that is the best around by far, they release amazing development tools for their games, and they still release new content for older games like Team Fortress 2 and that was released back in October of 2007, might I add they just released the source files for their official TF2 maps allowing anyone to view how they made them.

iD software has gone stale, they stuck with what worked for them, being the leading developer of game engines and graphics, and that worked when they were the only competitor back in 1993(Doom), 1996(Quake), 1997(Quake 2), and 1999(Quake 3), no game engines could compete with those. The biggest competitor between 1997 and 1999 was the Lithtech engine or the original Unreal, and post 1999, Lithtech didn't power much, and the Unreal was just beginning to shape up to what it has turned into today.

Now in 2009 we have the Unreal Engines which are cross platform compatible and easy to develop for, the Source Engine which anyone can mod with the help of the Valve SDK's, multiple open-source engines, and enough tools, online knowledge, and resources for a company to develop their own engine if they want to go down that path. The Doom 3 Engine is not as appealing, iD was the leader because there was no one else to go to for a quick pre-built game engine, today that isnt true.

I don't think iD software is in financial trouble but they definitely don't have the income like they used to have.

Re:Valve and iD, twin snakes

[SixGame]

I agree. They can't compete in their traditional market due to capital. Look at the kind of money Activison can put behind a Call of Duty production, let alone the marketing. iD, being a fairly independent developer and thus capable of paying for their own development, doesn't really stand a chance when it's competing against a publisher funded project where the publishers have a vested financial interest in the title's success. iD didn't leverage their projects enough so competing with the likes of Inifinity Ward, who used the traditional "publisher funded" approach, just isn't possible. Their publishers simply didn't make enough money off iD's "niche" titles and self-funded approach. iD's previous organic growth provided immense stability and financial independence, but it severely limited how quickly they could expand and thus compete in a rapidly changing marketplace.

Re:Valve and iD, twin snakes

[johncandale]

id has made nothing except tech demos for years and years. Valve has made actual full good games. Being owned by a publisher is not likely to improve Id's games much.

Valve build on what 3d realms did with duke3d, and just went from there, making more and more fleshed out worlds, and encounters, more and more interactive environments. Id just remade Doom 2/quake 1 over and over with better graphics. They don't oven make the best engines anymore (CryEngine 3).

Graphics hardly make a game good, and we are not seeing the huge leaps in graphics we used to.

Perfect Marriage

[kenp2002]

Zenimax with Bethesda makes great games with crappy software.

ID makes crappy games with great software.

Either this is going to be GREAT GAMES WITH GREAT SOFTWARE or CRAPPY GAMES WITH CRAPPY SOFTWARE.

I honestly can't think of a good ID game in the sense of a contemporary game. BRILLIANT technology. Great game engines, but the games themselves were always lack luster. In short: If it moves, it dies. That was it.

Doom series was nearly devoid of any literary content. It was literally just shoot stuff. Fun mind you but nothing to write home about.

Fallout 3 shows you can have an excellent game structured around bug ridden crap code.

Imagine ID's team doing the coding with the BETTER half doing the rest. Pure magic.

OR A COMPLETE DISASTER AS THEY BRING OUT THE WORST IN ONE ANOTHER.

Re:Perfect Marriage

[Hatta]

Great game engines, but the games themselves were always lack luster. In short: If it moves, it dies. That was it.

What more do you want from a game?

Doom series was nearly devoid of any literary content. It was literally just shoot stuff. Fun mind you but nothing to write home about.

It's a game, the fun stuff is the point. Literary content is superfluous. If you want literary content, read a book. If you want to have fun and shoot stuff, play a game.

Re:Sooo...

[tnk1]

Actually, if you compare Doom and Quake to Oblivion and Fallout3, you basically have two companies that have really made their names on two franchises. You might think that id is in a better position because they made the Classics, but "classic" is also just another word for "old", or in this case, "not generating revenue any more".

Honestly, Bethesda may not be the industry pioneer that id was, but they're certainly just as successful, or perhaps, even more successful than id in the present time. That's all that matters for a business decision.

Carmack's Plan

[nevhan]

Sounds like Carmack may be setting things in motion to shift his attention to Armadillo Aerospace.

Next thing we know, he'll be performing secret experiments with teleportation... we all know how that story turns out.

Re:Carmack's Plan

[darkjedi521]

Which story? Quake, Doom, or Half-life (not iD, but originally an iD engine)

Re:No Overlap?

[DavidTC]

Seriously, Bethesda has been doing FPS/RPGs with both Oblivion and Fallout 3, which use the same engine.

I don't have any idea how relevant that is to the Quake engine, but to pretend it's totally irrelevant is a bit silly.

Considering that the Bethesda engine is somewhat buggy, what with people falling through to the void and glitching through walls, what would be nice is if future Bethesda FPS/RPGs used the Quake engine for their graphics and rendering.

If I understand correctly, the Quake engine is already packaged for third parties to purchase and use, and other people have used it, so it shouldn't be incredibly hard. And it would let the Bethesda people concentrate on the RPG part.

OTOH, the Bethesda people have gotten Obsidian (Of KOTOR and NWN2 fame) to do Fallout 3: New Vegas, so apparently they don't want to do RPGs either!

Does anyone else find the game industry very confusing? We've got developers and publishers, but they're often the same company, but they'll do things like develop one game and have someone else publish it, and then publish another game that someone else develops, and then develop and publish a game...it's chaos.

And that's not counting all the 'sub' brands that companies like Atari and EA own. And the actual owners of the property the game is developed from.

Someone should make a 'mindmap' java program online showing all game companies, their relationship with other companies, and all games that have been worked on and by whom.

Re:Could this...

[westlake]

Could this mean that ID is now going to become less OSS/Linux friendly?

Carmack has said before that the Linux port did not make much sense from a business point of view.

[The port to the Wii almost certainly does make sense. The cell phone. The portable media player.]

He has waffled now and then on DX vs OGL.

iD released game engines that were well past their commercial prime.

Never the games themselves.

The IP that makes a Commander Keen or Doom or Wolfenstein a unique and valuable property.

Bethesda's focus is on the sale of its games - and not on the sale of its game engines.

I can't see any very compelling reason for it to open source anything.

Re:No Overlap?

[therufus]

It seems like the Quake engines are mostly optimized for indoors rendering, and anything in a Bethesda-style RPG would need to be optimized for large outdoor spaces, with trees, times of day/night, weather, etc.

The first Bethesda game I ever played was The Elder Scrolls - Chapter 1: The Arena. "Arena" was built on the iD Wolfenstein 3D game engine, however they did adapt that engine to include all kinds of really cool, ahead-of-its-time features. Reflective puddles, fog and rain effects, outdoors that synced night/dawn/day/dusk skymaps with lighting conditions, perspective rolling when being damaged, a 400+ city world. All this on the Wolf3D engine!!!!

I find it ironic that Bethesda's biggest cumulative game (The Elder Scrolls, pick your chapter) started off with an iD software engine, and now they bought iD.