The Guardian has an article about id Software's status after being purchased by ZeniMax (Bethesda's parent company) not long ago. While id gained considerable financial stability out of the deal, it's clear that what Bethesda has to gain is access to top-of-the-line engine technology, which they've often needed to license. id's Todd Hollenshead said, "The videogames business is defined by technology, which is why guys like JC [John Carmack] are still so significant. Consumers may not be as in touch with the intricacies as they used to be, but you can still make significant, impactful change. We're confident Rage will be one of them..." He also mentions that "the PC market has receded in terms of significance," a sentiment evidenced by id's aggressive expansion into the iPhone games market.
"the PC market has receded in terms of significance,"
While its true that PC gaming is sharing a larger and larger chunk of its gaming dollars with consoles, there is still money to be made on PCs IMO. For people like me I'll take mouse/keyboard over a console controller any day for FPS games. Perhaps id would make more money if their more recent PC games were actually good. Given their new found financial resources I hope id takes the time and creates something other than Doom X with shiny id Tech Y. Try adding some new, innovative game play in your next game and perhaps I might buy it.
True. And the great games within the genre weren't all that innovative; Half-Life and Half-Life 2 didn't "innovate" much on Doom/Quake, they improved on it with excellent level design and a mysterious setting, giving a sense of playing through a varied story instead of the repetitive "find the key card and shoot up yet more monsters" mechanics of other FPS games. The levels work more like tracks on a roller coaster than actual levels, which limits the freedom of the player but at the same time allows the de
It would seem from a number of ways of looking at it, that the PC is as large a market as any given console. It is the "4th console" as it were. As such that means the market is not at all insignificant. Part of the problem I think is that some publishers view it as "PC vs Console" where all consoles are unified in to one market, and the PC in a separate one. They then think that the PC market should be as big as the console market and bemoan that it isn't. That's just not a good way to look at it.
Also some developers at least are showing a renewed interest in the PC. Capcom, for example, decided to bring Street Fighter 4 to the PC. It comes out next Tuesday. They had done some of the SF games on PC, but stopped after Alpha 2. However now they are trying again. Part of it may be because the Arcade version of the game is a Windows PC (it runs on Taito X2 hardware which is an XP embedded PC) but they also must see the PC market as worth the port, as they've already one Xbox 360 and PS3 ports.
I do think you are on to something with the quality of iD's games. I have been very unimpressed. Quake 4 in particular was a real disappointment. However not only have their games disappointed me, but their engine has as well. That was traditionally their big thing. Their engine was the cutting edge.
Well when Doom 3 came out, showing off iDTech 4, I was real underwhelmed. The "all real world light sources" were neat, but poorly done. Shadows were very dark and very harsh, owing to the fact light only bounced once in the engine. What's more, texture detail was substantially below what I was used to. Personally, I felt UT2004 (Unreal Engine 2) looked better over all. Not as many advanced features, but the graphics were more pleasing. Also Doom needed a beast of a system to do what it did, whereas UT2004 ran very well on moderate hardware.
Also iDtech 4 hasn't advanced much at this point. It is still their top flight engine and Unreal Engine 3 totally blows it away. Thus far, they've had no good response.
You can see it in the sales too. Currently there's 7 games that use iDTech 4, and over half of those are iD or Raven (who works closely with iD) games. UE3, which has been out for much less time, has near 100 games using it, including non-FPS games (such as the Last Remnant, an RPG).
It seems like iD isn't making first flight engines, which would be ok if their games were great, but their games are also rather undifferentiated. That is not a good situation to be in. A mediocre game with amazing graphics can still sell well, and of course the engine can be licensed out for all kinds of stuff (maybe the game is just a tech demo more than anything). Likewise a great game can get by just fine with mediocre graphics. However being not so god at both isn't a real recipe for success, especially not if you are spending the money developing your own engine.
We'll see what happens. I hope iD Tech 5 is awesome, but I worry. There really hasn't been anything out of them in terms of news or demos or the like since 2007. That is not a good sign to me. A lot changes in computers in 3 years, you'd think we'd see at least some more news about the status or demos or something. Any time a project is announced and then falls silent for a number of years, I worry that there are problems and it isn't going to be what it should.
I think one of the main reasons that the Unreal engine really took off is that it comes with UnrealEd.
With ID's engine, you were shopping around for some 3rd party editor and then importing the data, while with Unreal you STILL had the option of importing from 3rd party editors and could do some final tweaking (or working from scratch) while running under the very engine you are targeting in realtime.
With the recent closing of the doors to 3d Realms it's good to reflect on the old heavy hitters in a contemporary complexion.
Back in the day it was the Unreal Engine and the Quake engine that were the benchmark for graphics. The build engine for 3d realms spawned countless titles, though that was the last great engine they had.
So today, it seems that what is most important to some firms is the quality of the engine rather than the games they produce. This however results in titles that are simply showcases, appose to good games.
It would be nice for developers to have enough in house resources to do both. Create an amazing game around an amazing engine.
With that I look with optimism to the future of id in hopes that they bring back some of that old sparkle that has been lacking as of late.
I always thought Id's games were perfect examples of engine showcases. I remember being very fascinated with Quake; read all about it, BSP modeling etc. (I even tried to create my own 3d-engine, which failed miserable, by the way).
Anyone else remember Ramblings in Real-time [bluesnews.com] by Mike Abrash? Worth a read if you're interested in the mechanics of the Quake 3D-engine.
But Quake still wasn't very much more than showcasing... Id often seemed to rely on parties such as Raven Software for convincing storylines, exciting level designs, etc. I'd like to see them produce a game like Oblivion... A cutting edge 3d engine to power a convincing RPG world, what more would you want!
Mod parent up. I opened that link thinking I'd just close it after 5 minutes like most links here on/. but I've been reading for the last half hour. Very interesting!
To this day I am amazed at just how many games the Quake 3 engine ended up powering. When I first saw Q3, I was pretty amazed by it, but I never thought it had what it took to power "full" games. Call of Duty just blew me away, and even more so when I found out it was the Q3 engine.
I'm kind of disappointed they didn't see that level of success with the Doom 3 engine. There was plenty of potential, but nobody seems to have chased up on it.
Note that Abrash defected from I.D. (Quake) and went to work for Microsoft (XBOX), then defected from Microsoft and went to work for RAD (Pixomatic) whos technology is found in.. you guessed it.. the Unreal engine.
I recently heard that he was now working for Intel (Larabbee) but can't find anything official-sounding to back that up.
While Quake was a pretty unexciting game, it was an excellent tech demo. I struggled through the first chapter (against boredom, not against the game) and couldn't be bothered with the other three. Making the QuakeC compiler free, however, was a stroke of genius. The game was in three parts, the progs.dat file, containing a bytecode-compiled version of the game logic, the engine binary that loaded and ran the bytecode, and the artwork / models / levels.
I wonder if this means they wont GPL any further game engines... This news was kinda sad, one of the top tier developers sells out... a sad time for pc gamers... but I guess it could have been worse, EA could have bought them.
Carmack said in a press release recently that their feelings towards open source are not negotiable (paraphrasing) and that every tech engine they make is intended for eventual open sourcing. Its simply part of the entire design philosophy
HE owned a big part of Id, but unless it's in the buyout contract I wouldn't be so certain it will happen. Management can change it's mind at any time. It probably won't for the next engine to be opened, because they want to keep Carmack happy. But I'd be surprised (pleasantly so) if it actually continues long term.
That's exactly what I meant to say. He wouldn't sign up for a contract stopping him from carrying out at least a large part of his vision for the company. Everything I've read from him indicates this and so do the things I've read about him.
He seems happy to work with them for now, indicating he likely got pretty much what he wanted. There are really no arguments against open-sourcing deprecated code. Things like that are great for PR, great for training programmers, great for keeping the games alive, etc
Why is John Carmack the only developer of commercial game engines who actually releases the source code after they have become technically obsolete? I mean it's very nice, since it's given us games like Urban Terror and OpenAreana which can be released completely free as standalone games, but companies very rarely do things out of the goodness of their hearts.
The only reason I can see him doing this is because he believes in the open-source cause, but will his new owner allow him to continue this trend?
Releasing the source works out extremely beneficial for them... By the time a game gets opened up, it has very little value as a commercial game anymore, but look at any modern platform that has been cracked or released open - a port of quake or doom is one of the first things to spring up. So something that has virtually no commercial value now becomes a free advertising platform and keeps your name prominent. Most games from the same era as quake are languishing as abandonware and occasionally being played under dosbox, quake runs natively on virtually anything these days. It's also only the engine that's open, the data files are not, so you can either use third party data files (like urban terror and openarena), the original demo files or buy the original data files (you will usually be able to find a dirt cheap copy of the game in a bargain bin somewhere).
I think all game companies should do this, having the source to old games is good for everyone involved and far better than games becoming abandonware that won't even run on modern systems without some form of emulation.
I'm a bit surprised that updated versions of the old engines don't take an business from him. Something like the DarkPlaces engine, based on the Quake 1 engine, is not up to the same standards as top-of-the-line commercial engines today, but it still looks good and is free. If the selling point for your game is how fun it is to play, then using an engine like this is much cheaper than licensing a commercial one. If the selling point is how good it looks, then you need to be writing your own engine or you
I think it was Seymour Cray [wikipedia.org] who made a boat every year and finished by chopping the boat up and having a barbecue. If I could somehow dispose of the megabytes of legacy code I have to deal with at work, moving forward would be a lot easier. So maybe GPLing code is Carmack's way of saying its done. Now forget about it and move on.
I mean it's very nice, since it's given us games like Urban Terror and OpenAreana
And Nexuiz!
It's really great. The weapons are somewhat sci-fi'esque: the sniper rifle shoots blue "laser" beams, and the Electro shoots funky blue balls which explode either on proximity or by being hit.
The maps are great; "dm6" is obviously "stolen", as is Agressor (I guess, since it's also in OpenArena).
Try it out some time:)
(happy customer, not paid shill; besides, they can only pay me in source code which is free anyways:D)
"The videogames business is defined by technology"
Really? I've only been playing games since pong, and worked in them for 10 years, but stupidly I've been defining the videogames business by 'fun'. It's a pity this has ended up a minority viewpoint.
I do remember the first game that went from water was a blue surface w/static animations to water being a T&L surface with actual waves where you can go splashing in the water and it was just like WOW. People don't like limitations that just seem arbitrary compared to the real world, if it's a 3D world you're simulating why can't you see it in 3D? Why can you only move in n fixed directions when in real world you can go in what
Id was at its best when Jon Romero worked there since Carmack would focus on the graphics and Romero would focus on the gameplay. Since the break-up of this partnership Id's games have gone drastically down hill while Romero found he couldn't make a game without Carmack. Romero appeared to have trouble with the technical side of Daikatana with lengthy delays and terrible visuals when it finally was released. Daikatana received a poor reception but the gameplay was clearly there with some innovative ideas and great feel to the movement control. It was the technical execution that was lacking, likely a result of not having somebody like Carmack.
Carmack's engines always look amazing but the engine is now Id's only selling point and their games are just dire. Id desperately needs to recruit someone with a proven record of making fun games so they can bring their gamplay up to the level of their engines. I vote for Romero, and bring American McGee back while you're at it. That would really return Id back to its past glory.
I agree it does sound like a good idea. i.e. The whole bit about having the flashlight and being able to shoot mutually exclusive in Doom 3 just wasn't a very good design decision.
Unfortunately, that's not to happen. I had dinner with Romero at E3 - he's busy doing 5 (!) MMOs. I actually asked about Daikatana.:-) I didn't realize it sold 200,000 and broke even for Eidos. He admitted that one of the mistakes made was hiring inexperienced people. One of the lesson learnt was "Hire the most experienced people first, the least experienced people last" which sounds pretty reasonable.
I think the quote "receded in terms of significance" means that because consoles don't have the illusion of piracy problems that PCs do, and consoles can also bring a lot of additional revenue streams that are not present with PCs (like DRM-ed downloadable content), it means that more bucks on average can be made from the console gamer than the PC gamer.
PCs are not going away anytime soon. In this economy, it becomes harder for someone to justify the cost of a console if they don't have one already, while
Someone who spends 300+ dollars for a console (which is nothing more than a propitiatory computer) are more likely to spend money on games for that platform and then turn around and buy the new platform in 2 years. They are already totally on board with the idea that they will have zero control and are willing to pay whatever you demand. People who play or did play computer games are much more likely to cause trouble and bitch.
Developers want to make games for whichever platforms sell. With hardcore PC gamers only wanting to play MMOs or FPS sequels, and casual PC gamers only playing browser games, then developers will concentrate on consoles and handhelds.
I agree with you, but i wouldnt toss Valve into the mix. Valve has been great on the PC. Steam while it still is a copy protection scheme, is still a pretty dam good distribution platform and a great gaming community. Yes its a form of DRM but they're pretty fair with the users and Steam doesn't hassle the user in any way really. Its very light on resources and it enhances the gaming community.
Valve has also been incredible with Team Fortress 2. They've supported it quite well and Its far better than anythi
"Any advantage the mouse/keyboard combo gave the PC (which was substantial) is shrinking; it nearly went away with the wiimote. "
Wait, why? These are completely unrelated, and the game types are completely different. How do you play a FPS or a RTS (which account for most of the PC games) using a Wiimote?
Wait, why? These are completely unrelated, and the game types are completely different. How do you play a FPS or a RTS (which account for most of the PC games) using a Wiimote?
The Wii has a few FPSes with great controls. Metroid Prime 3 comes to mind immediately, give it a try some time.
I haven't played an RTS on the Wii, but the obvious answer would be that you could use the wiimote pointer just a mouse.
How do you play a FPS or a RTS (which account for most of the PC games) using a Wiimote?
Same way you play them with a mouse. Tense up, breath heavily, make swift twitching movements and press the left click/fire button eight times for every needed press. Then issue a stream of profanities, whether or not you're winning.
Wiimote is still significantly worse than using a mouse, mostly due to the difficulty of turning in shooters. And don't forget the keyboard. There are many types of games which have trouble fitting their functionality comfortably into just 8 buttons. Sometimes it's also handy to have a controller which can be used for writing without a virtual keyboard.
The keyboard and mouse combo is still very far from being surpassed. The problem is that 99% of games these days are cross-platform, and as such the control scheme is designed for the lowest common denominator (consoles), and thus doesn't make use of the possibilities offered by keyboard+mouse.
Another advantage the PC has is much more powerful hardware.
The problem is the games, there is no reason you couldn't connect a keyboard and mouse to the usb ports present on all modern consoles, games just need to be written to support them... And if the game is multi platform, it would presumably already have that support had they bothered to enable it for the console builds.
You can get more powerful hardware in a PC, but... Many people don't have cutting edge hardware, many people i know use hardware less powerful than an xbox360 or ps3. Because of this games cann
The problem is that 99% of games these days are cross-platform, and as such the control scheme is designed for the lowest common denominator (consoles), and thus doesn't make use of the possibilities offered by keyboard+mouse.
If you have one PC and one 32" monitor but four people, you need to drop to the lowest common denominator because Windows happens not to support four keyboards or four mice through a USB hub very well.
Another advantage the PC has is much more powerful hardware.
A lot of PCs come with Intel GMA; I still haven't been able to get a straight answer as to whether or not a typical PC with an Intel GMA 950 is more powerful than a Wii.
Console makers are shooting themselves in the foot... All the modern consoles come with USB ports, and most modern keyboards and mice are USB... There is nothing to stop someone connecting a keyboard/mouse to a console and using it to play games... As for modding, games would just need to be designed for that purpose, consoles come with hard drives, usb and memory card slots these days so it wouldn't be hard to have them look there for data files. Not sure what to say about small independent games, the consol
There is nothing to stop someone connecting a keyboard/mouse to a console and using it to play games...
Other than that players 2 through 4 would be at a disadvantage.
As for modding, games would just need to be designed for that purpose, consoles come with hard drives, usb and memory card slots these days so it wouldn't be hard to have them look there for data files.
The console makers want to restrict moddability. Little Big Planet is one thing, but Nintendo doesn't want modders turning Metroid Prime into Metroid Kart for fear of it cutting into the sales of Mario Kart.
"There's a lot of factors. Piracy -> DRM -> problems -> Piracy."
This is a scapegoat I'm sorry, many games were released during the age of broadband and the internet and were easily downloadable then (pre 2000, 1998/1997). Warez scene has been around since ye old shareware days and before that. Copies of Dos / Win 3.1 were shared rampantly via sneakernet.
What really happened is this:
Game graphics tech got more and more complex with the advent of 3D acelleration, which upped development costs for c
"Freespace had a software renderer, so how did that one bomb?"
Descent 3 and Fs2 both had lower then expected sales, D3 and FS2 were both 3D accelerator only.
Descent 3 didn't technically bomb but it was nowhere near the sales of D1 and D2 according to interplay it sold "respectable numbers" in contrast to Freesapce 2.
Descent 1 and 2 by contrast could run on any system. Back then (around 1996/7/8), 3D accelerators did not have enough market penetration outside of certain genre's, Mainly FPS (quake, etc) and
Any advantage the mouse/keyboard combo gave the PC (which was substantial) is shrinking; it nearly went away with the wiimote
WTF are you on? the wiimote sucks for anything other than sports/minigames, MMORPG - forget having a complex worlds with different spells at your fingertips with just a few buttons RTS - seriously no chance of playing anything but a simplified RTS with just a few buttons FPS - you need an aimable area much bigger than that of a tv screen shooters - timecrises/zombie flick/etc well these kind of work, but you never actually point to shoot, you move the crosshair about (but fundamentaly these DO work on the wii)
The other advantages of PC games are ofc: easy mods:- counter-strike, day of defeat, gary's mod better graphics - The id5tech engine will have to trade off fps for graphics quality on rage, on pc you get to set this yourself because high-end pcs can already better bang for buck for hardware - Ok some specs are better on game systems when they are first released, but given that pcs can be upgraded and generally come with more than 512MB ram, if you spend $400 upgrading you system every 3/4 years (probably more often if you bought an xbox) you system would be far more powerful than any current gen system. Free(ish) multiplayer gaming for most genres. Better communities / multiplayer architecture for most genres - having dedicated servers, forums and admins, produces a much better gaming experience than xbox/wii/ps3-live ever can
All consoles really have is: noob friendly (is that really a plus) local multiplayer
Also, there is no way they're going to stick with the name "Rage". I believe they learned once before that you need to use your engine as a marketing tool by tying it to your identity as a business and not calling it something obscure.
You mean by calling it something like... I dunno, "id Tech 5 [wikipedia.org]"?
DOOM fans may have not been big on Doom 3 but it sold very well.
"Since 1996, id powered games have generated worldwide revenues in excess of $2 Billion. id's most recent internally developed title, DOOM 3ï½, extends a proven track record with over 3.5 million units sold and is id's most successful game to date." http://www.shacknews.com/docs/press/010710_id_carmack_emmys.x [shacknews.com]
They also did focus on one thing at a time until more recently. Raven made Quake 4, Splash Damage made ET:QW, then id fixed Qua
You could also look at Warsow built on a dervivative of the Quake 2 engine. I think the pro mode portion of the Q3 CPMA mod may eventually be a stand alone product as well. Both are still deathmatch games(cpm is pretty much THE dm game), unlike urban terror.
Thanks id Software, for the GPL of Doom/Quake (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks id Software, for the GPL of Doom/Quake. Right now it is a serious blessing! Thanks!
Try making good games again id... (Score:3, Insightful)
While its true that PC gaming is sharing a larger and larger chunk of its gaming dollars with consoles, there is still money to be made on PCs IMO. For people like me I'll take mouse/keyboard over a console controller any day for FPS games. Perhaps id would make more money if their more recent PC games were actually good. Given their new found financial resources I hope id takes the time and creates something other than Doom X with shiny id Tech Y. Try adding some new, innovative game play in your next game and perhaps I might buy it.
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None of the new games with "innovative" gameplay have been as good as the early offerings of id.
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True. And the great games within the genre weren't all that innovative; Half-Life and Half-Life 2 didn't "innovate" much on Doom/Quake, they improved on it with excellent level design and a mysterious setting, giving a sense of playing through a varied story instead of the repetitive "find the key card and shoot up yet more monsters" mechanics of other FPS games. The levels work more like tracks on a roller coaster than actual levels, which limits the freedom of the player but at the same time allows the de
I also wonder how true that really is (Score:5, Insightful)
It would seem from a number of ways of looking at it, that the PC is as large a market as any given console. It is the "4th console" as it were. As such that means the market is not at all insignificant. Part of the problem I think is that some publishers view it as "PC vs Console" where all consoles are unified in to one market, and the PC in a separate one. They then think that the PC market should be as big as the console market and bemoan that it isn't. That's just not a good way to look at it.
Also some developers at least are showing a renewed interest in the PC. Capcom, for example, decided to bring Street Fighter 4 to the PC. It comes out next Tuesday. They had done some of the SF games on PC, but stopped after Alpha 2. However now they are trying again. Part of it may be because the Arcade version of the game is a Windows PC (it runs on Taito X2 hardware which is an XP embedded PC) but they also must see the PC market as worth the port, as they've already one Xbox 360 and PS3 ports.
I do think you are on to something with the quality of iD's games. I have been very unimpressed. Quake 4 in particular was a real disappointment. However not only have their games disappointed me, but their engine has as well. That was traditionally their big thing. Their engine was the cutting edge.
Well when Doom 3 came out, showing off iDTech 4, I was real underwhelmed. The "all real world light sources" were neat, but poorly done. Shadows were very dark and very harsh, owing to the fact light only bounced once in the engine. What's more, texture detail was substantially below what I was used to. Personally, I felt UT2004 (Unreal Engine 2) looked better over all. Not as many advanced features, but the graphics were more pleasing. Also Doom needed a beast of a system to do what it did, whereas UT2004 ran very well on moderate hardware.
Also iDtech 4 hasn't advanced much at this point. It is still their top flight engine and Unreal Engine 3 totally blows it away. Thus far, they've had no good response.
You can see it in the sales too. Currently there's 7 games that use iDTech 4, and over half of those are iD or Raven (who works closely with iD) games. UE3, which has been out for much less time, has near 100 games using it, including non-FPS games (such as the Last Remnant, an RPG).
It seems like iD isn't making first flight engines, which would be ok if their games were great, but their games are also rather undifferentiated. That is not a good situation to be in. A mediocre game with amazing graphics can still sell well, and of course the engine can be licensed out for all kinds of stuff (maybe the game is just a tech demo more than anything). Likewise a great game can get by just fine with mediocre graphics. However being not so god at both isn't a real recipe for success, especially not if you are spending the money developing your own engine.
We'll see what happens. I hope iD Tech 5 is awesome, but I worry. There really hasn't been anything out of them in terms of news or demos or the like since 2007. That is not a good sign to me. A lot changes in computers in 3 years, you'd think we'd see at least some more news about the status or demos or something. Any time a project is announced and then falls silent for a number of years, I worry that there are problems and it isn't going to be what it should.
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With ID's engine, you were shopping around for some 3rd party editor and then importing the data, while with Unreal you STILL had the option of importing from 3rd party editors and could do some final tweaking (or working from scratch) while running under the very engine you are targeting in realtime.
The times they are changing... (Score:4, Interesting)
With the recent closing of the doors to 3d Realms it's good to reflect on the old heavy hitters in a contemporary complexion.
Back in the day it was the Unreal Engine and the Quake engine that were the benchmark for graphics. The build engine for 3d realms spawned countless titles, though that was the last great engine they had.
So today, it seems that what is most important to some firms is the quality of the engine rather than the games they produce. This however results in titles that are simply showcases, appose to good games.
It would be nice for developers to have enough in house resources to do both. Create an amazing game around an amazing engine.
With that I look with optimism to the future of id in hopes that they bring back some of that old sparkle that has been lacking as of late.
Re:The times they are changing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone else remember Ramblings in Real-time [bluesnews.com] by Mike Abrash? Worth a read if you're interested in the mechanics of the Quake 3D-engine.
But Quake still wasn't very much more than showcasing... Id often seemed to rely on parties such as Raven Software for convincing storylines, exciting level designs, etc. I'd like to see them produce a game like Oblivion... A cutting edge 3d engine to power a convincing RPG world, what more would you want!
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Mod parent up. /. but I've been reading for the last half hour.
I opened that link thinking I'd just close it after 5 minutes like most links here on
Very interesting!
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I'm kind of disappointed they didn't see that level of success with the Doom 3 engine. There was plenty of potential, but nobody seems to have chased up on it.
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I recently heard that he was now working for Intel (Larabbee) but can't find anything official-sounding to back that up.
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While Quake was a pretty unexciting game, it was an excellent tech demo. I struggled through the first chapter (against boredom, not against the game) and couldn't be bothered with the other three. Making the QuakeC compiler free, however, was a stroke of genius. The game was in three parts, the progs.dat file, containing a bytecode-compiled version of the game logic, the engine binary that loaded and ran the bytecode, and the artwork / models / levels.
By making QuakeC free, anyone could write a repla
atleast EA didn't buy them (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if this means they wont GPL any further game engines... This news was kinda sad, one of the top tier developers sells out... a sad time for pc gamers... but I guess it could have been worse, EA could have bought them.
Re:atleast EA didn't buy them (Score:5, Interesting)
Carmack said in a press release recently that their feelings towards open source are not negotiable (paraphrasing) and that every tech engine they make is intended for eventual open sourcing. Its simply part of the entire design philosophy
Parent
Re:atleast EA didn't buy them (Score:5, Insightful)
HE owned a big part of Id, but unless it's in the buyout contract I wouldn't be so certain it will happen. Management can change it's mind at any time. It probably won't for the next engine to be opened, because they want to keep Carmack happy. But I'd be surprised (pleasantly so) if it actually continues long term.
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That's exactly what I meant to say. He wouldn't sign up for a contract stopping him from carrying out at least a large part of his vision for the company. Everything I've read from him indicates this and so do the things I've read about him.
He seems happy to work with them for now, indicating he likely got pretty much what he wanted. There are really no arguments against open-sourcing deprecated code. Things like that are great for PR, great for training programmers, great for keeping the games alive, etc
Curious (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is John Carmack the only developer of commercial game engines who actually releases the source code after they have become technically obsolete? I mean it's very nice, since it's given us games like Urban Terror and OpenAreana which can be released completely free as standalone games, but companies very rarely do things out of the goodness of their hearts.
The only reason I can see him doing this is because he believes in the open-source cause, but will his new owner allow him to continue this trend?
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The only reason I can see him doing this is because he believes in the open-source cause
That, or he's just curious what will happen if people start tinkering with it.
Re:Curious (Score:5, Insightful)
Releasing the source works out extremely beneficial for them... By the time a game gets opened up, it has very little value as a commercial game anymore, but look at any modern platform that has been cracked or released open - a port of quake or doom is one of the first things to spring up. So something that has virtually no commercial value now becomes a free advertising platform and keeps your name prominent.
Most games from the same era as quake are languishing as abandonware and occasionally being played under dosbox, quake runs natively on virtually anything these days.
It's also only the engine that's open, the data files are not, so you can either use third party data files (like urban terror and openarena), the original demo files or buy the original data files (you will usually be able to find a dirt cheap copy of the game in a bargain bin somewhere).
I think all game companies should do this, having the source to old games is good for everyone involved and far better than games becoming abandonware that won't even run on modern systems without some form of emulation.
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Don't leave out Nexuiz! (Score:2)
I mean it's very nice, since it's given us games like Urban Terror and OpenAreana
And Nexuiz!
It's really great. The weapons are somewhat sci-fi'esque: the sniper rifle shoots blue "laser" beams, and the Electro shoots funky blue balls which explode either on proximity or by being hit.
The maps are great; "dm6" is obviously "stolen", as is Agressor (I guess, since it's also in OpenArena).
Try it out some time :)
(happy customer, not paid shill; besides, they can only pay me in source code which is free anyways :D)
technology? what about fun? (Score:5, Insightful)
"The videogames business is defined by technology"
Really? I've only been playing games since pong, and worked in them for 10 years, but stupidly I've been defining the videogames business by 'fun'.
It's a pity this has ended up a minority viewpoint.
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Look up the definition of "define".
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Not saying this is the only thing but:
Fun ~= Immersion
Immersion ~= Technology
I do remember the first game that went from water was a blue surface w/static animations to water being a T&L surface with actual waves where you can go splashing in the water and it was just like WOW. People don't like limitations that just seem arbitrary compared to the real world, if it's a 3D world you're simulating why can't you see it in 3D? Why can you only move in n fixed directions when in real world you can go in what
Oblivion 5: (Score:2, Funny)
Id Needs A Gameplay Guru (Score:4, Interesting)
Id was at its best when Jon Romero worked there since Carmack would focus on the graphics and Romero would focus on the gameplay. Since the break-up of this partnership Id's games have gone drastically down hill while Romero found he couldn't make a game without Carmack. Romero appeared to have trouble with the technical side of Daikatana with lengthy delays and terrible visuals when it finally was released. Daikatana received a poor reception but the gameplay was clearly there with some innovative ideas and great feel to the movement control. It was the technical execution that was lacking, likely a result of not having somebody like Carmack.
Carmack's engines always look amazing but the engine is now Id's only selling point and their games are just dire. Id desperately needs to recruit someone with a proven record of making fun games so they can bring their gamplay up to the level of their engines. I vote for Romero, and bring American McGee back while you're at it. That would really return Id back to its past glory.
Re:Id Needs A Gameplay Guru (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree it does sound like a good idea. i.e. The whole bit about having the flashlight and being able to shoot mutually exclusive in Doom 3 just wasn't a very good design decision.
Unfortunately, that's not to happen. I had dinner with Romero at E3 - he's busy doing 5 (!) MMOs. I actually asked about Daikatana. :-) I didn't realize it sold 200,000 and broke even for Eidos. He admitted that one of the mistakes made was hiring inexperienced people. One of the lesson learnt was "Hire the most experienced people first, the least experienced people last" which sounds pretty reasonable.
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I think the quote "receded in terms of significance" means that because consoles don't have the illusion of piracy problems that PCs do, and consoles can also bring a lot of additional revenue streams that are not present with PCs (like DRM-ed downloadable content), it means that more bucks on average can be made from the console gamer than the PC gamer.
PCs are not going away anytime soon. In this economy, it becomes harder for someone to justify the cost of a console if they don't have one already, while
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It's pretty clear to me what is going on.
Someone who spends 300+ dollars for a console (which is nothing more than a propitiatory computer) are more likely to spend money on games for that platform and then turn around and buy the new platform in 2 years. They are already totally on board with the idea that they will have zero control and are willing to pay whatever you demand. People who play or did play computer games are much more likely to cause trouble and bitch.
Some people do hack and mod the systems
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You call the Wii "wee", so why not call the PS3 the "piss 3"?
It wasn't a typo if that's what you're getting at. I just didn't want to push my luck with the Sony fanboys...
cough.. sony rootkit... cough, addhumm.. sorry... what was I saying again?
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Developers want to make games for whichever platforms sell. With hardcore PC gamers only wanting to play MMOs or FPS sequels, and casual PC gamers only playing browser games, then developers will concentrate on consoles and handhelds.
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I agree with you, but i wouldnt toss Valve into the mix. Valve has been great on the PC. Steam while it still is a copy protection scheme, is still a pretty dam good distribution platform and a great gaming community. Yes its a form of DRM but they're pretty fair with the users and Steam doesn't hassle the user in any way really. Its very light on resources and it enhances the gaming community.
Valve has also been incredible with Team Fortress 2. They've supported it quite well and Its far better than anythi
Re:Reduced Focus = Reduced Significance (Score:5, Insightful)
"Any advantage the mouse/keyboard combo gave the PC (which was substantial) is shrinking; it nearly went away with the wiimote. "
Wait, why? These are completely unrelated, and the game types are completely different. How do you play a FPS or a RTS (which account for most of the PC games) using a Wiimote?
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Wait, why? These are completely unrelated, and the game types are completely different. How do you play a FPS or a RTS (which account for most of the PC games) using a Wiimote?
The Wii has a few FPSes with great controls. Metroid Prime 3 comes to mind immediately, give it a try some time.
I haven't played an RTS on the Wii, but the obvious answer would be that you could use the wiimote pointer just a mouse.
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Same way you play them with a mouse. Tense up, breath heavily, make swift twitching movements and press the left click/fire button eight times for every needed press. Then issue a stream of profanities, whether or not you're winning.
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Wiimote is still significantly worse than using a mouse, mostly due to the difficulty of turning in shooters. And don't forget the keyboard. There are many types of games which have trouble fitting their functionality comfortably into just 8 buttons. Sometimes it's also handy to have a controller which can be used for writing without a virtual keyboard.
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Re:Reduced Focus = Reduced Significance (Score:4, Insightful)
The keyboard and mouse combo is still very far from being surpassed. The problem is that 99% of games these days are cross-platform, and as such the control scheme is designed for the lowest common denominator (consoles), and thus doesn't make use of the possibilities offered by keyboard+mouse.
Another advantage the PC has is much more powerful hardware.
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The problem is the games, there is no reason you couldn't connect a keyboard and mouse to the usb ports present on all modern consoles, games just need to be written to support them... And if the game is multi platform, it would presumably already have that support had they bothered to enable it for the console builds.
You can get more powerful hardware in a PC, but...
Many people don't have cutting edge hardware, many people i know use hardware less powerful than an xbox360 or ps3. Because of this games cann
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The problem is that 99% of games these days are cross-platform, and as such the control scheme is designed for the lowest common denominator (consoles), and thus doesn't make use of the possibilities offered by keyboard+mouse.
If you have one PC and one 32" monitor but four people, you need to drop to the lowest common denominator because Windows happens not to support four keyboards or four mice through a USB hub very well.
Another advantage the PC has is much more powerful hardware.
A lot of PCs come with Intel GMA; I still haven't been able to get a straight answer as to whether or not a typical PC with an Intel GMA 950 is more powerful than a Wii.
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Console makers are shooting themselves in the foot... All the modern consoles come with USB ports, and most modern keyboards and mice are USB... There is nothing to stop someone connecting a keyboard/mouse to a console and using it to play games...
As for modding, games would just need to be designed for that purpose, consoles come with hard drives, usb and memory card slots these days so it wouldn't be hard to have them look there for data files.
Not sure what to say about small independent games, the consol
Modding is cannibalization (Score:2)
There is nothing to stop someone connecting a keyboard/mouse to a console and using it to play games...
Other than that players 2 through 4 would be at a disadvantage.
As for modding, games would just need to be designed for that purpose, consoles come with hard drives, usb and memory card slots these days so it wouldn't be hard to have them look there for data files.
The console makers want to restrict moddability. Little Big Planet is one thing, but Nintendo doesn't want modders turning Metroid Prime into Metroid Kart for fear of it cutting into the sales of Mario Kart.
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"There's a lot of factors. Piracy -> DRM -> problems -> Piracy."
This is a scapegoat I'm sorry, many games were released during the age of broadband and the internet and were easily downloadable then (pre 2000, 1998/1997). Warez scene has been around since ye old shareware days and before that. Copies of Dos / Win 3.1 were shared rampantly via sneakernet.
What really happened is this:
Game graphics tech got more and more complex with the advent of 3D acelleration, which upped development costs for c
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"Freespace had a software renderer, so how did that one bomb?"
Descent 3 and Fs2 both had lower then expected sales, D3 and FS2 were both 3D accelerator only.
Descent 3 didn't technically bomb but it was nowhere near the sales of D1 and D2 according to interplay it sold "respectable numbers" in contrast to Freesapce 2.
Descent 1 and 2 by contrast could run on any system. Back then (around 1996/7/8), 3D accelerators did not have enough market penetration outside of certain genre's, Mainly FPS (quake, etc) and
Re:Reduced Focus = Reduced Significance (Score:5, Insightful)
Any advantage the mouse/keyboard combo gave the PC (which was substantial) is shrinking; it nearly went away with the wiimote
WTF are you on? the wiimote sucks for anything other than sports/minigames,
MMORPG - forget having a complex worlds with different spells at your fingertips with just a few buttons
RTS - seriously no chance of playing anything but a simplified RTS with just a few buttons
FPS - you need an aimable area much bigger than that of a tv screen
shooters - timecrises/zombie flick/etc well these kind of work, but you never actually point to shoot, you move the crosshair about (but fundamentaly these DO work on the wii)
The other advantages of PC games are ofc: :- counter-strike, day of defeat, gary's mod
easy mods
better graphics - The id5tech engine will have to trade off fps for graphics quality on rage, on pc you get to set this yourself because high-end pcs can already
better bang for buck for hardware - Ok some specs are better on game systems when they are first released, but given that pcs can be upgraded and generally come with more than 512MB ram, if you spend $400 upgrading you system every 3/4 years (probably more often if you bought an xbox) you system would be far more powerful than any current gen system.
Free(ish) multiplayer gaming for most genres.
Better communities / multiplayer architecture for most genres - having dedicated servers, forums and admins, produces a much better gaming experience than xbox/wii/ps3-live ever can
All consoles really have is:
noob friendly (is that really a plus)
local multiplayer
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Re:Engine is Their Gravy (Score:4, Informative)
Also, there is no way they're going to stick with the name "Rage". I believe they learned once before that you need to use your engine as a marketing tool by tying it to your identity as a business and not calling it something obscure.
You mean by calling it something like... I dunno, "id Tech 5 [wikipedia.org]"?
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DOOM fans may have not been big on Doom 3 but it sold very well.
"Since 1996, id powered games have generated worldwide revenues in excess of $2 Billion. id's most recent internally developed title, DOOM 3ï½, extends a proven track record with over 3.5 million units sold and is id's most successful game to date." http://www.shacknews.com/docs/press/010710_id_carmack_emmys.x [shacknews.com]
They also did focus on one thing at a time until more recently. Raven made Quake 4, Splash Damage made ET:QW, then id fixed Qua
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You could also look at Warsow built on a dervivative of the Quake 2 engine. I think the pro mode portion of the Q3 CPMA mod may eventually be a stand alone product as well. Both are still deathmatch games(cpm is pretty much THE dm game), unlike urban terror.