Id Software

id Software is a game developer founded on based in Mesquite, Texas by four members of the computer company, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack. They are the authors of Doom and Doom II, as well as numerous other well-known titles such as the Quake series of games, Wolfenstein 3D, and Commander Keen.

According to the book Masters of Doom, the name "id" came from the phrase "in demand". Later on, it was officially described by the company as "the primal section of the human psyche" which in is responsible for instinctual and primitive impulses.

The company drastically changed its members through the years, including the original founders. On June 24, 2009, it was announced that id Software had been acquired by ZeniMax Media, owner of Bethesda Softworks.

History


In 1989, John Romero and fellow Softdisk programmer Lane Roathe formed a group naming itself "Ideas From the Deep". In the wake of John Carmack's invention of the technique for the PC's  graphics adapter, the three programmers teamed up with Tom Hall and Jay Wilbur, spending a weekend creating a prototype PC version of  to propose to Nintendo. While Nintendo turned them down, the demo later attracted the attention of 's Scott Miller, who agreed to have the team develop a new trilogy using the same technology.

The members of Ideas From the Deep, still at Softdisk, began working after-hours on what would become Commander Keen. During development, Lane Roathe left Softdisk, while Adrian Carmack also joined the team as an artist. Following the successful release of Commander Keen's shareware episode in December 1990, id Software was officially formed as an independent company, continuing to develop games for both Softdisk and Apogee. Jay Wilbur initially remained at Softdisk, but joined id during the development of Wolfenstein 3D.

Although id originally began by publishing games in other genres, such as the two-dimensional platformers in the Commander Keen series, the company became deeply involved in the creation of the first-person shooter genre early on. Their earliest efforts in 3D date back to the Softdisk era, with titles such as ' and '. The first 3D game they made as an independent studio, Wolfenstein 3D, is often considered as one of the first FPS, and a highly influential title in its own right. Doom popularized the genre and PC gaming in general, as well as pioneered multiplayer with its serial, LAN, and dial-up capabilities. Its successor Quake was the first shooter to have a client-server architecture for multiplayer.

id Software would remain one of the foremost independent game studios to remain in the business into the 21st century, successfully negotiating with third party publishers and distributors, including and, to bring their games to the public. This was carried out while simultaneously making significant money through licensing of John Carmack's powerful, bleeding-edge game engines to other studios (the series of which came to be known collectively as ""). This era came to a close on when the co-owners reached an agreement to sell all stakes in the company to ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, which now serves as id's publisher.

The history of the individual members of id Software diverges at various points, as members left or were fired for various reasons. This began with the departure of Tom Hall before the release of Doom, the firing of John Romero after the release of Quake, and most recently culminated in the departure of John Carmack in November 2013. After leaving Softdisk, Lane Roathe continued using the company name "Ideas From the Deep" alongside Rebecca Ann Heineman, working primarily on Macintosh and Windows ports of games by and.

As developers

 * Wolfenstein series
 * Doom series
 * Quake series
 * Quake series

As publishers

 * Heretic series
 * Hexen series

Original employees

 * Adrian Carmack
 * John Carmack
 * Kevin Cloud
 * Shawn C. Green
 * Dave D. Taylor
 * Tom Hall
 * Donna Jackson
 * American McGee
 * Sandy Petersen
 * Bobby Prince
 * John Romero
 * Jay Wilbur
 * Tim Willits