Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Microsoft Quake

Id Co-founders Carmack and Romero Respond to Microsoft's Layoffs (ign.com) 54

Posted by EditorDavid from the monsters-from-the-Id dept.
"I have been trying to find something meaningful to say about the Id Software layoffs," John Carmack posted Thursday to his 2.8 million followers on X.com: My "Microsoft will probably be a good steward of the brand" statement isn't aging well, and this is certainly going to dampen the mood of the founder reunion at QuakeCon next month.

I'm saddened, but I can't muster anger or outrage over it. I don't have access to the books, but I suspect that Id Software was a marginal business from Microsoft's perspective. I believe the reports that Minecraft revenues have been carrying several other studios.

To continue being produced long term, games need to succeed, not just be beloved. Games are competing with every other option for spending your leisure time and money, and the competition is brutal. You can't rule out the possibility that executives are idiots, but that shouldn't be your default belief. I don't think there is any obvious path that would have doubled the revenue from Id games.

Could they have gotten more with a different pricing strategy? Could they have created more things for fans to buy? Could they have cost effectively marketed in a way that reached more players that would have loved and bought the games? Could they have changed the game designs and broadened the appeal to more players without alienating existing ones? Could they have produced the games at a lower cost, faster or cheaper? I really don't know.

The game isn't over yet, and I hope the studio rallies through.
Id Software co-founder John Romero also shared his thoughts on X.com: I'm so sorry for everyone at id Software affected by these layoffs. I know what it feels like to leave id while id goes on. It's a strange and painful thing to step away from a place that holds so much of your work, friendships and history.

The people at id have done a great job moving that legacy forward. DOOM, Quake, and Wolfenstein are not easy names to carry on, especially in today's industry. The last few games showed real care, skill and respect for what those worlds mean to people.
Romero also expressed his hope for "digital preservation" of Id's ongoing history (including code and assets). "I'm thinking of everyone at id today, and everyone else affected by yesterday's layoffs. Romero Games was there a year ago. I know how devastating it is, and my heart's with all of you.

"Four Xbox studios are already out the door," noted IGN, but shared some thoughts about the future: Some have expressed concern that id Software would be unable to lead development on any new games in its current state, and that it might be relegated to support studio status. But in a new statement [posted to id Software's page on X.com] id Software said it was now at the staffing level it was back when it made the much-loved 2016 Doom reboot — and insisted it was still capable of making "great games."

"While our studio was impacted, those changes were spread across teams. We still have the crew we need to build the games and tech we're known for... We're going to keep building the great games and tech that have defined us for the past 35 years, and we're looking forward to seeing you at QuakeCon this August."

Id Co-founders Carmack and Romero Respond to Microsoft's Layoffs More | Reply

Id Co-founders Carmack and Romero Respond to Microsoft's Layoffs

Comments Filter:

  • ID Software their hit games are OLD ! NO NEW games (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bsdetector101 ( 6345122 ) on Sunday July 12, 2026 @08:00AM (#66234196)
    They have been riding on their laurels for years ! Their latest game is still based on old game ! They haven't created anything NEW in decades ! They are deadmeat under Microsoft's heel who expects profits. What studio has done good under MS ??

    • New?

      You say that as if a planet hasn’t been riding shotgun with Toretto through a DOZEN fucking sequels, driving furiously in search of a GTA SIX release date..

    • id's business was not just to sell games. They were also in the game engine licensing business. Its one of the reason's their games could be so bleeding edge, the games were in part a demo of the engine. What they lost with respect to people with low end hardware they more than gained by licensing game engines to other developers. In the two or so years the other developer took to create their game, more people had better hardware and the engine was a better fit for average gamers.

      I think Microsoft ended

  • Carmack makes a good point (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Sunday July 12, 2026 @08:12AM (#66234212) Journal

    To continue being produced long term, games need to succeed, not just be beloved.

    • There's also the issue of cost/scope. I'm not sure that Id is atypical for a studio of its age and size in terms of how its games have gotten more costly over time; but it's still very much the case that Quake was about a dozen guys crunching and Trent Reznor making creepy industrial noises; while Doom: The Dark Ages was closer to feature film level budget.

      More potential players now than there were in 1996; but the production cost increase has still, on the balance, likely done bad things to your ability

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
      Games are succeeding. Games are selling millions of copies but that's not enough to keep the suits happy. It's enough to keep everybody who makes the games very comfortable employed but it's not enough to make the line go up.

      The problem we have here is a bunch of ghouls are sucking 50 to 70% out of the economy before anyone else gets a crack at anything. So things don't have to be successful they have to be wildly incredibly mind-bogglingly successful so that they can line the pockets of the Epstein cla
      • Oh what bullshit, the budgets for these new games are very high, and games need to be be very successful to make that budget back, and that's pretty hard these days. These big studio games need to be sold multiple millions times to make their money back, and then some to keep the studio afloat for the next game. Yeah, suits make the decision, but a studio needs to make money, it isn't a social institute, it's a business just like any other business, enough money needs to come in to survive the next game pro
        • I've seen a lot of different figures thrown around but it's definitely under 20 million in total. Wildly successful game, no Wall Street doubling the budget so they can pocket 20 or 30 million dollars off of somebody else's work.

          The problem here is we have parasites who have taken over our economy. Grifters like Elon Musk. The scale of the grift has gotten too big. Kleptocracy combined with kekistocracy. It's not sustainable. You can't have a trillionaire who is never invented anything in his life and

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gr8dude ( 832945 )

          > And studios aren't social institutions, money needs to come in to be able to support the development of a new game for many years and make a bit of profit, you need a lot of money to be able to support it, and if more money is going out, that means you have to do something to prevent that, or close up shop.

          Looks like you're operating under an infinite (or at least continuous) growth assumption. But a company doesn't have to be like that. id software accumulated some "fat" over the years, they could ha

      • The problem we have here is a bunch of ghouls are sucking 50 to 70% out of the economy before anyone else gets a crack at anything.

        What

      • Pre MS id licensed game engines to other developers too. Frankly that's what allowed their games to have high hardware requirements, they were in part a demo of their engine. In the years some other developer took to create their game, that typical user's hardware caught up with the id engine.

        These engines, id Tech, may have provided enough additional revenue to make a different to pre-MS id. To generate income in-between game releases, smoothing out income, buying time for schedule slips, etc. It was a

    • To continue being produced long term, games need to succeed, not just be beloved.

      Define succeed. Do you realise shareholders (specifically a major activist shareholder) recently tried ousting Hidetaka Miyazaki from his CEO position at Fromsoft after complaining that they didn't maximise profits despite producing one of the most critically acclaimed, well and truly financially successful, and wildly played titles of the past 5 years.

      Carmack (god love him for his technical skills) proceeded to talk about Minecraft, as if that is the bar we need to meet these days. We may as well give up o

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jythie ( 914043 )

        This. One of the big problems with the modern environment is that the interests of shareholders no longer align with the interests of companies, and neither of those align with the interests of industries or the economy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jythie ( 914043 )

      Though part of the problem here is, as I understand it, microsoft doesn't want games that simply succeed, but that have the same margins as Office or Windows. Sounds like executives only want to be associated with brands that can land them their next c-suite position, so 'profitable' isn't enough, it has to be big enough that outsiders go 'wow'. Put another way, the metric for success isn't 'sells well', but 'improves the personal brand of executives'.

  • That's a bit of a cop out (Score:3)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday July 12, 2026 @08:15AM (#66234218)

    You can't rule out the possibility that executives are idiots, but that shouldn't be your default belief. I don't think there is any obvious path that would have doubled the revenue from Id games.

    It doesn't need to be a default belief. We have direct evidence showing that the executives in this case are in fact very much idiots. MS went on an insane spending spree acquiring studio after studio without any plan beyond "We bought Minecraft and that made money, so this should work."

    If this were a case of a single acquisition and a single layoff we may not need to blame executives. But it is a pattern that has repeated over and over again for a few years now, so at what point do we stop blaming what were very successful studios when they were running themselves for not making "all the money", and start blaming executives who seem to be able to not make any success from their acquisitions?

    • Oh please, layoffs like this have been rampant through the whole gaming industry, hell, every IT based industry. And MS certainly has a plan woth buying up all those studios, namely moving away from console production to game production, as consoles will go the way of the dodo, and the money had to come from selling games anyway. The current market is so full of games, people have more to choose from than time to actually play it all. The market has become oversaturated. But look at the past, it has always

      • Oh please, layoffs like this have been rampant through the whole gaming industry

        Yes they have. Once or twice. Some layoffs happen. However this is just one data point for Microsoft. One data point among many repeated layoffs at MS. One datapoint among full studio closures. One datapoint among Microsoft currently attempting to divest 2 whole studios which they've aquired in said spending spree. One datapoint among the current CEO saying that Microsoft's strategy took them from 30% profit margin to around 4% this year.

        One datapoint among the Xbox CEO being replaced this year because desp

  • Either you continue to be a small company and do the work you love until you grow up to keep doing it as a small company, or you sell yourself to get access to new perks, including layoffs the moment you don't generate profits compatible with what the new owner expects. A sad reality of games not made for gamers but shareholders.

    (Subject is also a quote from a WoW quest)

    • Microsoft spent a lot of money, they want 25% profit margins: Which for a legacy product, is not realistic. Carmack is hoping that his creation can continue to create. But a large loss of institutional knowledge requires that survivors suffer burn-out doing 2 or 3 jobs. That, is what destroys a newly acquired studio.

      Technically, as long as Id Software is producing a profit, they shouldn't be making large changes. Id Software can create a new product but that means wearing the up-front cost of creatin

  • Romero (Score:5, Insightful)

    by geek ( 5680 ) on Sunday July 12, 2026 @08:36AM (#66234236)

    "I know what it feels like to leave id while id goes on. It's a strange and painful thing to step away "

    They aren't "stepping away" John. They are being kicked to the fucking curb

  • What an insightful comment... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pollux ( 102520 ) <speter@te d a t a .net.eg> on Sunday July 12, 2026 @08:48AM (#66234254) Journal

    "Games are competing with every other option for spending your leisure time and money, and the competition is brutal." --John Carmack

    I had never thought about games in this way before. When I fell in love with Doom (and gaming) as a teenager, I didn't have any social media & smartphones competing for my time, because they didn't exist. Lots more time for gaming. The games back then were made to reward you for investing more time in the game itself. There was a joy in it, discovering all the hidden places that rewarded you with power-ups. Finish a level only to find out you found 87% of the secrets? That's when the OCD in your brain kicks in, you re-load the level, and hit spacebar on every inch of wall space you can can muster until you find that hidden BFG-9000.

    Today's "games" don't try to reward you in that classic sense anymore. They've turned gameplay into a casino, where you grind away for six hours hoping for that rare-item drop. They can't beat the addictive components that make up social media, so instead they incorporated some of them into the gameplay...If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, I guess. The only winning move is not to play.

    • Not to mention, as a kid playing Doom you either had to find the BFG or your friend Timâ(TM)s older brother could tell you the secret. Today, a million youtubers have already done full 100% letâ(TM)s plays, and every secret, 100% completion, unlock, etc., is a quick google or gpt search away.

      I loved adventure games. The genre just isnâ(TM)t viable today. So many of the old hallmarks of games just donâ(TM)t work or make sense anymore. I donâ(TM)t even think thatâ(TM)s necessaril

    • They've turned gameplay into a casino, where you grind away for six hours hoping for that rare-item drop.

      And that is the future Microsoft is looking at.

    • Today's "games" don't try to reward you in that classic sense anymore.

      this still happens today. you have people competing to "platinum" a game and get all of their trophies. exactly the same thing.

      if you prefer percentages, big open world games do the same. i recall working very hard to get 100% with gta 5 and rdr 1, the only 2 games i have ever gotten 100%

  • C-Suite idiots or not, it seems when Microsoft gets its hands on something DOOM and gloom is the eventual outcome for the acquired.

  • Ok sure (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Sunday July 12, 2026 @09:53AM (#66234318)

    Certainly appreciate the history of these two in the industry but Romero was canned, what, like 30 years ago because of ego issues? He obviously didn't care about the places legacy that much. Both of them are ego monsters tbh so they really must be soaking in folks asking them for their opinions here.

    Carmack also didn't have to sell to Zenimax in the first place and if they were in need of an acquisition to survive then it would have been him making those layoffs instead. He also apparently made the call that Bethesda couldn't use id's engines for Elder Scrolls or Fallout, probably a mistake in the long term i think driven by ego as id had just as much if not more success as a tool develop than a game developer. And then he goes to work for Facebook of all places and threw his lot 100% with Zuck and Palmer Luckey. A talented programmer but obviously suspect judgement. He got his money.

    There's a Ship Of Theseus question with game studios, once you've replaced all the key members is it still the same besides the name?

    • I hate to say but people do change. Age brings regrets. As you said he was a good programmer, but that didn't translate well into knowing the business. You get burned out one day, yell "Sure I will sell it to Microsoft for a billion" and then it leads into a deal. Facebook maybe is excessive but Zuck is trying his best with VR oculas matter how unprofitable it is. If you could see regret/mistakes after a decision, I doubt there ever be wars in the first place.

      Still, ZeniMax though. Maybe it was the le

      • People sure do change, I'm not faulting him for selling to Zenimax or Microsoft, get your bag but that's the price of basically what is selling out, literally and figuratively. I'm just a little bit of "who cares what these two think". You can have the opinion of MS not being a good steward or whatever but no evidence either of them would be better, they both ultimately acted in their own self interests.

  • Romero doesn't do any victim blaming on id here. He tries to show sympathy, which apparently Carmack still has no idea how to do. Sucks for everyone at id, and I honestly haven't really enjoyed any of their games since Doom 2 but they will have have a place in many gamer's hearts. Everyone how worked there deserves better than to be downsized this way.

     

Slashdot Top Deals

Thus spake the master programmer: "When a program is being tested, it is too late to make design changes." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

Close