Games - Id Software

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	Games - Id Software

id Software is a computer game developer based in Mesquite, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. The company was founded by four members of the computer company Softdisk: John Carmack, a programmer, John Romero and Tom Hall, game designers, and Adrian Carmack, an artist. id Software is now considered the most influential of the many game development companies in the Dallas area, known as the Dallas Gaming Mafia.

Note the lower-case id, which some say refers to the id as a psychological concept. Originally, both letters were capitals (ID Software), and came from "Ideas from the Deep". The "I" was made lowercase in the release of the second Commander Keen series, and eventually the "D" was also dropped down to lowercase which, according to some changed the meaning of the company name.

The correct pronunciation of id Software is a much-argued subject. Since the original name came from "Ideas from the Deep", many argue that it is an abbreviation and hence should be pronounced "eye-dee". However, since both letters were changed from upper to lower case, and id Software's makes a direct reference to Freud, many now argue that it is id as in "did" or "kid".

History

The founders of id Software met in the offices of Softdisk developing multiple games for Softdisk for monthly publishing. These included Dangerous Dave and other titles. Once Apogee Software learned of the group and their exceptional talent, they recruited them, and developed the necessary titles for them to get out of their Softdisk contracts. Meanwhile, they worked on titles that would be developed under the ID Software moniker. The most successful of those outings would be Commander Keen.

Commander Keen

The Commander Keen series, a platform game introducing one of the first smooth side-scrolling game engines for the PC, brought id Software into the gaming mainstream. The game was very successful and spawned a whole series of titles. It was also the group of id Software that designer Tom Hall was most affiliated with.

The shareware distribution method was initially employed by id Software through Apogee Software to sell their products, such as the Commander Keen, Doom and Wolfenstein games. They would release the first part of their trilogy as shareware, then sell the other two installments by mail order. Only later (about the time of the release of Doom II) did id release their games via more traditional shrink-wrapped boxes in stores (through other game publishers). It is likely that id Software has been the most successful shareware publisher to date.

Wolfenstein 3D

The company's breakout product was Wolfenstein 3D, a first person shooter with smooth 3D graphics that were unprecedented in computer games, and with violent game play that many gamers found engaging. After essentially founding an entire genre with this game, id created Doom, Doom II, Quake, Quake II, Quake III Arena, Doom 3, and Quake 4. Each of these first person shooters featured progressively higher levels of graphical technology (and progressively higher minimum system requirements).

John Carmack

The lead programmer for id Software is John Carmack, whose skill at 3D programming is widely recognized in the software industry. He is the last of the original lead designers remaining in the company.

Tom Hall

Tom Hall left id Software during the early days of Doom development (but not before he had some impact: he was responsible, for example, for the inclusion of teleporters in the game). He was let go before the shareware release of Doom and then went to work for Apogee working on Rise of the Triad with the "Developers of Incredible Power". Hall has frequently commented that if id Software ever sold him the rights to Commander Keen he will immediately develop another Keen title.

John Romero

John Romero, who was also asked to leave, left after the release of the shareware Quake to form the ill-fated Ion Storm. Having already finished his work on Rise of the Triad and not finding himself compatible with the Prey development team at Apogee, Tom Hall left to join his ex-id compadre in this new company.

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