Doom 4 (DOOM) is out on May 13th, and I am very excited. If you consider yourself a gamer but don’t know what Doom is, get out. Just get out. No, I’m kidding, but I do think that you should know about the instrumental impact that id Software has had on the medium. I’m a lifelong gamer that was born in the mid-’80s, I grew up alongside their releases, have very fond memories of their games, and respect how these developers wove their influence tightly throughout the fabric of the gaming industry and, more than once, pushed the medium forward. IN THE BEGINNING . . . id Software was founded by Adrian Carmack, John Carmack (no relation to Adrian), Tom Hall, and John Romero officially on February 1, 1991. The first game id released was a PC side-scrolling platformer called Commander Keen in December 1990. This was a very popular game that made a name for id Software, but it wasn’t until its next game that they would craft a staple genre in the industry. The Granddaddy of Shooters A genre which could be argued that is done to death now is the first-person-shooter. But, in 1992, the original ‘grandfather’ to the genre as we know it now was released; Wolfenstein 3D. You play as B.J. Blazkowicz, an allied Second World War spy that is captured and must escape from the titular Nazi prison/castle, Wolfenstein. Also called a corridor shooter, you would go throughout nine levels (plus a secret level 10) per episode with a total six episodes and 60 levels. The graphics looked 3D but were essentially 2.5D. The engine, programmed by John Carmack, used a process called Ray Casting which creates the illusion of depth. Also, the Wolfenstein 3D engine didn’t allow for up/down or sloped movement nor geometrical height. The game also had only three firearms including a pistol, submachinegun, and minigun, which all took from the same ammunition reserve, plus a knife for when you are out of ammo. Gunshots would also alert guards in the vicinity and using a knife to stab someone in the back is silent. Despite the limitations of this early technology, id created a rich and memorable world within the maze-like corridors that had plenty of Nazi enemies to shoot, secret doors hidden as walls to find, and powerups and golden treasure to collect as you go floor-by-floor to reach a unique boss and the end of each episode (including Adolf Hitler himself in a mech-suit at the end of Episode 3 “Die Fuhrer, Die!”). Castle Wolfenstein was originally a stealth game from 1981 by Silas Warner at Muse Software. With very simple 2D graphics, you search for keys and exits while trying to sneak past Nazi guards. A sequel, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, was released in 1984. Shareware Version On a personal note, Wolfenstein 3D, as many other games of that era, owes a lot of success to its distribution as Shareware. Released through Apogee, the game could be bought in stores on a 3 ½ inch floppy for $5.00 in which the first episode, “Escape from Castle Wolfenstein,” was available. Being six-years-old at the time and not having any money of my own, my mother would sometimes buy shareware for me and our 286 DOS machine when we were out shopping. I would find something that looks cool and that would be the one I chose, which one day happened to be Wolfenstein 3D in around May or June 1992. The game, which is probably not the best thing for a six-year-old, blew me away and made the additional five episodes, which could be ordered via call-order, quite coveted. Also, released later that year, was a prequel called Spear of Destiny which had a change of art style. John Carmack, the legendary id Software programmer, did a retrospective commentary for the 20th anniversary of Wolfenstein 3D in 2012. The Doom Generation “There is a scene in “The Color of Money” where Tom Cruise shows up at a pool hall with a custom pool cue in a case. “What do you have in there?” asks someone. “Doom.” replied Cruise with a cocky grin. That, and the resulting carnage, was how I viewed us springing the game on the industry.” – John Carmack As revolutionary as Wolfenstein 3D was, it wasn’t until id’s next game that the developer would be sealed in history. On December 10, 1993, Doom was released which created cultural shockwaves. This and Mortal Kombat were beloved by the younger gaming generation but loathed and demonized by the Christian-Right, who panicked and claimed that these violent games would turn youth into violent delinquents. That did not happen, and in fact (though probably also not due to violent games) crime and violence has gone down over the past 30 years. However, Germany banned Wolfenstein 3D and censored Doom for the former’s Nazi imagery and both for violent content. Doom traded Nazis for demons and castle corridors for Mars moon bases on Phobos and Deimos. The UAC (Union Aerospace Corporation) was conducting experiments with portal technology but something went wrong, which unleashed a horde of hell-spawn onto the bases and killed everybody – except for you, a lone space marine. Now, you have no choice but to fight a vast array of demon spawn and your possessed former comrades while finding keys to unlock doors in the maze-like levels to escape back to earth from the overrun bases. The game consists of three episodes: Knee Deep in the Dead (released on Shareware), Shores of Hell, and Inferno (a fourth episode, Thy Flesh Consumed, was added in a rerelease called The Ultimate Doom in 1995) with each consisting of eight levels plus one secret level and an end boss such as the Barons of Hell, Cyberdemon, and Spider Mastermind. The gameplay is an advancement on Wolfenstein 3D in almost all aspects. Although the Doom Engine is still technically not 3D, it had the ability to go up and down on different floors within a level and have bigger environments in general. There is also full texture mapping for surfaces, variance of light and dark, moving platforms, and much better in-game sound and music. Also, there are different ammo classes and a total of eight weapons: fists and a chainsaw as melee, a pistol, shotgun, chaingun (similar to Wolfenstein 3D’s minigun), a rocket launcher, plasma gun, and the BFG9000. The BFG would be able to clear an entire room of enemies. Enemies, especially with the BFG, would be able to be gibbed (a term coined by Adrian Carmack), meaning they would be blown apart and have their guts fly about. Tom Hall created a much deeper story for Doom that took place on a fictional planet, had multiple playable characters to choose from, and more elaborate features. However, many of the ideas were not utilized and were left in the Doom Bible. The key to Doom was relative simplicity and a focus on fast gameplay. In addition to the single-player, Doom was extremely popular through LAN and was the game that created Deathmatch. In this mode, players faced each other over an Ethernet connection. There was also a co-op mode where you could fight against the game’s demons with friends. Before Doom’s release, id Software wrote, perhaps half-joking, that Doom was going to be “the number one cause of decreased productivity in businesses around the world.” And, after its release, many companies with computers, such as Intel, saw the game as a workplace nuisance and started policies specifically prohibiting the playing of Doom during company hours. The First to Go In 1993, Tom Hall left id after disagreements. However, his departure led him to work with Apogee on Rise of the Triad which was originally supposed to be a sequel to Wolfenstein 3D and used a modified version of its engine. Some of the ideas in the Doom Bible were implemented in the game, such as the unused characters. Rise of the Triad was released in 1995. Apogee is also known as 3D Realms, which developed the popular Duke Nukem 3D in 1996. Building On a Legend To no one’s surprise, Doom II: Hell on Earth was released on September 30, 1994. The sequel isn’t very different from the original and uses the same engine without any noticeable change. The story is that after escaping from the Mars moon bases, you arrive on earth to learn that it has also been invaded by the demons. The game consists of 30 levels plus two secret levels and are not split up by episodes. New additions to the game are a double-barreled shotgun (Super Shotgun) and seven new kinds of enemies on top of the 10 returning kinds of enemies. One of the secret levels, titled Wolfentein, is a map resembling Wolfenstein 3D where you fight against the blue SS machinegun guards. The other secret level, Grosse, accessed from the Wolfenstein secret level, is a recreation of another Wolfenstein level, but features sprites of the Commander Keen character hanging from the ceiling. Doom II sold two million copies and was the highest selling id Software title of the 1990s. The modding community became very strong and creative with Doom and Doom II, with fans creating custom levels of the game and releasing them (called WADs) over the internet. Because of this, Master Levels for Doom II was released in late 1995 by id as an expansion pack, which consisted of 21 official levels that were created under contract by outside designers as well as 3493 custom levels (some for Doom and most for Doom II) which were fan creations taken from internet. A group of WAD creators called TeamTNT created a series of levels called TNT: Evilution that was acquired by id before being released for free online. This, along with another bunch of levels called The Plutonia Experiment was released as Final Doom on June 17, 1996. Final Doom is considered much harder than the original Doom games and has larger and more complex level designs which required relatively better hardware than people likely would have had in 1993 or 1994. Outside of id, other games using the Doom engine were being developed, notably by the company Raven Software. The game they created with a modified version of the Doom engine was Heretic, released on December 23, 1994. The gameplay is very standard for a FPS at the time and takes place in a medieval dark-fantasy world where there are elves, kings, undead, and magic. One of the weapons in the game is a magical staff. The game was also produced by id’s John Romero and another id team member, Kevin Cloud, helped develop. Raven Software was founded in 1990 and has been very friendly with id. The two companies also had their offices on the same street for a while. A sequel, Hexen: Beyond Heretic, was released in 1995 with the same engine and was also produced by Romero and developed with the help of Cloud. Tectonic Shifts Going into 1996, id Software took another grand step forward for themselves, which was a giant leap for the gaming world, continuing the developer’s groundbreaking influence in the FPS genre. With one of the first full 3D FPS engines, Quake was released on June 22, 1996. The plot is quite similar to Doom. You are a lone survivor known as “Ranger” and you have to deal with the consequences of mistakes made on earth because of research on a portal called a Slipgate. The Slipgate is hijacked by an enemy from another dimension, codenamed Quake, sending death squads through the portal. Ranger must explore four dimensions (the games four episodes consisting of a total of 26 levels, plus four secret levels) to find four magic runes to stop the invasion. The game takes inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft having bosses named Chthon and Shub-Niggurath, and has a dark atmosphere with Gothic and medieval motifs with a lot of rusted metal, stone, shadows, and blood. Additionally, the creepy and dark ambient soundtrack was created by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. The gameplay at its base is really just the core of what first person shooters have been since Wolfenstein 3D. You go around the map while killing monsters, finding keys, and opening lockeddoors to make your way further. It was the new true 3D engine combined with the dark artwork and moody atmosphere that made this game really stand out in the single player experience. For example, what was really new and awesome to me as a 10-year-old was how the objects and dead bodies didn’t turn around with you – they could be seen 360 degrees around. You could also jump and swim. The enemies also died in a few different ways, such as falling forward, backward, or gibbing with 3D guts and body parts. Being 3D, the engine allowed for mouse-look. However, John Romero thought that is was too new and too advanced for the time when people were used to games like Doom, so he had it turned off as a default. I had no idea about it, either. Instead of WASD/mouse at the time, I used the arrow keys to move and CTRL to shoot. The multiplayer for Quake was an evolution to something already extremely popular with Doom and was the reason why Quake became so popular. An important asset of the multiplayer was the ability for Quake to be played via TCP/IP (online) rather than only through LAN. Modes included co-op where you could go through the single player game with other people and Deathmatch (including free for all and team) which was the main draw. Quake was the first FPS to have bots in multiplayer and it was where rocket jumping – when a player with full health and armor would use the thrust of launching a rocket toward the ground to jump high to evade other players and access places made specifically for that technique – became known. Specific levels for Deathmatch (instead of only using single player maps for multiplayer) were created because of Tim Willits. At the time, according to Willits, the rest of the id team thought that creating the maps would be a waste of time. They, of course, were wrong. The popularity of Quake spawned an annual convention called QuakeCon in 1996 – the Woodstock of gaming – where fans would bring their own computers to Dallas, Texas to compete not only with Quake, but other id games. Adding Steam to the Engine The Quake engine was used and modified for an then-unknown developer known as Valve Software. That modified engine is called GoldSrc and is what the massively popular Half-Life, released November 8, 1998, was built on. This, too, revitalized the FPS genre with its continuous narrative rather than level and episode based design. The story is also woven into the gameplay as characters would interact and events would occur around you without taking the player out of the game. The multiplayer and modding community kept Half-Life alive for years and the engine was used by a modder to create the massively popular Counter-Strike. Raven Software’s Hexen II uses a modified version of the Quake engine and was released on August 31, 1997. Separate Ways After the release of Quake in 1996, John Romero was fired from id Software. He and another id co-founder, Tom Hall, established Ion Storm on November 15, 1996. Romero headed the development of the infamously disastrous Daikatana. The game was originally going to use the Quake engine and was slated to release in late 1997. However, Quakes content outside of the engine took id’s seasoned nine-person team six months to build, and Romero sought to build Daikatana with a new team of eight in seven months. John Carmack thought that this plan was “patently ridiculous” and, it turns out, he was right. Daikatana was finally released on May 24, 2000 to commercial failure. Tom Hall, however, was head of developed of a much more warmly received PC game called Anachronox, released on June 27, 2001. Romero’s and Hall’s division of Ion Storm in Dallas, Texas was closed in 2001 largely due to the failure of Daikatana. The lasting legacy of Ion Storm was created at the Austen, Texas branch. Deus Ex, a unique FPS/RPG hybrid Directed by Warren Spector, was released for PC on June 17, 2000. A Taste of the Library Thus Far It wasn’t until late 1996 that I was able to play Doom and Heretic at home on my own computer. Earlier in the year, my father bought a Pentium 120 and it opened a much wider range of games – the only problem was getting them because at 10-years-old, I had no money of my own. Luckily, there was still cheaply sold Shareware and, wow, did id Software release a generous helping of it with the Shareware version of Quake. As a bonus along with Quake, the CD contained the id Stuff store. This had the Shareware versions of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Heretic as well as advertising games like Hexen and Doom II. The full games were contained on this disc, but you had to unlock them by calling a 1-800 number with your credit card handy, after which you would be given a game key. I didn’t have a credit card (or, again, money) so the Shareware versions sufficed for the time being. id Marches On Quake II launched the next year on December 9, 1997. However, it is only a sequel in name because this installment has a new story, setting, as well as engine. The setting is a gritty science-fiction instead of a dark Gothic fantasy this time around. You, as the player, are Bitterman; a lone soldier that has survived a disastrous counter-strike attack on the Strogg planet, which was an attempt at stopping the Strogg from invading earth. Now, it’s up to Bitterman to fight through the Strogg stronghold and kill the leader of the Strogg; The Makron. A striking difference at first is the beginning cutscene and cutscenes between levels. The levels are called “units” and have mission objectives that can be tracked by pressing F1 unlike simply finding keys and shooting your way through a maze to find the exit. There is also a hub where you can revisit areas in order to complete certain objectives. The Quake II engine allows for colored lighting and ‘skyboxes’ that helps the world look a lot bigger, allowing for a lot more outdoor environments in addition to larger maps in general. The audio also give a big boost to the world as there are radio transmissions from your military commander, electrical noises from computers on the map, and explosions from airstrikes in the distance accompanied by fighter planes racing overhead. And, instead of Trent Reznor, the music was created by Sonic Mayhem and is loud, heavy metal over ambient. Small, but significant, graphical additions include a damage texture on enemies after they are shot up and interesting death animation like grunts trying to get a few more shots off before dying. There is more than one animation, too. In gameplay, mouselook is also far more necessary and useful than in previous id titles. There is a generous amount of weapons in the game, starting out with an infinite blaster instead of having a melee weapon to begin, and later weapons to pick up including an assault rife, shotgun, super shotgun, chaingun, railgun, hyperblaster, grenade launcher and a BFG10K. The multiplayer is a lot like the original Quake, including a cooperative mode. Deathmatch maps were specifically made, but were distributed by id after release, online, for free. Three Deathmatch maps were made as bonuses specifically for 64 player servers. And, of course, modding kept Quake II popular with people online for years. Two expansions – The Reckoning and Ground Zero – were released a few months apart from each other in 1998. Sharing the Tools of the Trade The Quake II engine was also popular with other developers. On Halloween 1998, Raven Software released Heretic II, a mix of third and first person gameplay, built on a modified version of the engine. On the same day as Heretic II, developer Ritual Entertainment released SiN, which also uses a modified version. Other notable games that used it are Daikatana, Anachronox, and the ultra-violent Soldier of Fortune, released in 2000. Off On Their Own There was a level designer with an odd name working at id since 1993. This man was none other than American McGee, who was fired after Quake II released and then went on to work at Electronic Arts. This led him to creating the cult-hit American McGee’s Alice, released for PC on December 5, 2000. Mike Wilson was another one to go on to even more great things. Wilson was with Marketing and Public Relations for the company since 1994, but left in 1997 to go to be CEO at Ion Storm. However, the next year he left and founded the gaming publishing company Gathering of Developers. In 2009, Wilson founded the publisher Devolver Digital, which published games such as Hotline Miami, The Talos Principle, and the Shadow Warrior remake. Another level designer, Sandy Petersen, left in 1997 and joined Ensemble Studios which is known for the Age of Empires games. One more at this time to leave was business manager Jay Wilbur, who joined Epic Games, the company know for Unreal, Age of Wonders, and Gears of War. “Goons with probes inserted into their pleasure centers; wired up so when they kill someone, they get paroxysms of ecstasy. In essence, customized serial killers. Easy to kill, and they tote shotgun shells. It’s like a little Christmas each time you blow a Grunt away!” – Quake Manual (regarding Grunt enemies) Keeping it Simple Up until this point, the stories and situations of id Software have been mostly the same with themes and ideas crossed over from game-to-game. All of their FPS’ have a lone character trapped amongst dozens and dozens of enemies, and that person must kill those enemies while searching the map for keys, doors, powerups, and exits. The quality of the gameplay and mechanics have always come first with cool artwork, character design, and atmosphere complementary to it. But, in addition to this, id has used types of zombies in each games. In Quake II, some of the Strogg enemies consist of former humans that have been captured and turned into mindless minions. In Quake, grunts are former comrades of Ranger that are, again, drones. Doom has the rifle and shotgun zombies; these enemies are former soldiers on the UAC bases that have been possessed by demons. And, finally, in Wolfenstein 3D, there are zombie guards with guns built into their torsos, created by Dr. Schabbs, whom the player faces at the end of the second episode: Operation Eisenfaust. Forget It, Just Go With Deathmatch With Quake III Arena, released on December 2, 1999, id pretty much eschewed single player and focused on the multiplayer and Deathmatch elements. The game has no story and a different aesthetic than the previous Quake titles. The single player is essentially multiplayer stages with bots. The engine allows for large, open stages, fast movement, and jumping. Quake III competed heavily with Epic Games’ and Digital Extremes’ Unreal Tournament in both the game and with the engine. Many other games in the early 2000s used the Quake III engine, including Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, Soldier of Fortune 2: Double Helix, Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast, Call of Duty, and American McGee’s Alice. On To the Next Century 2004 was a highly notable year for games with boundary-pushing graphics, including Crytek’s Far Cry and Valve’s Half-Life 2. As for id Software, it was their time to shine again. Doom 3 was released on August 3, 2004, and was a significant change of pace from what id has been known for. The story (written by Matthew J. Costello) is, essentially, a far more detailed retelling and reworking of Doom, utilizing far more advanced graphical technology. It is quite reminiscent of Half-Life, with a similar type of prologue to the conflict. Unlike the original, instead of taking place of Mars’ moons, it takes place on Mars itself. The gameplay is much slower with focus on horror elements and monsters coming out of the dark. And, it is very dark. One of the largest complaints about the game at the time was that you couldn’t use a flashlight simultaneously with a weapon. If technology is so advanced to build bases on Mars, why couldn’t they have flashlights attached to armor? Throughout the game, you also pick up audio logs and written documents on PDAs which both advance background of the story and give the player codes for doors and weapon storage. Ultimately, it does have many of id’s hallmarks – including a lone protagonist and zombified former friendlies – as well as its high mark of excellence. Doom 3 really succeeds at delivering a very creepy atmosphere through the top notch graphics, for the time, and the ominous messages left on UAC technicians’ and scientists’ PDAs. The enemies are wonderfully reimagined and the whole thing is extremely faithful to the original, simply molded into a modern story-based horror FPS. An expansion developed externally by Nerve Software, called Resurrection of Evil, was released on April 3, 2005. An enhanced version called the ‘BFG Edition’ was released in 2012 for PC, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360 which includes Doom 3, the expansion, plus the original two game. Some of the enhancements include 16×9 display and a flashlight mounted on your armor. Internal Conflicts The idea of Doom 3 started in June 2000 when John Carmack announced a plan about remaking Doom with new technology. Adrian Carmack and Kevin Cloud were against the idea of remaking the game because they felt that the company made too many games that were so similar. But, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, developed by Nerve Software and released in 2001, did very well and this pushed most of the people at id to want the new Doom. In fact, they were so much in favor that they told Adrian Carmack and Kevin Cloud to fire them if they weren’t allowed to make Doom 3. Obviously, Carmack and Cloud caved in, and Doom 3 was a success. Rebranding the Tech The id game engines up until Doom 3 have been named after the games that they were built for. With the new engine for Doom 3, it was instead decided that it would be called id Tech 4 with previous iterations retroactively named corresponding to the order that they were developed. The Doom engine became id Tech 1, Quake II engine is id Tech 2, and Quake III id Tech 3. The Wolfenstein 3D engine is considered a predecessor and the Quake engine was advanced further into the id Tech 2 engine for Quake II. Like the previous engines, John Carmack was at the lead of development for id Tech 4 and is a heavy reworking and advancement based on its predecessor. The games character models use skeletal animation and blends different animations together to create the effect of things like fabric and skin to move more realistically. Also, other elements could bend, such as metal objects in the environment, when demons jumped out of them. Important for this game’s dark atmosphere, specular hilighting, realtime shadows, and lighting variances were used to create highly dynamic lighting. One problem with the original version of the engine was that it seemed to have problems with large outdoor environments. This problem was later relieved by something called MegaTexture rendering technology, allowing for the creation of gigantic maps, for later games that use this engine. The first game to utilize Megatexture rendering with id Tech 4 was the online-multiplayer game Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, developed by Splash Damage and released on September 28, 2007. Other games to use the engine include Quake 4 (Developed by Raven Software and a sequel to Quake II’s storyline), Prey, Wolfenstein (2009, developed by Raven Software), and Brink. “Apophis Fell, and with it, Doomsday began.” – Tagline for Rage Full Throttle After A Slower Decade After Doom 3, id seemed to go into the shadows for the rest of the 2000’s. They released a free-to-play in-browser version of Quake III in 2010, but didn’t create waves again until their release of a new IP the next year. However, one large business move made in that decade was the acquisition of the company by ZeniMax Media in 2009, which owns Bethesda Softworks. Rage was released on October 4, 2011 and was published by Bethesda. While still being a first person shooter, what the game did differently than previous id titles was having an open world with vehicular combat and racing. There are also safe areas where there isn’t a threat of attack. You can interact with a lot of other friendly characters in these places to buy weapons, ammo, and car upgrades, and get missions, side quests, sign up for racing competitions. Additionally, the gameplay is dynamic with the aforementioned safe areas where you can roam around unharmed, wide open areas to drive from place to place while fighting enemy vehicles, battles in corridor-like areas, and even some need for stealth in a few areas. The story takes place over a century after the of an asteroid called Apophis on August 23, 2029. You are revived from a hibernation in a vault and wake up to a wasteland world resembling that of Mad Max. The first friendly character you meet is voiced by actor John Goodman. Although a big release for titles in 2011, Rage wasn’t as big of a hit relative to id Software’s influence in the 1990’s. Its multiplayer is also a different breed than previous games as it has two modes: one called Wasteland Legends, which is a separate level-based co-op mode for two players, and a competitive mode called Road Rage, that supports up to four players and focuses on car based combat. Fifth Iteration The engine for Rage is id Tech 5, again, with development headed by John Carmack. The engine was first shown off by Carmack at Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference 2007 in San Francisco. Because of the gap in years between id Tech 4 and id Tech 5, this was a very big leap in advancement. For creating the large, open environments need for Rage, it uses an advanced version of MegaTexture, it makes more detailed shadows with soft edges (called penumbra), much more sophisticated lighting, advanced rendering of object movement such as cloth, and high dynamic ranged effects. Also, the engine could be used for games outside of the first person shooter genre. The company did not license the engine for use outside of the ZeniMax umbrella. The only other games to utilize it were Wolfenstein: The New Order (developed by MachineGames) and The Evil Within, which was developed by Tango Gameworks and directed by Resident Evil creator, Shinji Mikami. The opportunities I had aren’t there for people today, but there are new and better ones. And, personally, I’m more excited about these than anything that’s come before… I’m just getting started. – John Carmack, acceptance speech at the 2016 BAFTA awards As It Stands Now id’s next game will be Doom (previously called Doom 4), built on the id Tech 6 engine, being released for PC, Playstation 4, and Xbox One on May 13, 2016 . This title is another reimagining of Doom and hearkens back to the fast action of id’s games of the 1990’s. Keep up with FilmGamesETC for the upcoming review. The only early members left at id are Kevin Cloud and Tim Willits. Adrian Carmack was fired in 2005 due to ownership and legal issues. Todd Hollenshead, id’s president since 1996, left in 2013 by his own choice and on positive terms to pursue other personal interests. Hollenshead is also known as the host of Quakecon to many fans. Finally, one of the most recognizable names, John Carmack, resigned on November 22, 2013 in order to put his focus onto Oculus VR. On March 7, 2016, John Carmack was honored with the BAFTA Fellowship Award, which is the highest honor of the academy. To learn more about the story of John Carmack, John Romero, and the formation of id, read Masters of Doom by David Kushner