id co-founder John Carmack leaves company

John Carmack, co-founder of id Software and co-creator of Doom, Wolfenstein and Quake, has announced that he has left the company he co-founded on Twitter. According to Carmack’s Tweet, “I wanted to remain a technical adviser for Id, but it just didn’t work out. Probably for the best, as the divided focus was challenging.”

This was subsequently followed by a statement issued by id Software and Bethesda Game Studios to IGN. “John Carmack, who has become interested in focusing on things other than game development at id, has resigned from the studio. John’s work on id Tech 5 and the technology for the current development work at id is complete, and his departure will not affect any current projects. We are fortunate to have a brilliant group of programmers at id who worked with John and will carry on id’s tradition of making great games with cutting-edge technology. As colleagues of John for many years, we wish him well.” – Tim Willits, Studio Director, id Software.

This has come in the heels of John Carmack being announced as the Occulus CTO, with Bethesda at the time saying, “John has long been interested in the work at Oculus VR and wishes to spend time on that project. The technical leadership he provides for games in development at id Software is unaffected. John will spend time working out of Oculus as part of his role with them, but he will also continue to work at id.”

This year has been especially turbulent for id Software, with then-software president Todd Hollenshead departing the company earlier in June after serving with id Software for 13 years, and ZeniMax allegedly cancelling Rage 2 and having id Software refocus on Doom 4, according to Kotaku.