QUAKE'S LEGACY
The red Ferrari is idle. id Software's John Carmack simply doesn't have much time for tearing up Dallas's LBJ Freeway - he's retooling his famed game engine in preparation for the release of the latest Quake sequel.
With the rollout of Quake III Arena for Windows, MacOS, and Linux this spring, Carmack is taking a big risk - ditching the first-person formula that has defined his $28.3 million company. "Being safe all the time isn't necessarily the best path," he explains.
The way id's cofounder sees it, Doom and Quake suffered from catering to the conflicting demands of single-player and multiplayer gaming. Arena focuses solely on multiplayer death matches on the Net.
"We definitely are going to lose some people here," admits the lanky coder, "especially those who like the more calculating single-player style."
Carmack promises that Arena will play like nothing else. While most of the advances, like a new networking scheme, are under the hood, "People will notice the curved, organic surfaces, which weren't possible in previous polygonal worlds."
Tim Sweeney, president of Epic Megagames and lead programmer of first-person game Unreal, agrees: "id is largely focusing on increasing polygon counts - the smooth, curved surfaces in the Quake III Arena screenshots look awesome."
In many ways, Carmack had to innovate. With 5.5 million copies of Doom and Quake distributed, the id franchise is the most successful in gaming history. But today, a lot of companies make Doom knockoffs. And though few can match Carmack's skill, advances in hardware mean fewer programming tricks are needed to make a kick-ass kill zone.
"The guys at id are taking a risk," says Mike Wilson, former id exec and current CEO of game publisher Gathering of Developers. "They might sell more units if they'd back down on the tech a bit, but that's not the id way."
Carmack has always bet future profits on better technology. And whether or not Arena breaks new sales records, Wilson believes it's sure to break new ground. "Carmack has no peers," he says. "Period."
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