Comments on: Erk – Bethesda’s Masters Buy id. Bethidsda?

By: Mr. Brand

Mr. Brand — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:35:42 +0000

Does that imp on the right look like Derek Smart to anyone else?

By: Biz

Biz — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:07:58 +0000

new interview here:
http://venturebeat.com/2009/06/25/the-big-game-deal-why-ids-john-carmack-shelved-his-ego-and-sold-out-to-zenimax/

“We started talking about this before they rolled out Fallout 3.”
id has 105 employees (want to ramp up from that)
want a 3rd big team (1. RAGE, 2. DOOM, 3. ???)
quake live guys will work on multiplayer for RAGE and DOOM

By: gryffinp

gryffinp — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:08:20 +0000

I feel I should point out that for Zenimax to have purchased Valve would require Valve to want to sell itself. That would require it to not be making money. Considering that Valve owns Steam, that state of affairs seems unlikely.

[/offtopic]

By: BooleanBob

BooleanBob — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:41:31 +0000

Carmack’s reasoning seems straightforward enough. To be honest I would be more concerned if it was Valve that this was happening to; id’s recent titles have left been, as Alec said, mediocre at best. If you want to make a symbolic, sentimentalist reading of it I guess it’s a shame that another of the great shareware giants has lost trouser-wearing rights in the bedroom. First 3DR, now id… at least Epic are still going strong, the ever-looming, shadowy hand of Microsoft aside.

Although I’d much rather see them make Jazz Jackrabbit 3 then Gears of Homoerotica 3 at this point.

@Dsmart: A bold predicition. Care to elaborate on the reasoning behind it?

By: dsmart

dsmart — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:23:18 +0000

Well, I think we can all agree that given the direction of the industry, more consolidation was immiment and expected. That the next target would be iD, kinda threw me though and I almost picked up the phone to call John, then I saw his comments on Kotaku.

But he is in fact quite right; it is concerning to have to compete with your own publisher (Activision, EA) in terms of resources, attention etc. e.g. Activision is out trumping up MW2 as the next best thing since sliced bread, while hardly doing much buzz about the upcoming Wolfenstein.

Since ZM have pretty much left Bethesda alone since acquiring them, this is business as usual and I don’t expect them to meddle with iD at all. Why tinker with what works?

All this fanboy chomping is just pure rubbish. But hey, whats another week without meds required dialog among friends?

My prediction is that outside of WoW, Activision is going to go the way of THQ et al in the next few years. Mark my words.

By: Whiskey Jak

Whiskey Jak — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:16:25 +0000

Pretty good news IMO. One respectable company getting financial support from another respectable company, I have absolutely no problem with that.

And for the Oblivion/Fallout3 haters, I highly doubt that Howard and co will have any kind of input in id games if Hollenshead and Carmak don’t want to have it.

And what if Beth actually has something to say about id’s games? Well I actually had more fun with Beth’s games than id’s games lately so you won’t see me complaining.

By: Chis

Chis — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:50:16 +0000

@Patrick:

“This coincides pretty well with all of the talent leaving Bethesda like Ken Rolson and Chris Weaver, who created Arena, Daggerfall, and the whole TES universe, and replacing with Todd Howard and his ilk, who are adept at fucking up the IP of others (but making it pretty!).”

Now, I do enjoy Morrowind – since then Beth have seemed content to release uninspired banality – but I DID find Daggerfall even more inspiring, inspired and FUN than Morrowind and Oblivion. It cries out for a high-resolution hack of some sort, but it’s still quite playable.

But yes, is this why Beth games have become so bland? Where did those guys end up?

By: The Sombrero Kid

The Sombrero Kid — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:24:43 +0000

yeah, it’s more proof if more were needed that the industry’s heading down that generic mass appeal every game the same route, with the identity being taken out of the teams making the games, however i reckon it’s a positive thing zenimax seem to be very cool about their developers, bearing in mind they were happy to plod along with all those medicorely successful elder scrolls games

By: pkt-zer0

pkt-zer0 — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:36:41 +0000

So, 10$ map packs are going to be standard for Doom 4, now? Hurrgh.

By: Hmm-Hmm.

Hmm-Hmm. — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:35:40 +0000

It’ll be interesting to see what this changes (other than the financial picture) for id. And for Bethesda, perhaps.

By: Crispy

Crispy — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:24:55 +0000

This must have been in the works for a while. Bethesda publishing Splash Damage’s id-tech game Brink doesn’t seem so strange now.

By: Subject 706

Subject 706 — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:21:16 +0000

Since both ID and Bethesdas newer games have mediocrity incarnate, I don’t see how things could get worse. I mean, how can you dumb down Doom?