Media Moguls Pick Up id Software

The big daddy of all 3D FPS game studios, id Software, has been acquired by ZeniMax Media - the media company run by Jerry Bruckheimer (himself), Robert Altman (not that one) and Harry Sloan (CEO of MGM).

As a result of being brought into the Zenimax fold, the id Software franchises will be published under the Bethesda Softworks label, and games development will be done under one roof, as John Carmack has put it. This means Fallout 3, Quake, Doom and Elder Scrolls IV as one big happy family. Activision will retain the Wolfenstein distribution, though.

The sale isn't a fortuitous alignment of stars in the night sky or a bet lost at poker, id Software is using this to get ahead of the game when it comes to publishing its own titles and retaining some control over development and distribution. It is widely known that id Software had kept itself out of the distribution game due to past experiences, including a cash offer from Activision. Zenimax's vision of id Software and how they want things to work seems to have pleased the bosses at id, however.

No joint projects were announced just now, as it seems it's business as usual, although it wouldn't surprise us if Fallout 4 or Elder Scrolls V came out with a bag load of id tricks.  You might ask what this has to do with hardware. We can honestly say that it's greatly due to the work of John Carmack and id Software in the Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake series of games that 3D hardware is what it is today.

Carmack will, hopefully, continue to drive 3D game engine development for years to come, only this time controlling its own intellectual property from within the Zenimax mothership. We'll probably benchmark more than a few CPUs and GPUs on the next generation 3D engine the company comes up with.