Why would a game god care about mobile?

Kristin Kalning Games editor • E-mail

John Carmack has made millions pushing the high end in video games.

As the technical director at id Software, he’s responsible for the coding wizardry behind such massive brands as “Wolfenstein,” “Quake” and “Doom.” The game engines he builds have made the company, which he co-founded in 1991, millions in licensing fees.

Recently, Carmack and his wife, Katherine Anna Kang, announced that her game development company, Fountainhead Entertainment, would be renamed id Mobile, with plans to release up to four new mobile and handheld titles in just one year. The former Fountainhead has already seen success with “Doom RPG,” a mobile-phone title that riffed off id’s blockbuster “Doom” franchise, as well as an original title, “Orcs and Elves.”

But hard-core “Quake” fans needn’t fret: Carmack isn’t spurning PC games for mobile. Rather, he hopes his efforts will cover both ends of the spectrum, with brands such as “Doom” and the upcoming “Rage” at the top end – and less ambitious, less expensive titles like “Orcs and Elves” at the low end.

Carmack also says that the name change makes it easier for id Mobile, which has Kang at the helm, to deal with mobile carriers. It also helps her attract talented people — read programmers — who might otherwise turn their noses up at mobile.

“When people go into game development, they envision themselves working on the latest and greatest 360 title,” he says. “When you try and convince them that mobile games are cool…that hasn’t gone over very well.”

I spoke with both Carmack and Kang in advance of their announcement. The following is an excerpt from that conversation, where the duo discussed the new company’s aggressive development plans, whether new intellectual properties might emerge first on cell phones — and whether marital sway played a major part in id going mobile.

Will you guys be developing new IPs on mobile first and then porting to PC and console?

Carmack: Our first experiment with that is ongoing right now. Our first mobile title was “Doom RPG,” which used the highly popular “Doom” brand. But we also pioneered a new style of gameplay with that. “Orcs and Elves” was the first new IP for id Software since “Quake.” We’re working on a big new IP with “Rage,” on the cross platform stuff. But while we’ve been stuck on the “Rage” development for a couple of years, we just went out and did something brand new on the mobile side.

There’s a lot of people who are really watching closely how ("Orcs and Elves" on the DS) is going to go over. If it turns out to be even a modest success there, in a land normally dominated by first-party Nintendo titles or toy or movie licenses…that would be a really positive sign that you really can bring something in from the bottom up.

Id is well known for its shooters. Is id going to continue to develop shooters for the PC and the console, or is that ceasing to happen after “Rage?”

Kang:  Id Software is going to be a completely separate division [from] id Mobile. Id Software is going to continue to focus on the triple-A, top-of-the-line, pushing-the-envelope technology. But the idea behind… id Mobile is that John has so many game ideas, and it’s not so great to get one idea in every four years. With id Mobile…we’re able to possibly get four games within a year and possibly try out different game ideas and see how they work in the public eye. And he’s able to really maximize the experimental, “these are the games I wish I had time to do…” with…mobile.

Carmack: I’m really pleased with the fact that…as we’ve gone from “Doom RPG” to “Orcs and Elves” to “Orcs and Elves 2,” if you run through and play the games back to back, you’d see this really solid evolution of quality in all the game play experience as you move from one to the other. All of that happened during the same time that we were toiling away on our one big game on the high-end.

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