John Carmack, co-founder of id Software, felt “welcome” at QuakeCon 2023

14 August, 2023

John Carmack, one of the most influential figures in the games industry in the 1990s, has said how happy he felt to be “welcome” at QuakeCon 2023.

Carmack, who hadn’t attended the convention in approximately a decade, praised the event as an energetic celebration of all things id Software and other studios owned by ZeniMax Media.

The programmer was one of the co-founders of id Software in 1991 with John Romero, Tom Hall and Adrian Carmack. His involvement in the development of DOOM, Quake and Wolfenstein introduced novel techniques for improving and streamlining computer graphics. These would then be used in first-person shooters such as Half-Life, Call Of Duty and Medal Of Honor.

In 2013, Carmack became the chief technical officer at Oculus. He accused ZeniMax Media of blocking id Software’s games from being on the virtual reality platform, and the programmer was then central in a lawsuit between ZeniMax and Oculus over theft of intellectual property.

ZeniMax claimed that “any technology contributions Carmack had made towards VR while he was still an employee of id Software” belonged to it. On the other hand, Oculus responded and said that “there is not a line of ZeniMax code or any of its technology in any Oculus VR product”.

Though the case was settled with a private out-of-court agreement, Carmack sued ZeniMax separately on the alleged grounds that he had not been paid $22 million from their purchase of id Software. In 2018, the lawsuit was dropped as Carmack stated that “ZeniMax has fully satisfied their obligations to [him]” as the two reached a resolution.

“It was great to meet some of the new devs in the id Software family — I wish you all the best carrying on the legacy!” said Carmack in the post to X.

In other gaming news, Rainbow Six Siege‘s newest operator is Ram, a destructive attacker who wields an armoured drone that destroys floors, barricades and Defender traps.

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