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102-457: QuakeCon is a yearly convention held by ZeniMax Media to celebrate and promote the major franchises of id Software and other studios owned by ZeniMax. It includes a large, paid, bring-your-own-computer ( BYOC ) LAN party event with a competitive tournament held every year in Dallas , Texas , USA. The event, which is named after id Software's game Quake , sees thousands of gamers from all over

204-458: A Return to Castle Wolfenstein movie is in development which re-teams the Silent Hill writer/producer team, Roger Avary as writer and director and Samuel Hadida as producer. A new Doom film, titled Doom: Annihilation , was released in 2019, although id itself stressed its lack of involvement. id Software was the target of controversy over two of their most popular games, Doom and

306-471: A first-person shooter (FPS) with smooth 3D graphics that were unprecedented in computer games, and with violent gameplay that many gamers found engaging. After essentially founding an entire genre with this game, id Software created Doom , Doom II: Hell on Earth , Quake , Quake II , Quake III Arena , Quake 4 , and Doom 3 . Each of these first-person shooters featured progressively higher levels of graphical technology. Wolfenstein 3D spawned

408-519: A non-disclosure agreement . ZeniMax was awarded $ 500 million. In the meantime, ProSiebenSat.1 Media had sold its stake in ZeniMax back to the company for €30 million. In September 2020, Microsoft announced it had entered into an agreement to acquire ZeniMax and its subsidiaries for $ 7.5 billion. For Providence Equity Partners, the deal represented a six-time return on investment. Altman had considered selling ZeniMax for several years and at one point

510-509: A 12.5% stake in ZeniMax as part of a partnership between the two companies. Among the partnerships between the companies, ZeniMax's subsidiary e-Nexus Studios developed entertainment portals and websites for SBS. In the same year, Terry McAuliffe , George Mitchell , Dean Devlin , and Jon Feltheimer joined ZeniMax as advisors. The company acquired the Fallout franchise from Interplay Entertainment in 2004. In August 2007, ZeniMax announced

612-496: A European ship date of September 15, 2011. During the keynote, id Software also demonstrated a Rage spin-off title running on the iPhone . This technology demo later became Rage HD . The game was ultimately released in October 2011. On May 14, 2018, Bethesda Softworks announced Rage 2 , a co-development between id Software and Avalanche Studios . During its early days, id Software produced much more varied games; these include

714-547: A Linux client available, the only current exceptions being Wolfenstein and Brink . Similarly, almost all of the games utilizing the Quake II engine have Linux ports, the only exceptions being those created by Ion Storm ( Daikatana later received a community port ). Despite fears by the Linux gaming community that id Tech 5 would not be ported to that platform, Timothee Besset in his blog stated "I'll be damned if we don't find

816-486: A comprehensive educational program of guest lectures and internships. In May 2014, ZeniMax sent a letter to Facebook and its Oculus VR subsidiary, asserting that any contributions John Carmack made to the Oculus Rift project were the intellectual property of ZeniMax, stating that "ZeniMax provided necessary VR technology and other valuable assistance to Palmer Luckey and other Oculus employees in 2012 and 2013 to make

918-405: A cultural phenomenon and its violent theme would eventually launch a new wave of criticism decrying the dangers of violence in video games. Doom was ported to numerous platforms, inspired many knock-offs, and was eventually followed by the technically similar Doom II: Hell on Earth . id Software made its mark in video game history with the shareware release of Doom , and eventually revisited

1020-493: A few modifications. Due to the limited features and relatively low sound quality, modern games no longer use IMF music. A large number of songs in id Software's early games (such as Commander Keen and Wolfenstein 3D ) were composed by Bobby Prince in IMF format. Other game developers like Apogee Software also used this format in their games (such as Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure , Duke Nukem II , and Monster Bash ). id Software

1122-883: A leading supporter of the Linux platform because we believe it is a technically sound OS and is the OS of choice for many server ops." However, on April 25, 2012, Carmack revealed that "there are no plans for a native Linux client" of id's most recent game, Rage . In February 2013, Carmack argued for improving emulation as the "proper technical direction for gaming on Linux", though this was also due to ZeniMax's refusal to support "unofficial binaries", given all prior ports (except for Quake III Arena , via Loki Software , and earlier versions of Quake Live ) having only ever been unofficial. Carmack didn't mention official games Quake: The Offering and Quake II: Colossus ported by id Software to Linux and published by Macmillan Computer Publishing USA. Despite no longer releasing native binaries, id

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1224-419: A live performances by The Sinus Show , and Tweaker , featuring Chris Vrenna , former Nine Inch Nails drummer. This year also saw another significant change in leadership, as a result of an injury to Brian Davis just weeks before the event. Aaron "Alric" Ferguson was appointed to fill in for Tapper at the last minute. QuakeCon 2005 was another large event which saw the unveiling of Quake 4 multiplayer. It

1326-466: A lowercase id , which is pronounced as in "did" or "kid", and, according to the book Masters of Doom , the group identified itself as "Ideas from the Deep" in the early days of Softdisk but that, in the end, the name 'id' came from the phrase "in demand". Disliking "in demand" as "lame", someone suggested a connection with Sigmund Freud 's psychological concept of id , which the others accepted. Evidence of

1428-474: A major role in the organization. Recognizing that major sponsors were needed, David Miller a.k.a. "Wino" & Paul Horoky a.k.a. "devilseye", both original QuakeCon 1996 people, contacted id Software and convinced them to become the main sponsor, and to help out with finding more sponsors. Together with Anna Kang (then id Software employee, now John Carmack 's wife) and a team of volunteers, Mr. Miller & Mr. Horoky set out to build QuakeCon 1999, which became

1530-527: A month, a much shorter timeline than prior years. The first QuakeCon to feature a Team Deathmatch tournament. It was the first event to include the Nvidia Quickdraw tournaments, which pulled random people from the BYOC area to compete for 1,000 dollars. At QuakeCon 2007, Aaron "Alric" Ferguson continued in the role of executive director for this event, which sported a 5x increase in vendor space (25,000 sq ft) over

1632-659: A period of school shootings in the United States when it was found that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold , who committed the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, were avid players of the game. While planning for the massacre, Harris said that the killing would be "like playing Doom ", and "it'll be like the LA riots , the Oklahoma bombing , World War II , Vietnam , Duke Nukem and Doom all mixed together", and that his shotgun

1734-426: A prequel and a sequel: the prequel called Spear of Destiny , and the second, Return to Castle Wolfenstein , using the id Tech 3 engine . A third Wolfenstein sequel, simply titled Wolfenstein , was released by Raven Software , using the id Tech 4 engine . Another sequel, named Wolfenstein: The New Order ; was developed by MachineGames using the id Tech 5 engine and released in 2014, with it getting

1836-578: A prequel by the name of Wolfenstein: The Old Blood a year later; followed by a direct sequel titled Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus in 2017. Eighteen months after their release of Wolfenstein 3D , on December 10, 1993, id Software released Doom which would again set new standards for graphic quality and graphic violence in computer gaming. Doom featured a sci-fi / horror setting with graphic quality that had never been seen on personal computers or even video game consoles . Doom became

1938-646: A side-scrolling game that incorporated the previous work they had done on the Super Mario Bros. 3 demonstration. The first Commander Keen game, Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons , was released through Apogee in December 1990, which became a very successful shareware game. After their first royalty check, Romero, Carmack, and Adrian Carmack (no relation) decided to start their own company. After hiring Hall,

2040-512: A small group they called Ideas from the Deep (IFD), a name that Romero and Roathe had come up with. In September 1990, Carmack developed an efficient way to rapidly side-scroll graphics on the PC . Upon making this breakthrough, Carmack and Hall stayed up late into the night making a replica of the first level of the popular 1988 NES game Super Mario Bros. 3 , inserting stock graphics of Romero's Dangerous Dave character in lieu of Mario. When Romero saw

2142-626: A yearly keynote speech that lasted through 2013. QuakeCon 1997 brought an estimated 650 attendees to the Holiday Inn in Plano, Texas . It was covered by numerous Internet and broadcast media outlets, and was sponsored in part by id Software and Activision. QuakeCon 1998 was held in conjunction with the Cyberathlete Professional League at Infomart in Dallas, Texas. Due to poor planning and

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2244-507: Is an audio file format created by id Software for the AdLib sound card for use in their video games. The format is similar to MIDI , in that it defines musical notes, and does not support sampled digital audio for sound effects. IMF files store the actual bytes sent to the AdLib's OPL2 chip, which uses FM synthesis to produce audio output. The format is based on the AdLib command syntax, with

2346-764: Is an American video game holding company based in Rockville, Maryland . The company was founded in 1999 by Christopher Weaver and Robert A. Altman as the parent company for Weaver's video game publisher Bethesda Softworks . The company additionally owns the development studios Bethesda Game Studios ( The Elder Scrolls , Fallout , and Starfield ), id Software ( Doom , Quake , and Rage ), Arkane Studios ( Dishonored , Prey , and Redfall ), MachineGames ( Wolfenstein ), and ZeniMax Online Studios ( The Elder Scrolls Online ). Microsoft acquired ZeniMax Media for $ 8.1 billion in March 2021 and operates it under

2448-468: Is primarily paid for by ZeniMax Media and fees paid by attendees in conjunction with the sponsorship of leading technology companies. Past sponsors of the event include Activision , nVidia , AMD , Aspyr , ASUS , Ventrilo , Apple , ATI Technologies , AT&T Inc. , Alienware , Ageia , 1UP Network , FragArcade , Intel , D-Link , Logitech , Linksys , Spike TV , Newegg.com and Lucent Technologies . ZeniMax Media ZeniMax Media Inc.

2550-595: The Atari Jaguar version was confiscated following a verdict by the Amtsgericht Berlin Tiergarten on December 7, 1994. The Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle lifted the outright ban in 2018 in favor of analysing depictions on a case-by-case basis, and the international version of the game was removed from the list of banned titles in 2019. Due to concerns from Nintendo of America, the Super NES version

2652-498: The Doom series Doom novels . After a brief hiatus from publishing, id resumed and re-launched the novel series in 2008 with Matthew J. Costello 's (a story consultant for Doom 3 and now Rage ) new Doom 3 novels: Worlds on Fire and Maelstrom . id Software became involved in film development when they oversaw the film adaption of their Doom franchise in 2005. In August 2007, Todd Hollenshead stated at QuakeCon 2007 that

2754-468: The EFnet IRC network, in channel #quake. As various regular visitors to the channel began expressing a desire to meet and game together in person, Jim "H2H" Elson, a gamer from the Dallas area with ties to the local Dallas-area gaming community, and Yossarian "yossman" Holmberg, a computer consultant from Waterloo , Ontario , Canada, came up with the idea of assembling at a hotel. The original event name

2856-581: The Keen engine, but also how it worked internally. id Software has developed their own game engine for each of their titles when moving to the next technological milestone, including Commander Keen , Wolfenstein 3D , ShadowCaster , Doom , Quake , Quake II , and Quake III , as well as the technology used in making Doom 3 . After being used first for id Software's in-house game, the engines are licensed out to other developers. According to Eurogamer.net , "id Software has been synonymous with PC game engines since

2958-651: The Microsoft Gaming division. Christopher Weaver , the founder of the video game publisher Bethesda Softworks , and Robert A. Altman , a lawyer, founded ZeniMax Media in 1999. The name is a portmanteau of "zenith" and "maximum". The company was established to succeed Media Technology Limited as the parent company of Bethesda Softworks. Weaver brought Altman onboard as the chief executive officer , contributing his stock in Bethesda Softworks so that ZeniMax Media would be able to obtain funding. Weaver served as

3060-464: The PC (running MS-DOS and Windows ), including work done for the Wolfenstein , Doom , and Quake franchises at the time. id's work was particularly important in 3D computer graphics technology and in game engines that are used throughout the video game industry . The company was involved in the creation of the first-person shooter (FPS) genre: Wolfenstein 3D is often considered to be

3162-518: The chief technology officer from 1999 to 2002, when he moved into a non-executive role. Later that year, he filed a lawsuit against ZeniMax, alleging breach of contract and claiming he was owed US$ 1.2 million in severance pay. By February 2007, Weaver only held a 33% stake in the company, which by 2020 had been reduced to "a pittance of the stock". Among the original board members were Harry E. Sloan , Les Moonves , and Robert Trump . In 2000, SBS Broadcasting Group , operated by Sloan, acquired

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3264-572: The demo , entitled Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement , he realized that Carmack's breakthrough could have potential. The IFD team moonlighted over a week and over two weekends to create a larger demo of their PC version of Super Mario Bros. 3 . They sent their work to Nintendo . According to Romero, Nintendo had told them that the demo was impressive, but "they didn't want their intellectual property on anything but their own hardware, so they told us Good Job and You Can't Do This". While

3366-674: The swastika and the anthem of the Nazi Party , Horst-Wessel-Lied , as theme music, the PC version of the game was withdrawn from circulation in Germany in 1994, following a verdict by the Amtsgericht München on January 25, 1994. Despite the fact that Nazis are portrayed as the enemy in Wolfenstein , the use of those symbols is a federal offense in Germany unless certain circumstances apply. Similarly,

3468-558: The 1990s). They continued this policy with the Wii U but for Nintendo Switch , they collaborated with Panic Button starting with 2016's Doom and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus . Since id Software revealed their engine id Tech 5 , they call their engines " id Tech ", followed by a version number. Older engines have retroactively been renamed to fit this scheme, with the Doom engine as id Tech 1. IMF ("id music file" or "id's music format")

3570-479: The 2006 event, 7,000 sq ft (650 m). total event space, and the return of the popular "Quick Draw" tournaments for all general attendees. The second public beta of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars was released to BYOC attendees on the first day of the event. There were just two featured tournaments, both with $ 50,000 purses, and both sponsored by NVIDIA: ET:QW, and the new Quad Damage Tournament, which combined all four Quake games into one competition. The event

3672-403: The 3D technology that underlies modern shooter video games. The Quake series continued with Quake II in 1997. Activision purchased a 49% stake in id Software, making it a second party which took publishing duties until 2009. However, the game is not a storyline sequel, and instead focuses on an assault on an alien planet, Stroggos, in retaliation for Strogg attacks on Earth . Most of

3774-474: The Gaylord Texan Resort Hotel and Convention Center. Like the year before, Quakecon 2009 had both 1v1 and CTF tournaments for Quake Live . The notable difference with this year's tournaments was two separate 1v1 competitions, one for only pro players, and the other was open to everyone else. This was a much appreciated feature from the community because there was no longer as many blow out games in

3876-586: The Internet (especially through the add-on QuakeWorld ), seared the title into the minds of gamers as another smash hit. In 2008, id Software was honored at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for the pioneering work Quake represented in user modifiable games. id Software is the only game development company ever honored twice by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences , having been given an Emmy Award in 2007 for creation of

3978-700: The Oculus Rift a viable VR product, superior to other VR market offerings." The company filed a lawsuit against Oculus VR later that month. In June, Oculus VR filed a response to the lawsuit, stating that ZeniMax was falsely claiming ownership to take advantage of its acquisition by Facebook. Oculus VR also claimed that the Oculus Rift did not share any code or technology with ZeniMax's. A jury ruled in favor of ZeniMax in February 2017. They found that, while Oculus VR had not misappropriated ZeniMax's trade secrets, it had violated ZeniMax's copyrights and trademarks in addition to

4080-666: The PSP, the Nintendo DS and more. Impressive core modifications include GZDoom , which adds to the Doom engine modern hardware accelerared renderers and a scripting system called ZScript, and was also utilized in the creation of ECWolf for Wolfenstein 3D and Raze for the Build engine . Meanwhile DarkPlaces adds stencil shadow volumes into the original Quake engine along with a more efficient network protocol. Other projects include Yamagi Quake II , ioquake3 , and dhewm3 , which maintain

4182-455: The acquisition. Microsoft announced the completion of the acquisition on March 9, 2021. The final cost of the transaction was $ 8.1 billion. ZeniMax's board of directors was consequently dissolved. 300 QA testers , a majority at ZeniMax Studios voted to unionize as ZeniMax Workers United-CWA in January 2023. This follows the unionization efforts of QA testers at Activision Blizzard which

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4284-704: The concept of a detached game engine was first popularized". During the mid to late 1990s, "the launch of each successive round of technology it's been expected to occupy a headlining position", with the Quake III engine being most widely adopted of their engines. However id Tech 4 had far fewer licensees than the Unreal Engine from Epic Games , due to the long development time that went into Doom 3 which id Software had to release before licensing out that engine to others. Despite his enthusiasm for open source code, Carmack revealed in 2011 that he had no interest in licensing

4386-616: The dates and venue for the next QuakeCon before the current year's event was even finished. QuakeCon 2008 marked the debut of the first-ever Quake Live 1v1 and CTF tournaments. (sponsored by Intel) As well as the Activision Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars Team Championships (featuring competitions on both PC and for the first time on Xbox 360), The Alienware Quick-Draw Challenge, and the QuakeCon Ultimate Power Up. QuakeCon 2009 returned to

4488-741: The decently popular Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion . In the Haunted Mansion was powered by the same engine as the earlier id Software game Shadow Knights , which was one of the several games written by id Software to fulfill their contractual obligation to produce games for Softdisk , where the id Software founders had been employed. id Software has also overseen several games using its technology that were not made in one of their IPs such as ShadowCaster , (early- id Tech 1 ), Heretic , Hexen: Beyond Heretic (id Tech 1), Hexen II ( Quake engine ), and Orcs and Elves ( Doom RPG engine). id Software has also published novels based on

4590-450: The earlier Wolfenstein 3D . More recently in 2022, id Software found themselves mired in a controversy concerning libel against Doom Eternal's composer. Doom was notorious for its high levels of gore and occultism along with satanic imagery, which generated controversy from a broad range of groups. Yahoo! Games listed it as one of the top ten most controversial games of all time. The game again sparked controversy throughout

4692-522: The early 3D first-person shooter experiments that led to Wolfenstein 3D and Doom – Hovertank 3D and Catacomb 3D . There was also the Rescue Rover series, which had two games – Rescue Rover and Rescue Rover 2 . Also there was John Romero 's Dangerous Dave series, which included such notables as the tech demo ( In Copyright Infringement ) which led to the Commander Keen engine, and

4794-424: The eve of the last day, when the entire id Software team showed up at the event in a surprise and most-welcome visit, stopping by to chat with the participants. John Carmack , lead programmer for Doom / Quake , participated in a 30–45 min. group chat with attendees on the porch of the hotel. Some ideas discussed during that chat eventually made it into Quake's future public releases. This "Carmack's Talk" grew into

4896-583: The exhibitor area. QuakeCon 2004 took place at the Gaylord Texan Resort Hotel and Convention Center in Texas. Yet another change of venue brought QuakeCon into the record books as the largest LAN party in North America, with over 3000 BYOC attendees. Tournaments prizes totaled over $ 150,000 and saw the world's first Official Doom 3 Tournament, won by Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel . The event also had

4998-438: The first part of their trilogy as shareware, then sell the other two installments by mail order . Only later (about the time of the release of Doom II ) did id Software release their games via more traditional shrink-wrapped boxes in stores (through other game publishers ). After Wolfenstein 3D ' s great success, id began working on Doom . After Hall left the company, Sandy Petersen and Dave Taylor were hired before

5100-662: The first true FPS; Doom is a game that popularized the genre and PC gaming in general; and Quake was id's first true 3D FPS. On June 24, 2009, ZeniMax Media acquired the company. In 2015, they opened a second studio in Frankfurt , Germany. The founders of id Software – John Carmack , John Romero , and Tom Hall – met in the offices of Softdisk based in Shreveport, Louisiana , developing multiple games for Softdisk's monthly publishing, including Dangerous Dave . Along with another Softdisk employee, Lane Roathe, they had formed

5202-516: The formation of the studio ZeniMax Online Studios , led by Matt Firor. In October, after ProSiebenSat.1 Media purchased SBS Broadcasting Group and inherited its stake in ZeniMax Media, now 9% of the shares, ProSiebenSat.1 Media announced it would intensify its relationship with ZeniMax. The company launched SevenGames.com, the international edition of its German-language game platform, in December and worked with ZeniMax to develop online games. In

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5304-420: The game, or what is more commonly known as the engine. Brainstormed by John Romero , id Software held a weekend session titled "The id Summer Seminar" in the summer of 1991 with prospective buyers including Scott Miller , George Broussard , Ken Rogoway, Jim Norwood and Todd Replogle . One of the nights, id Software put together an impromptu game known as "Wac-Man" to demonstrate not only the technical prowess of

5406-457: The goal of cleaning up the source code, adding features and fixing bugs. Even earlier id Software code, namely for Hovertank 3D and Catacomb 3D , was released in June 2014 by Flat Rock Software . The GPL release of the Quake III engine's source code was moved from the end of 2004 to August 2005 as the engine was still being licensed to commercial customers who would otherwise be concerned over

5508-518: The group finished the Commander Keen series, then hired Jay Wilbur and Kevin Cloud and began working on Wolfenstein 3D . id Software was officially founded by Romero, John and Adrian Carmack and Hall on February 1, 1991. The name "id" came out of their previous IFD; Roathe had left the group, and they opted to drop the "F" to leave "id". They initially used "id" as an initialism for "In Demand", but by

5610-409: The guise of multiple fan letters that Romero came to realize all originated from the same address. When he confronted Miller, Miller explained that the deception was necessary since Softdisk screened letters it received. Although disappointed by not actually having received mail from multiple fans, Romero and other Softdisk developers began proposing ideas to Miller. One of these was Commander Keen ,

5712-416: The killers—like the vast majority of young teenage boys—did play video games, this study did not find a relationship between gameplay and school shootings. In fact, only one-eighth of the shooters showed any special interest in violent video games, far less than the number of shooters who seemed attracted to books and movies with violent content. As for Wolfenstein 3D , due to its use of Nazi symbols such as

5814-480: The lack of a team leader was the cause of it all. In fact, he volunteered to take lead as he had five years of experience as project manager in MicroProse but he was turned down by Carmack. On June 24, 2009, it was announced that id Software had been acquired by ZeniMax Media (owner of Bethesda Softworks ). The deal would eventually affect publishing deals id Software had before the acquisition, namely Rage , which

5916-468: The lack of people who had helped make the first two events a success, QuakeCon 1998 is regarded by many as being only partially a QuakeCon event. However, it was instrumental in motivating a group of people to start planning QuakeCon 1999 early. From 1999 to 2002, QuakeCon took place that the Mesquite Convention Center in Texas. The 1999 event was the first event in which id Software played

6018-405: The licensing to the market beginning with Unreal Engine 3. Even though the said company has gained more success with its game engine than id Software over the years, Carmack had no regrets by his decision and continued to focus on open source until his departure from the company in 2013. In conjunction with his self-professed affinity for sharing source code , John Carmack has open-sourced most of

6120-560: The major id Software engines under the GNU General Public License . Historically, the source code for each engine has been released once the code base is 5 years old. Consequently, many home grown projects have sprung up porting the code to different platforms, cleaning up the source code, or providing major modifications to the core engine. Wolfenstein 3D , Doom and Quake engine ports are ubiquitous to nearly all platforms capable of running games, such as hand-held PCs, iPods,

6222-524: The new engine called id Tech 5 . Later that year, at QuakeCon 2007, the title of the new game was revealed as Rage . On July 14, 2008, id Software announced at the 2008 E3 event that they would be publishing Rage through Electronic Arts , and not id's longtime publisher Activision . However, since then ZeniMax has also announced that they are publishing Rage through Bethesda Softworks . On August 12, 2010, during Quakecon 2010, id Software announced Rage US ship date of September 13, 2011, and

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6324-403: The official event announcement fueled Internet speculation that the event was actually canceled for the first time ever. It was also discussed publicly earlier in the year by id Software executives that the event had a possibility of not being held inside Texas, nearly breaking a 10-year tradition since the convention's start. The entire event was also announced, planned, and executed in little over

6426-494: The pair had not readily shared the demo though acknowledged its existence in the years since, a working copy of the demo was discovered in July 2021 and preserved at the Museum of Play . Around the same time in 1990, Scott Miller of Apogee Software learned of the group and their exceptional talent, having played one of Romero's Softdisk games, Dangerous Dave , and contacted Romero under

6528-414: The reference can be found as early as Wolfenstein 3D with the statement "that's id, as in the id, ego, and superego in the psyche" appearing in the game's documentation. Prior to an update to the website, id's History page made a direct reference to Freud. Arranged in chronological order: Starting with their first shareware game series, Commander Keen , id Software has licensed the core source code for

6630-464: The release of Doom in December 1993. Quake was released on June 22, 1996 and was considered a difficult game to develop due to creative differences. Animosity grew within the company and it caused a conflict between Carmack and Romero, which led the latter to leave id after the game's release. Soon after, other staff left the company as well such as Michael Abrash , Shawn Green, Jay Wilbur, Petersen and Mike Wilson. Petersen claimed in July 2021 that

6732-605: The same year, Providence Equity Partners bought a 25% stake in ZeniMax for $ 300 million. ZeniMax had 200 employees in October 2007. It acquired the Prey and Rage franchise in 2009. After Providence Equity Partners invested another $ 150 million for an undisclosed stake in 2010, the company grew to 400 employees by January 2011. ZeniMax subsequently announced a partnership with the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts to support its Interactive Media Division with

6834-521: The sequel to the 2016 Doom , Doom Eternal was officially announced at E3 2018 with a teaser trailer, followed by a gameplay reveal at QuakeCon in August 2018. On June 22, 1996, the release of Quake marked the third milestone in id Software history. Quake combined a cutting edge fully 3D engine, the Quake engine , with a distinctive art style to create critically acclaimed graphics for its time. Audio

6936-594: The source code for some of their previous games, several games which were not ported (such as Catacomb 3D , Catacomb Abyss , Wolfenstein 3D , Spear of Destiny , Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold , Blake Stone: Planet Strike , Super 3D Noah's Ark , Rise of the Triad , Doom 64 , Strife , Heretic , Hexen , Hexen II , Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force Holomatch , Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast , Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy ) can run on Linux and other operating systems natively through

7038-678: The subsequent entries in the Quake franchise follow this storyline. Quake III Arena (1999), the next title in the series, has minimal plot, but centers around the "Arena Eternal", a gladiatorial setting created by an alien race known as the Vadrigar and populated by combatants plucked from various points in time and space. Among these combatants are some characters either drawn from or based on those in Doom (" Doomguy "), Quake (Ranger, Wrack), and Quake II (Bitterman, Tank Jr., Grunt, Stripe). Quake IV (2005) picks up where Quake II left off – finishing

7140-488: The sudden loss in value of their recent investment. On August 4, 2011, John Carmack revealed during his QuakeCon 2011 keynote that they will be releasing the source code of the Doom 3 engine ( id Tech 4 ) during the year. id Software publicly stated they would not support the Wii console (possibly due to technical limitations), although they have since indicated that they may release titles on that platform (although it would be limited to their games released during

7242-442: The technology to the mass market. Beginning with Wolfenstein 3D , he felt bothered when third-party companies started "pestering" him to license the id tech engine, adding that he wanted to focus on new technology instead of providing support to existing ones. He felt very strongly that this was not why he signed up to be a game programmer for; to be "holding the hands" of other game developers. Carmack commended Epic Games for pursuing

7344-562: The template for later years. A change of venue allowed the convention to grow larger than it had ever been before, and, this time, just down the street from id Software headquarters in Mesquite. id Software employees, including John Carmack, participated in various tournaments with attendees on-site as well. A large number of companies sponsored the event for the first time, including Activision , AMD , Apple Computer , ATI Technologies , Logitech , Linksys , and Lucent Technologies . QuakeCon 1999

7446-406: The theme of this game in 2004 with their release of Doom 3 . John Carmack said in an interview at QuakeCon 2007 that there would be a Doom 4 . It began development on May 7, 2008. Doom 2016 , the fourth installation of the Doom series, was released on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on May 13, 2016, and was later released on Nintendo Switch on November 10, 2017. In June 2018,

7548-507: The time of the fourth Commander Keen game, they opted to let "id" stand out "as a cool word", according to Romero. In September 1991, they relocated to Madison, Wisconsin . Later on April 1, 1992, they relocated to an office in Mesquite, Texas . The shareware distribution method was initially employed by id Software through Apogee Software to sell their products, such as the Commander Keen , Wolfenstein and Doom games. They would release

7650-443: The time to get Linux builds done". Besset explained that id Software's primary justification for releasing Linux builds was better code quality, along with a technical interest in the platform. However, on January 26, 2012, Besset announced that he had left id. John Carmack has expressed his stance with regard to Linux builds in the past. In December 2000 Todd Hollenshead expressed support for Linux: "All said, we will continue to be

7752-417: The tournament lineup in a Team-based tournament. First unofficial Ms. QuakeCon event, first appearance of Doom III theater, also the first appearance of Mister Sinus Theater 3000 (later known as The Sinus Show, and ultimately Master Pancake Theater), an Austin, Texas-based MST3K troupe, lambasting Britney Spears ' movie Crossroads . QuakeCon 2003 took place at Adam's Mark Hotel in Dallas, Texas It

7854-457: The tournament. Marcus "djWHEAT" Graham (one of the commentators for this year's tournaments) also expressed his opinions to John Carmack from the shout casting booth saying that the separation "alleviates any hesitation or frustration" for amateur players that want a chance to compete. Quakecon 2009 was also the first Quakecon to have the shoutcasters on stage during the grand finals. QuakeCon 2010–2016 returned to Hilton Anatole. The 2012 event

7956-497: The two are not closely related. Harvard Medical School researchers Cheryl Olson and Lawrence Kutner found that violent video games did not correlate to school shootings. The United States Secret Service and United States Department of Education analyzed 37 incidents of school violence and sought to develop a profile of school shooters; they discovered that the most common traits among shooters were that they were male and had histories of depression and attempted suicide. While many of

8058-456: The use of source ports . Quake Live also launched with Linux support, although this, alongside OS X support, was later removed when changed to a standalone title. The tradition of porting to Linux was first started by Dave D. Taylor , with Zoid Kirsch doing some later porting. Since Quake III Arena , Linux porting had been handled by Timothee Besset . The majority of all id Tech 4 games, including those made by other developers, have

8160-465: The war between the humans and Strogg. The spin-off Enemy Territory: Quake Wars acts as a prequel to Quake II , when the Strogg first invade Earth. Quake IV and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars were made by outside developers and not id. There have also been other spin-offs such as Quake Mobile in 2005 and Quake Live , an internet browser based modification of Quake III . A game called Quake Arena DS

8262-411: The world attend every year to celebrate the company's gaming dynasty. The event is highly dependent on volunteers to cover many aspects of the organization of the event. QuakeCon has historically had a reputation as the " Woodstock of gaming", and a week of "peace, love, and rockets!". The 25th QuakeCon event had been planned for August 2020 in Dallas, Texas, but due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic ,

8364-560: Was "straight out of the game". A rumor spread afterwards that Harris had designed a Doom level that looked like the high school, populated with representations of Harris's classmates and teachers, and that Harris practiced for his role in the shootings by playing the level over and over. Although Harris did design Doom levels , none of them were based on Columbine High School . While Doom and other violent video games have been blamed for nationally covered school shootings, 2008 research featured by Greater Good Science Center shows that

8466-428: Was Aaron Ferguson's first complete year as executive director, and the first time at QuakeCon featuring an all girl gamer tournament with major cash prizes. It was the first year of Intel's sponsorship of QuakeCon, beating out AMD. QuakeCon 2006 took place at Hilton Anatole in Texas. QuakeCon 2006 was the first time Enemy Territory: Quake Wars was playable by the general public. Longer than normal delays leading up to

8568-460: Was actually '#quakecon', named after the IRC channel, though this quickly evolved into just 'QuakeCon'. Mr. Elson organized the bulk of the event for the first two years, until the number of people attending each year demanded a more organized approach. Volunteers grouped into teams to assist in the setup, troubleshooting, and tear down of the event's equipment and network. The first event, in August 1996,

8670-506: Was also acquired by Microsoft. In 2024, Microsoft signed a labor-neutrality agreement with CWA union, agreeing not to interfere with unionization efforts in any ZeniMax Media subsidiaries. In May 2024, Microsoft announced the impending closures of the ZeniMax studios Arkane Austin , Alpha Dog Games , and Tango Gameworks , as well as Roundhouse Studios ' absorption into ZeniMax Online Studios. In July 2024, over 200 Bethesda Game Studios employees unionized with CWA. The wall-to-wall unit

8772-523: Was also highlighted by a slew of major announcements, including id Software 's new intellectual property RAGE, a sneak peek at the "id Tech 5" engine, a February 10, 2007, release date for ET:QW, updates on the new Return to Castle Wolfenstein game title and major motion picture, the revelation that old id Software titles were to be made available via Steam, the upcoming debuts of Quake Arena Arcade, Quake Zero (now officially named Quake Live), and Quake Arena DS, also—in an unprecedented move—the announcement of

8874-404: Was also the first time Quake 3 was used in competition as the game had not yet been released to the public. 2002 saw the retirement of John Carney, and Brian Davis assumed stewardship of the event as executive director. 2002 was also the first year id assumed a very active role in the pre-event activities, with the arrival of Marty Stratton a year earlier. Added Return to Castle Wolfenstein to

8976-478: Was an early adopter of Stadia , a cloud gaming service powered by Debian Linux servers, and the cross-platform Vulkan API . A Linux version of Doom from 2016 was tested internally, while it and its sequel Doom Eternal can be run using Wine and Proton . Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons , a platform game in the style of those for the Nintendo Entertainment System ,

9078-649: Was an early pioneer in the Linux gaming market, and id Software's Linux games have been some of the most popular of the platform. Many id Software games won the Readers' and Editors' Choice awards of Linux Journal . Some id Software titles ported to Linux are Doom (the first id Software game to be ported), Quake , Quake II , Quake III Arena , Return to Castle Wolfenstein , Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory , Doom 3 , Quake 4 , and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars . Since id Software and some of its licensees released

9180-447: Was announced id Software co-founder and Technical Director John Carmack had fully resigned from the company to work full-time at Oculus VR which he joined as CTO in August 2013. He was the last of the original founders to leave the company. Tim Willits left the company in 2019. ZeniMax Media was acquired by Microsoft for US$ 7.5 billion in March 2021 and became part of Xbox Game Studios . The company writes its name with

9282-499: Was being published through Electronic Arts. ZeniMax received in July a $ 105 million investment from StrongMail Systems for the id acquisition, it's unknown if that was the exact price of the deal. id Software moved from the "cube-shaped" Mesquite office to a location in Richardson, Texas during the spring of 2011. On June 26, 2013, id Software president Todd Hollenshead quit after 17 years of service. On November 22, 2013, it

9384-462: Was canceled by Bethesda Softworks and id Software on March 31, citing difficulties in planning with vendors and exhibitors at this stage. An online QuakeCon was announced in June 2020 to replace the live show in August 2020. The 2021 and 2022 events were also held online. The return to a live event took place on August 10–13, 2023 in Grapevine, Texas . QuakeCon originally grew out of a group of people on

9486-571: Was close to a deal with rival Electronic Arts . Prior the deal's closure, he died on February 3, 2021, aged 73, at a Baltimore hospital. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the European Commission greenlit the acquisition in March 2021. A preliminary injunction to block the acquisition was being sought in a class-action lawsuit that ZeniMax faced over Fallout 4 , with the plaintiffs arguing that Microsoft could shield ZeniMax's assets from damages should it be found liable after

9588-490: Was held at a conference room of a La Quinta Inn in Garland , Texas. The 1,250 square foot venue hosted around 40 people. Attendees who had brought their computers along to the event set up a small, impromptu network, in one of the hotel meeting rooms, playing mostly Quake I and Doom , testing deathmatch skills. A small tournament was held, with winners taking home T-shirts as prizes. The highlight of this first gathering came on

9690-543: Was modified to not include any swastikas or Nazi references; furthermore, blood was replaced with sweat to make the game seem less violent, and the attack dogs in the game were replaced by giant mutant rats. Employees of id Software are quoted in The Official DOOM Player Guide about the reaction to Wolfenstein , claiming it to be ironic that it was morally acceptable to shoot people and rats, but not dogs. Two new weapons were added as well. The Super NES version

9792-610: Was not as successful as the PC version. In May 2020, after the Doom Eternal Original Soundtrack was released, there was a serious backlash to the Doom Eternal OST and accusations of low quality work that did not match composer Mick Gordon's usual standards. On April 19, Gordon confirmed on Twitter that it was not his work, and Marty Stratton subsequently posted on May 20 a 2,500-word open letter on Reddit blaming Gordon for everything that went wrong with

9894-511: Was not neglected either, having recruited Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor to facilitate unique sound effects and ambient music for the game. (A small homage was paid to Nine Inch Nails in the form of the band's logo appearing on the ammunition boxes for the nailgun weapon.) It also included the work of Michael Abrash . Furthermore, Quake' s main innovation, the capability to play a deathmatch (competitive gameplay between living opponents instead of against computer-controlled characters) over

9996-413: Was one of the first MS-DOS games with smooth horizontal-scrolling. Published by Apogee Software, the title and follow-ups brought id Software success as a shareware developer. It is the series of id Software that designer Tom Hall is most affiliated with. The first Commander Keen trilogy was released on December 14, 1990. The company's breakout product was released on May 5, 1992: Wolfenstein 3D ,

10098-569: Was planned and canceled for the Nintendo DS . John Carmack stated, at QuakeCon 2007, that the id Tech 5 engine would be used for a new Quake game. Todd Hollenshead announced in May 2007 that id Software had begun working on an all new series that would be using a new engine. Hollenshead also mentioned that the title would be completely developed in-house, marking the first game since 2004's Doom 3 to be done so. At 2007's WWDC , John Carmack showed

10200-578: Was recognized by Microsoft, and includes artists, engineers, programmers, and designers. In August 2024, Krafton agreed to buy Tango Gameworks, preventing its closure. Id Software id Software LLC ( / ɪ d / ) is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas . It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk : programmers John Carmack and John Romero , game designer Tom Hall , and artist Adrian Carmack . id Software made important technological developments in video game technologies for

10302-439: Was the first change in venue since the convention moved to Mesquite, Texas , USA, 4 years prior. Tapper continued to coordinate volunteer activity, while id assumed much more of the pre-event planning through the capable hands of Marty Stratton. Ms. QuakeCon evolved into a tournament-based event with a sponsor, id unveiled Doom 3 deathmatch. The first display of the award-winning franchise called "Call of Duty" found its way into

10404-476: Was the first year to ever fill BYOC on Friday. This year marked the first year for several Executive Staff including a new executive director of Michael "TnT_Trash" Wolf. Also Oculus Rift showcase. QuakeCon 2017–2019 took place at the Gaylord Texan Convention Center in Texas, as did the 2023 event. QuakeCon 2024 took place at the same location on August 8-11. Marcel "k1llsen" Paul QuakeCon

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