Carmack and Hollenshead reflect on id sale
Six months after the acquisition deal that brought id Software under the wing of Bethesda parent-company ZeniMax, id Software co-founder John Carmack has again weighed in on the move and why he feels it made sense for the studio. Speaking with Edge Online, Carmack cited a waning interest from publishing partners -- specifically, Activision's decision to focus on internal development -- as a major contributing factor in the sale of the nearly 20-year-old company.
When the deal was first announced, games media focused on the sale of a long-time independent developer; however, id president Todd Hollenshead views the situation from a different angle. "I think it's just as true that we acquired an internal publishing capacity," he said. According to Hollenshead, ZeniMax values development "for its own sake," rather than "trying to put something in a box and relying on marketing for sales."
In the modern games industry where "the business is so much about either having a hit or being totally irrelevant," Hollenshead says a strong publishing partner is increasingly important to the survival of a development studio. Truthfully, we're happy for id Software. If the Activision partnership had continued, it would have been just a matter of time before the house that Doom built was tapped for some kind of peripheral-related disaster.
