Carmack Says PC Not id's Lead Platform

[Dohc-WP]

John Carmack, id Software co-founder and creator of classic franchises like Doom and Quake, has made his opinion of PC-focused development clear. It used to be the PC was always the lead platform, leaving the consoles to play catch-up -- but those days are over.

Speaking to Kotaku, Carmack stated, "We do not see the PC as the leading platform for games." He admits "that statement will enrage some people," but "both console versions will have larger audiences than the PC version."

He doesn't think that developing for the PC is pointless, but he certainly doesn't believe you should design for the high-end, super expensive PC first. "You can choose to design a game around the specs of a high-end PC and make console versions that fail to hit the design point, or design around the specs of the consoles and have a high-end PC provide incremental quality improvements," Carmack said. He also stated that, concerning Rage, "We chose the latter."

You might be quick to attribute this attitude to the problems that the PC version of Rage had when it first released, but Carmack says this was an issue with the wrong driver being released. Concerning drivers, Carmack says, "When launch day came around and the wrong driver got released, half of our PC customers got a product that basically didn't work."

Source

[James]

Carmack: "PC not the leading platform for games"

Get your pitchforks

[MOnk]

There is a difference between "designing for high-end super fast PC's" and 'we barely put any effort into making this run on a PC'.

[James]

Doom 3 ran terribly at launch; still does actually. Just sayin', id has released bugged games before. Wasn't Quake III pretty buggy until numerous patches later?

[Necuno]

As I've said mr JC has become a yes-man.

RIP legend.
RIP ID.

Time seems to have passed a long time ago for them. Long live the next generation...

Sent from the MyGaming iPhone App

[Leyzer]

I Have no problem if they design games for the consoles rather then the R15k Monlith Computer. As long as the games that they make for pc arn't just ports with no extra time spent on them (still with press X to activate button in the control menu).
As long as the game looks relativly nice, runs well and feels smooth.

[Dohc-WP]

Doom 3 ran terribly at launch; still does actually. Just sayin', id has released bugged games before. Wasn't Quake III pretty buggy until numerous patches later?

quake 4 ran pretty shitty on release

Console to pc ports isnt a problem imo but it should be done right eg. riddick escape from butcherbay, resident evil 5 and burnout paradise where console ports than where much better than their original console releases.

[Isengard]

ID has been outclassed in the genre by companies like Valve anyway. So I don't see a reason to want their games anymore tbh.

[fayainz]

Both Doom 3 and Quake 4 ran terribly at launch. It makes me wonder if these issues crop up from their games running on OpenGL as opposed to DirectX. While I appreciate what they are doing with OpenGL, the development cycle is that much longer and is not as well supported as DirectX in terms of hardware manufacturer's. Not that I'm a guru on such things but is it just me or does it seem like a coincidence, based on all their previous titles?

[Dohc-WP]

Both Doom 3 and Quake 4 ran terribly at launch. It makes me wonder if these issues crop up from their games running on OpenGL as opposed to DirectX. While I appreciate what they are doing with OpenGL, the development cycle is that much longer and is not as well supported as DirectX in terms of hardware manufacturer's. Not that I'm a guru on such things but is it just me or does it seem like a coincidence, based on all their previous titles?

I think they develop with the open gl renderer in mind to support multiple platforms ie. windows, linux and osx. not 100% sure though