IGN: id Software President Todd Hollenshead Leaves Company

Holy shit! Todd leaves.. I remember Doom IV got re-booted again. And Bethesda didn't seem to be happy, last I remember.. Fuck.

Out of all these next-games coming out, even Thief, Doom IV is what I want to see coming back. Doom is what I grew up with. Its special. :/

@blu3v3nom07: Well it *was* special in its time, anyway. How do you make a shooter like that "special" these days? It's been imitated by countless others. It would be cool if they were able to do that though, and revolutionize a genre yet again. Maybe that's what they're aiming for, and maybe that's why they keep "rebooting" it.

@snail: I don't know man.. I remember it was sort of turning into like a CoD, and that sounded kind of cool, if not dumb. I would of thought Bethesda would of fix them right about now, but err.. I don't know. Why can't Doom just be a fast paced Fallout? That shit sounds alright?.

@blu3v3nom07: Rage was fast-paced Fallout.

Who cares? ID hasn't put a game out worth a dam in years.

For a second there I read that as Todd Howard leaving Bethesda. That would be more of a shock, but still... hopefully this isn't a sign of trouble.

I bet within the next year he starts up an indie studio that tries to crowdfund (Kickstarter) a Doom-esque FPS.

something is wrong with id. their games after quake 3 have been like demos for their engines.

whatever special realm they were in to make the quake and doom games great, is gone im afraid. : (

The thing is that these guys still live in the early 90's where games were simpler. Taking their "time" to make a game doesn't fly anymore and the business has grown up. It annoys me when they say, it will be out when it is done. Doom 4 needed a plan, and just do it. Don't be rebooting it. Start out right the first time. Same with studios like Team Ico. Clearly don't have a plan and the game is not worth the wait, no game is, not when other great games get made and put out in a timely manner like the Last of Us. id is dying a slow death because they couldn't make fresh games and stick to a schedule.

@thehbk: How do you know that these compqnies didn't have plans? Even the best plans can get sidetracked or mucked up.

If you have ever worked in any creative field you'd know that your initial plan doesn't always work out. That is especially true in gaming. The thing with making a game is that the first year or more of development basically involves making each of the different elements work. It isn't until these elements are all finished and put into a working level that you know whether or not the game will actually be fun. That is the issue with new IP and innovative game mechanics and such. A lot of the time you work on something for a year or more and then realize for whatever reason it isn't going to work. At that point you have a couple of options. If you are a big publisher and have the money to scrap the project and just write it off then you may do that. Or you may push forward and put out an inferior product in hopes that you can at least recoup some of the costs. If you are an independent developer or a publisher without a lot of capital to waste, your options are slightly different. You either put out the game or you go bankrupt.

You'd probably be surprised to learn that there are probably at least five games a year at each major publisher that get cancelled before they are ever revealed. Even the best developers in the industry cancel tons of games that you never hear about. And many of the games that are announced and released were being worked on for several years or more before they were revealed and most likely had gone through numerous iterations before they settled on what was eventually shown to the public. The only difference with Doom 4 and the other 99% of games out there is that Id revealed they were working on the game while they were still in the planning stages. And their initial idea turned out not to work and because they are now owned by Bethesda they had the money to drop that initial idea and go in another direction.

While people hate when developers sell out, the reason they do so is because of that advantage. How many developers this generation were forced to put out a bad game because they had no other option and ended up going under as a result? Great developers mind you. Everyone from Warren Spector and Miyamoto all the way down to the lowest people on the poll have both good ideas and bad ones. Sadly, it is often incredibly hard to tell which ideas are which until you actually build them and see. And the key issue with the industry right now is that a couple bad ideas are all it takes to sink a company. Id is in the lucky position of having its technology to provide funding for its development. Epic is the same way, as is Valve. Not that many games from any of those companies fail, but if they did they would still be taking in enough money from their tech (Unreal Engine in Epic's case or Steam in Valve's) that they could weather that loss. Hell, Half Life 3 has most likely been scrapped a half dozen times already.

It isn't that these developers suck. It's just that they have the luxury of starting over when their idea doesn't work out. Trust me when I say every developer in the industry wishes they had that luxury at least one point in their career because everyone makes mistakes. The question is did you have enough padding to bounce back from that mistake, or does it end your career or studio?

That's because John Romero was the ideas guy. He was the one that was all about demons and hellfire and all the divinely fucked up shit that made games like Doom stand out. Carmack is a freakin' tech -god-, but he's not good for much more than souped up tech demos on a creative level.

This is the latest in a few signs of trouble, unfortunately, if the absolute clusterfuck that's going on with Doom 4's development is any indication. Todd was probably getting out while the getting is still good.