John Carmack: id Shuttering Mobile Development to Focus on Doom 4

During his QuakeCon 2012 keynote speech, John Carmack confirmed that id Software, in an effort to expedite development on Doom 4, has closed down its mobile development branch.

"We did make the decision to close up our mobile development, which saddens me a lot, in that I love doing the mobile work — taking that time, spending a month, a year or something working on a mobile project,  but we had some developers on there that we wanted to bring onto the Doom 4 project,” he said.

While the company has released six iOS titles since it begun in 2007 (Wolftenstein RPG and Doom: Resurrection, for instance), Carmack says that there just wasn’t the same kind of value in having a mobile development team versus focusing on a AAA like Doom 4.

“I hope we get back to mobile in various ways in the future, but the big real aim is blockbuster, AAA titles, and for id that means Doom 4, it means that we get the whole company behind that after we get Doom 3: BFG Edition out the door, essentially everybody will be focused on Doom 4 as a project."

Carmack also said that the company is currently holding onto a finished iOS project that hasn’t yet been released, but no other details were revealed. Id’s released iOS titles are all on sale for $0.99 until QuakeCon ends on August 5.

Carmack was also not specific on when Doom 4 would be released, but did say,

“Every decade there will be a Doom, but hopefully we can do better than that."

Doom 3 was first released in 2004.

Via: The Verge