Topic: id Software forms id Mobile division.

[idolminds]

Story

Sounds cool to me. Doom RPG got great reviews, same with Orcs & Elves. In fact, I played a little O&E on the DS last night and its pretty awesome. I want them to port Doom RPG!

I guess the new division is going to focus mainly on mobile phones, though. Hopefully they do well enough to make more DS ports. Or even PC releases. Who wouldn't want to play small cool cheap games on their PC? Sell them like PopCap does or something.

Its probably where we'll see a lot of new IPs and stuff come from for id. Their plan is to build up games instead of cut down. It was in Carmacks speech at Quakecon. Instead of making a new IP a huge titles with tons of dev costs, having it do well, then cut and butcher it to fit on lesser platforms like the PSP, DS, etc. they go the other way. Spend far less and develop on the mobile phone. It does well the you can add and build onto it as you move it to more powerful platforms.

[Quemaqua]

I think developing games for cellphones is the most idiotic thing ever, but then I also hate cellphones, which probably explains that to some degree.

Still... fuck, just make it for DS where it won't suck so hard as it does on your stupid fucking phone.

[Cobra951]

I have a cell phone.  I think it would be idiotic to play games on it.  I'd much rather see the efforts go into the DS, and maybe real PDAs.

[Quemaqua]

I was always a bit sad more games weren't made for PocketPCs.  I had one, and the few games I had were fun and looked pretty great for a PDA.  The best one I had was a remake of that old futuristic football-ish game where you could beat the crap out of the other team and stuff (think Deathrow, but 2D).  That was great.

[Cobra951]

I still have my Axim, and I still use it too, although I haven't played games on it in a long while.  They never seemed to progress to a level comparable to the GBA, or even the GBC, really.  Not enough money behind it.  Now, I don't even know where they sit.  Has everything moved to cell phones?  I know some PDAs have cell phones built in, but I can't imagine using something that size and shape as a phone.

Also, did id Software really get into this market?  It seems way odd.  I can see some hungry third party negotiating with them to get the IP into phones, but not Carmack and company.

[idolminds]

Well ids current mobile games (DoomRPG and Orcs & Elves) were handled by Fountainhead, which is run by Carmacks wife. id Mobiles CEO will be Carmacks wife so this is just sort of tying the companies together. Carmack builds the engine, Fountainhead designs and build the game, and the rest of id owns the IP and offers assistance where they can (like the art assets in DoomRPG).

[Cobra951]

That's interesting.  I wonder what conversations and events led to that?  "Oh, honey, I want to be useful!" 

[Ghandi]

In 10 - 15 years it might actually be a good market. The technology just needs to pick up a bit.

The only cellphone game I've ever purchased was "Snood 2" for my cellphone for a few dollars, and it was purely to get through boring lecture classes.

[idolminds]

Q&A with some id people on id Mobile

[Quemaqua]

Actually, I'm pretty sure Carmack's wife was someone he met at gaming conventions or something.  I can't remember the details, but I got the impression she was no slouch.

[Cobra951]

I was kidding.  I really had no idea how the whole thing happened.  I even thought after posting that she might have been someone who worked maybe as an artist for some of his projects years back.

That picture of Carmack looks like they caught him on the john, doesn't it?  What he says makes sense.  I didn't picture him being the one to attack that market, though.  Orcs and Elves might be interesting on the DS.  I've never seen it in action, though.  Never even heard of it until recently.

[Quemaqua]

The DS version looks great to me.  Apparently the big issue is it's really, really short.  Like 5 hours short.  That made sense when it was a mobile-only game, but not so much for a DS title.

[Cobra951]

The home page claims 10 hours.  I thought that was short for an RPG, even on the DS.  What's the deal with the 5-hour thing?  Seems like I can't get away from it anymore.

[Quemaqua]

Well, I don't have any official word.  I just saw two people on a forum claiming they beat the whole thing and found all the secrets in 4ish hours.  It could be they were just being hardcore about it.  Still, in either case you know you won't be getting a whole hell of a lot out of it.