Id Software Exits ESA, Too

id Software confirmed it has left the Entertainment Software Association, joining a growing list of recent departures that includes Activision, Vivendi and LucasArts.

The publisher departures follow decisions made by the ESA board surrounding last year's E3 move to Santa Monica that ultimately cost the association $5 million and necessitated raising its membership dues, as Kotaku reported earlier this week.

Both id and the ESA confirmed the departure; while id Software declined to comment, ESA senior VP of communications and research Rich Taylor responded:

id Software Begins Production on Doom 4

We may not know if they're going to E3, never mind that the ESA says they're not, but at least we know something. Today id Software announced that they have begun production on Doom 4 and is looking to hire folks to help work on it.

“DOOM is part of the id Software DNA and demands the greatest talent and brightest minds in the industry to bring the next installment of our flagship franchise to Earth,” said Todd Hollenshead, CEO, id Software. “It’s critical for id Software to have the best creative minds in-house to develop games that meet the standards synonymous with our titles.”

If you're looking for a job in the industry and have the talent and experience than hit up their site for a complete list of positions.

id Software Jobs

New Doom Weapon Rickrolls Demons To Death

The most powerful aftermarket Doom weapon? The voice of Rick Astley apparently, as some enterprising Doom fan has created their own tribute to the English singer-songwriter-meme source in the form of a deadly boombox that never gives up. Hey, it may be old(!!!!1) to you, but since we make it a point not to troll /b/ too often, it's news to us. Hilarious, hard hitting news. Thanks for the linklog, Waxy.

"id Software is among the proverbial godfathers of modern gaming and we are thrilled to be working with them on their first title in our 'freemium' category," said Justin Townsend, CEO of IGA Worldwide. "This partnership is only the latest testament to the increasing acceptance of in-game as an effective, measurable advertising medium and a strategic revenue opportunity for publishers and developers."

Quake II Ported To Nintendo DS

The original Quake running on a Nintendo DS? About as exciting as Daikatana, now that someone's hacked together a working version of Quake II for the dual screened handheld. id Software's classic first person shooter is now (nearly) a fully functional port, with working sound, graphics and on-screen keyboard support for console fun. No wi-fi support yet, but we expect it within the next 20 minutes or so.

The catch? It doesn't fit on a stock DS memory footprint, requiring a slot-2 flash card with at least 16 MB of RAM. A list of support cards is available at the offical Q2DS site. The hobby project is free to download, but we haven't tried it out yet, so homebrew enthusiast beware.

Quake II DS [Drunken Coders via Waxy]

This year's Game Developers Conference page just updated with a slew of new information including the floorplans for the new show. Is it just me or is it starting to look more and more like E3? This could be in part driven by Microsoft's continued commitment to the show. This year their meeting room and suite space looks to be more than twice the size of Nintendo's and Sony's combined. Epic's is also insanely large, though they have a lot of sales to do for their engine, so I can see them going big at GDC.

Two more maps on the jump.

Carmack Good At Coding, Making Rockets Explode

Longtime id programmer and technical director John Carmack is good at many, many things—writing and rewriting 3D game engines, typing up .plan files that read like moonspeak, and nearly being successful at simulating lunar landings. Unfortunately, Carmack and his team at Armadillo Aerospace are also quite proficient at blowing up aircraft on the landing pad, throwing them out of competition in the recent Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. While the team was successful in getting its modular class rocket off the ground, an engine explosion ultimately kept them grounded.

Don't worry, no one was hurt, including Carmack. He'll still be able to put his typing skills to good use for id's upcoming Rage. You can read all about the harrowing, explosive experience at the official X PRIZE site.

Armadillo Aerospace Nearly Wins Northrop Grumman [X-Prize Foundation]

Electronic Arts just sent over new screens for their upcoming DS role-playing game Orcs & Elves. The id Software game was developed by Fountainhead Entertainment based on the uber popular cell phone game. While it looks like it has some potential, it didn't exactly float my boat at Leipzig when I tried it. Hit the jump for the fact sheet.

Orcs & Elves DS Hands-On Impressions

id Software Not Thinking about Unreal Engine 3

I don't spend much time looking at Epic's current offering or what their product line is — we've always just done our own thing at id, so we don't spend too much time thinking about them...

Announcement Round-Up

Wow, that was a packed keynote!

During today's QuakeCon keynote John Carmack unveiled a flurry of announcements including id Software's newest franchise, Rage, and confirmation of a Return to Castle Wolfenstein movie. They also told the crowd that the new Wolfenstein game is being developed by Raven Software for the PC, 360 and PS3. The mutiplayer portion of the game is being worked on by Threewave Software.

Here's the breakdown:
id Software's New Game Unveiled
Quake Zero Announced
Quake Arena Headed to XBLA
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Dated
id Forges Deal with Valve
Hollenshead Talks Wolfenstein Movie
Orcs & Elves II Hits Mobile this Holiday

Hollenshead Talks Wolfenstein Movie

id Forges Deal with Valve

Looks like the rumors are true, id and Valve have decided to partner up to sell all of id Software's library, well almost all of it.

Todd Hollenshead told me today that that all of (well like 99 percent of) id Software's games from Commander Keen on up to Quake 3 will now be sold on Steam. The distribution deal also includes a mega pack, that lets you download all of those games for $70. Or $60 if you use the $10 discount code given out at QuakeCon today.

The games should be available now on Steam. Hit the jump for the full list of games and packs.

id Bringing Orcs, Elves To DS With Orcs & Elves

id Shows Off New Engine on Mac

Carmack's New Engine Drives New Franchise

Quake Wars Confirmed For PS3, 360