id Software Interview - June 2009

We catch up with Steve Nix, Director of Business Development at id Software, on topics including iPhone development, Wolfenstein and idTech 5.

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Kikizo: How about the relationship with Activision? You guys have had a long term publishing relationship with them. Has the relationship changed in any way, like with their recent merger for example?

Nix: No, that hasn't affected anything that I've seen - other than a few really good people have come over from the Vivendi side and joined the team we're working with, and not in a negative way or anything but we haven't seen any changes, the majority of people we deal with on a day-to-day basis and the way decisions are made, are all completely the same.

Kikizo: But I've always viewed id Software as one of only a handful of developers that exist, who really wear the trousers in the publishing relationship.

Nix: Haha!

Kikizo: Epic and Valve are two others... and these are all people who own their own technology and properties. I don't know whether you would agree that you have more bargaining clout than other developers Activision works with. But do you think there's a point there about ownership of technology?

Nix: Well, if you're a developer and you own your own property and you own your own technology, you're in a different position than a developer who's doing work for hire. As it should be. I mean, if I am a publisher, and you're a developer and you're developing my property, and I'm paying for everything, you know, you expect a certain amount of creative control. We have a good partnership with Activision, it's been a long partnership, but we own our own intellectual properties and develop our own technology, and generally we self-fund our titles to a point, and we do all those things because we do expect to have ultimate creative control and decision making. Also we've been around since the beginning of 3D gaming basically, so we're going to make good decisions for the game ultimately, and that may not be the case for some of the younger studios that are out there. So it's a nice position, but it's a partnership that we think works for our publisher, and works for our studio.

Kikizo: How have you found the experience of distributing via Steam?

Nix: Oh, it's been fantastic. We have our back catalogue from Commander Keen to Doom 3 on Steam, and those guys have built a really dominant PC digital distribution platform. The sales are great, and not only that and we're quite pleased with them, but it's really a great experience for the customer. Because I mean, if you wanted to go play Quake 1 today, and it wasn't on Steam, then what are your choices? Go find a copy on eBay, then go download all the patches, and a couple of hours later you're up and playing. But on Steam you can be up and playing in ten minutes, so it's a great experience with customers and we've been very happy with it. We've worked with Valve for a long time obviously, I mean they used id technology for Half-Life, and they've been good to work with over the years.

Kikizo: Is John working exclusively on Rage at the moment, or is he doing other stuff as well?

Nix: Yeah, idTech 5 development is John's priority right now. He's also enthusiastic about iPhone development right now, so as a sort of side project. He did almost all the coding on Wolfenstein for the iPhone himself. The control system is something that is entirely new; John came up with that himself, and implemented it himself. But he also has his rocket project which is usually Tuesday afternoons and Saturdays for him. John generally does what he's interested in! But the majority of his time is core technology development for idTech 5.

No firm release in sight for idTech 5 and Rage, just yet.

Kikizo: John is intimidatingly clever isn't he? [laughter] Surely the iPhone stuff isn't technically challenging for him in the slightest, right?

Nix: Nah, it's more of a "hey, I can pound something out and get it done in a few weeks, rather than a few years", so it's just fun, to be able to see something to go from idea to implementation that quickly.

Wolfenstein is due for release on 360, PS3 and PC n August.

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