Id Software had been a bit quiet in recent years following the release of 2004's Doom 3, but all of that changed during QuakeCon 2008 last week. The legendary game developer shed light on some of its new projects, including its new intellectual property Rage as well as a fourth Doom installment. And of course, id's co-founder and lead programmer John Carmack was in the center of it all. Widely regarded as one of the fathers of the first person shooter, as well as one of the top minds behind game development today, Carmack constantly pushes the envelope with both the titles and technologies. Tom's Games spoke with Carmack in Dallas at QuakeCon 2008 to get his thoughts on id's new projects as well as working with Electronic Arts, making games for consoles, and the future of game development.

TOM'S GAMES: While id has no current plans for a digital distribution-only title, will Rage be a simultaneous release on DVD and some sort of digital medium like EA Link or Steam?

JOHN CARMACK: I would leave that up to our publisher, so it's really whatever EA wants to do. I'm pretty sure we signed away the rights for the digital version to EA. I'm not 100 percent positive about that but I'd be surprised if we didn't. And the reason we picked EA because we think they're going to do the best job in terms of moving the most units. And they'll make the call on which electronic distribution way to go; they work with Valve but they also have their own system of course. It will be harder, because this is going to be a larger distribution; we're at least at two DVDs and on the PC we might choose to be three DVDs to match what the game will look like for the PS3. So that makes for a pretty damn big download. I wouldn't say it's an optimal game for digital distribution, and I don't think it's a high-level strategic question. It just becomes something on the option of sales channels.

TG: What about a Blu-ray version of Rage?

JOHN CARMACK: We have actually talked about it, and I think there are some real possibilities there - like having a two DVD standard edition, and then coming out with a double-layer Blu-ray as a special edition so you can really give the fans some extra features and much better compression. That idea has been broached but there are no official plans yet.

John Carmack at QuakeCon 2008 in Dallas.

TG: You're making a push on the consoles now. Is part of that because of the threat of piracy on the PC or is it more about getting the games to as many people as possible?

JOHN CARMACK: Well, it's hard to second guess exactly what the reasons are. You can say piracy. You can say user migration. But the ground truth is just that the sales numbers on the PC are not what they used to be and are not what they are on the consoles. Certainly, piracy is a contributor to that. I also think a lot of the people that bought PC games have bought consoles and are happy with them. We still think the PC is a market worth supporting, but we're not making decision around the PC. It's probably more of the junior partner in the cross-platform strategy, although obviously, our day-to-day development is predominately on the PC.

TG: Is id planning any console exclusives?

JOHN CARMACK: We certainly expect Rage and the Doom project on the PC. We're contractually obligated to have Rage on the PC, and I would be stunned if we did not do Doom 4 for the PC. It would just be wrong. Even if it was a marginal business case, we would still do it because it's the right thing to do.

TG: You seem to enjoy making games more for the 360 than the PS3.

JOHN CARMACK: Yeah. We put so much more effort into optimizing on the PS3.

TG: But you also said that Rage will look a lot better on the PS3.

JOHN CARMACK: Well, "a lot better" may be stretching it. All of the key scenes, the things anyone is going to take a screenshot of are going to look exactly the same on both platforms. They'll get the high quality compression. But if you go into some areas in the wasteland, like behind a fence where nobody will typically go and explore, this is where the 360 version may look a little blurry compared to the PS3.

Rage, id Software's newest title, will require a lot of storage capacity and some extra discs, though not on the PS3.

TG: You also talked about putting the 360 version of Rage on three DVDs but said that it would be too expensive because of royalty costs. Have you talked to Microsoft about this?

JOHN CARMACK: We're pretty much resigned to the fact that we're going to make it fit onto two DVDs on the 360. Plus there would be a lot of disc switching if we went to three DVDs, and since the game is split between two different wasteland environments, two DVDs should work well. That's the only thing the PS3 has going for it over the 360 - more gigs.

TG: You said that Doom 5 would most likely be a launch title for the next generation of consoles. So does that mean a Quake 5 is not in any sort of writing or planning stage right now?

JOHN CARMACK: We would be most thrilled to have the next Doom game out a year after Rage releases. That may not be possible but with the pipelining and working with a stable technology base, the ideal scenario would be Doom 4 a year after Rage and then Doom 5. We still have open the fact that we will be working on two major titles at once, so what's unclear right now is what will happen to the Rage team. If Rage comes out and has great numbers, then the Rage team will work on a sequel. If not, we may shift to another Quake or Doom title. There are a lot of things that we just don't know yet, and it all depends on the success of Rage and the success of Quake Live. With Quake Live, my hope is that it's just this carry-on success and we can leave people on it forever.

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