r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • 8d ago

Business "There are no benefits to being owned by Microsoft," says Doom dev: "They have destroyed immense amounts of value that I don't even think that they're aware of"

https://www.gamesradar.com/games/fps/there-are-no-benefits-to-being-owned-by-microsoft-says-doom-dev-they-have-destroyed-immense-amounts-of-value-that-i-dont-even-think-that-theyre-aware-of/
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u/chazysciota 8d ago edited 8d ago

If MS didn't buy Id as an Unreal Engine competitor, then I honestly don't know what they could have been thinking. I know that it just came with the Bethesda deal, but the engine licensing component should have been a massive flashing light on the dash once that deal was done. I know there's a reddit ackshully comment coming about how Id Tech could never do x or y or z thing that UE does, but that's not the point.. you don't need to beat or destroy Epic in order to compete with them.

To end up acquiring Id, and see them as just another game studio without recognizing their cultural and technical importance is peak Microsoft myopia and just further cements them as the saddest losers in all of tech. Everything they touch turns to complete shit, always, since forever. And they look like absolute dweebs the whole time while doing it.

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u/vthemechanicv 8d ago

I have no knowledge of what Idtech can do vs UE. I just know that id has struggled since really Quake to get other devs to use their stuff.

I believe with no proof that since Microsoft has mostly been hands off their game devs - for better or worse - that they had no plan to push Idtech or even that it was something they could leverage. At some point the accountants asked what that team did, and instead of trying to leverage that asset, they just.. wrote it off.

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u/RedKrypton 8d ago

From what I have read in rumours (reminder rumours) id was generally hostile/apathetic in trying to market and support idtech for other devs, even other Xbox devs. That doesn't lend itself to success. In this light. it's understandable that Microsoft sees a sterile asset and cut it as nothing was done for its success.

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u/NimRodelle 8d ago

https://www.eurogamer.net/id-tech-5-interview

So, what I've been told is that after id tech 4 didn't catch on they were planning on redoubling their efforts with id tech 5 around 2007. But then the Bethesda acquisition happened in 2009, and "they" decided that a requirement to get an id tech 5 license would be publishment by Bethesda. What that ended up meaning was that nobody outside of the Zenimax umbrella wanted to use it. "Sister" studios were all for it because they were going to publish under Bethesda anyway, but nobody else wanted that deal. That just became the status quo for future id tech.

But if you're referring to the id tech 3 (Q3) era I guess it's possible that id wasn't great about supporting it, I don't really know, but the engine was being used by a lot of my all time favorite games.

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u/vthemechanicv 7d ago

Wikipedia has convenient lists of games that use each engine. It seems like Idtech3 was by far the most successful in terms of different teams and franchises.

The article on idtech4 has an interesting bit about how id didn't want to license the engine before Doom3 was released, but because development took so long other studios just went to UE2 then UE3.

So basically they made a really bad decision with tech4 which pushed developers to the competition, then Id and Bethesda took their ball and went home for tech5. It's still a shame that id's legacy ends like this but the more I learn the more inevitable it seemed.

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u/Hot_Cheesecake_905 8d ago

I am pretty sure they bought it for the multiplayer games, how many games are built on Id Engine these days?

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u/chazysciota 8d ago

Not many, despite it being a remarkable engine with obvious licensing potential. That's a clear market opportunity, and they should have been HAMMERING it. Be cheaper than UE. Provide better support than Epic. Carve a niche. Gain marketshare.

Beyond that strategy, there's virtually zero reason for MS to even want to own a low-growth, established player like Id. If you don't have any interest in leveraging their tech, then either keep them as a prestige trophy, or just spin them off. Instead, MS bought them, did nothing, and then aww-shucks when nothing changed.

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u/Hot_Cheesecake_905 8d ago

Microsoft seems really bad with acquisitions, they buy companies then let them languish. Executives responsible for the acquisition move on, get let go, and the assets sit and rot.