Doom 4 in trouble, ID could be closed

[Zeh Don]

Part of the problem is that "Doom" represents a very old type of FPS that, frankly, has been done to death. They tried to evolve it with Doom 3, and while I adored that game to no end, it wasn't for everyone and it was significantly different from it's predecessors.

The question I have to ask is: what is Doom 4?
A 'Call of Doom' kind of game automatically gets dismissed because, frankly, it's terrible and no one would buy it. If they went back to the previous style of games, meaning Doom and Doom 2, than we're back to mindless slaughter that no one would buy. If they do a proper sequel to Doom 3, how many people would buy it? I would, but again, a lot of other people felt let down by Doom 3.
I feel it's fairly obvious that a 'Doom 4' into today's market doesn't really make a lot of sense.

Personally, if they're gonna go old school, go OLD SCHOOL. The only way to do an honest to go old school homage would be to go over the top. Waaaaaay over the top. Over the top, wall to wall blood and gore depicted with the greatest graphics technology available to man. Absolute end-of-the-world levels of extreme, non-stop carnage.
Anything else is, frankly, not going to do enough to get people talking, playing and paying.

 

[Dfskelleton]

I want this to be good. I really do. I have waited so long for the second coming of Doom...
Please... It's hard to keep citing Id as one of my favorite developers when they haven't done anything in such a long time. Games like the original Doom don't get made any more, and I'd rather have the game never come out than have it released as a pile of crap.

 

[AD-Stu]

The art tool-set iD Tech 5's engine at a core allows is pure artistic vision brought to life at a more ease driven pace; it really allows the artists to create a game world which every detail of the world is different and unique; without having to hassle over it - that alone is brilliant.

That's great, but it's not a question of how well their engines work - it's a question of how well their engines sell.

Correct me if Wikipedia is wrong here, but Rage is the only game to date to have used the iD Tech 5 engine. There have only been six games (Doom 3, Quake 4, Prey, Wolfenstein, Brink and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars) released to date that used the iD Tech 4 engine, with two more yet to be released (Prey 2 and Quadrilatteral Cowboy). That's seven games that have been released using an iD engine since iD Tech 4 was released in 2004. Ouch.

Compare that to the number of games that use, say, the Unreal engine (hint: just the games beginning with "A" on the Unreal list are more than double iD's entire count) and the numbers start to look pretty sad. Their engines can be technical marvels, but if they're not being widely used then I don't see how they can afford to take 10 years to make a game.

 

[J Tyran]

I dare you to find me a large scale game company that's not Activision or Nintendo which isn't currently posting losses, cutting staff or generally trying to weather through shitty economics.

Microsoft game studios.

The software division has made continual profits and has not been cutting jobs for economic reasons. They went through a round of sacking in 2009 when they dropped a studio but at the same time they where mass hiring for other studios. The hardware division, which is separate posted losses. The huge profits that Microsoft game studios made where enough to nullify that and put the entire Microsoft Entertainment and Devices division into profit.

I should add that I do not disagree with you about a possible gaming crash, I too believe that the current market is unsustainable. I think developers are realizing this too, even in the headlines we can see the Just Cause devs remarking about the AAA industry battening down the hatches.

Indie devs will do just fine though, if the industry does collapse we will just see the whole European home computer industry thing again. With Windows to a lesser extent with Android and Mobile type OS this time instead of Sinclair and Commodore etc.