Todd Hollenshead leaves Id

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id Software president Todd Hollenshead has left the company, Bethesda has confirmed to IGN.

"After many years with the studio, Todd Hollenshead decided to leave id Software to pursue other personal interests," Bethesda's Pete Hines told us. "While Todd was not part of the development teams, he was an integral part of id Software’s success as the business head of the studio and we wish him the very best in his future endeavors."

So after 13 years he leaves the company, I can't really say I won't miss him with the recent flops of games (RAGE) and managing Doom 4..

Damn… Wasn't he the kind of person to talk (by email) with the Doom or Wolf community, in case of a question about their IP?

A sign that id will get a breath of fresh air, or that it's sinking like the Titanic and everybody left with any sense is jumping ship?

Quasar said:

A sign that id will get a breath of fresh air, or that it's sinking like the Titanic and everybody left with any sense is jumping ship?

Hopefully the former.

Quasar said:

A sign that id will get a breath of fresh air, or that it's sinking like the Titanic and everybody left with any sense is jumping ship?

I would say the former, until and unless we see some people from the actual creative and not management side of the company leaving. Todd has been, IMO, to put it diplomatically, a hype man for quite a while, and his leaving the company, whether of his own volition or at the behest of Bethesda/Zenimax, is not necessarily either a positive or negative sign.

That leaves John Carmack and maybe a handful of underlings that have been there since the Quake era. Carmack represents all of the technology and none of the personality of old id. So... he finally has what he's fought for for years: a work environment where no one would dare contradict him. I imagine we'll see some truly amazing things from him soon. </sarcasm>

Makes me wish Romero would come back.

Bucket said:

That leaves John Carmack and maybe a handful of underlings that have been there since the Quake era. Carmack represents all of the technology and none of the personality of old id. So... he finally has what he's fought for for years: a work environment where no one would dare contradict him. I imagine we'll see some truly amazing things from him soon. </sarcasm>

Like the kind of amazing things that Betruger promised to Counselor Swann and Jack Campbell? ;)

You think Carmack went into a hell dimension and got posessed by demons? Actually, if that happened he'd probably write cool haunted engines that'd make for some incredibly interesting games...

Does Tim Willits still work for Id? If so, they're as good as fucked in my book.

I don't think Todd Hollenshead is the problem, it's Tim Willits.

Todd is the one who basically approved the Doom movie and had his face foremost in front of hyping it. I'm not really sad he's leaving.


Most of the original fire at id has already left. (Hall, Romero, the "other" Carmack, Bobby Prince.)

If I'm not mistaken, Prince wasn't an Id Software employee/member but the freelance guy they contracted to do the music. That's why he also worked for other companies like Apogee (e.g. working with Lee Jackson on the ROTT and DN3D soundtracks).

Simply ID Software isn't ID Software anymore, it's just a shell of it's former self and a part of another company.

This has happened to all game companies, and usually around or by the time they decide to sell out to a soulless mainstream publisher:

• When Activision bought Raven, most of the original Raven team we knew and loved left to form Human Head Studios
  
• When EA bought Bullfrog, they fired Peter Molyneux DURING the development of Dungeon Keeper, so the team went to Peter's house to finish the game, leaving the office abandoned. After release, most of them left to join Peter at his new company to work on Black & White.
  
• When Eidos got shitty with Rogue, a bunch of them left and joined Nerve.
  
• After Metroid Prime 3 was finished and Nintendo announced they were returning the Metroid franchise to Japan (and look how THAT turned out...), almost all the original founding employees left Retro Studios. So even IF there was a Prime 4 from Retro now, it would have no creative influence from anybody who worked on the originals (meaning it would probably end up being Halo with Samus).
  

Komenja said:

Makes me wish Romero would come back.

Me too.

Yeah, like Romero would make a difference. Things have changed, times have changed, industry has changed, people have changed. Thinking that Romero would bring back "the old id" is like thinking that making a carbon copy of DOOM II would result in a perfect DOOM 4. Everything has changed. Even if you set up the exact conditions of "the old id", it won't be the same anyway.

I think they would have to not be under any large publisher either to further recreate the Old Id conditions.

Komenja said:

Makes me wish Romero would come back.

I'd honestly be much more eager to see him to an idtech1-based indie game backed by a small art team.

Mr. Chris said:

I think they would have to not be under any large publisher either to further recreate the Old Id conditions.

That's also questionable, simply because id management sucks. It took them 7 years to ship RAGE (or rather 7 years between big projects). They deliver more or less but it shouldn't take this long. Zenimax taking control of certain things might affect the "spirit" of id but if in the end they just want to give them a much needed kick in the butt and a 'wake up' call, I'm all for it. It all remains to be seen.

Yes, because it's more important to get the projects out fast, than to get them out right.

It's more important to execute projects faster than drag them forever. It's not like RAGE was received super well even though it's been in development for so many years. Even Carmack admitted that iteration time is killing them.

Touchdown said:

but if in the end they just want to give them a much needed kick in the butt and a 'wake up' call

Yeah because they're worrying about their own pockets.

AlexMax said:

I'd honestly be much more eager to see him to an idtech1-based indie game backed by a small art team.

How much can you still squeeze out of idtech1?

Avoozl said:

Yeah because they're worrying about their own pockets.

You're all just coming from the biased 'all publishers are pure evil and developers are clean as a whistle' standpoint. I'm not by any means claiming that Bethesda is innocent. But to imply that they're the root of all evil is ridiculous. Id grew a lot in a short timespan. They have problems managing all that manpower. I don't see how an intervention of an experienced publisher into whatever might be the problem on the management side is a bad thing. Oh I know, because publishers are EVIIIIL!

Again, I'm not arguing that Bethesda is perfect. They might turn out to be the end of id, who knows. I'm just saying that id has a lot of problems in doing things and they do need to fix that if they're to survive. And it is a valid scenario that Zenimax intervention might be a good thing in a long run.

Besides, gaming industry is about making money, like it or not. I wouldn't want one of my studios to take 6+ years to make a shooter or restart a shooter after 3 years because they've failed to pay enough attention. Making more games quicker might be a sign of a well prospering studio, not a money-making evil-publisher-controlled machine, you know. That is an option.

Touchdown said:

stuff

I never claimed they were evil, but they did buy id for the purpose of making money just like every other company that does.

Games shouldn't take too long to be made right but they shouldn't be rushed either.

Avoozl said:

I never claimed they were evil, but they did buy id for the purpose of making money just like every other company that does.

Games shouldn't take too long to be made right but they shouldn't be rushed either.

I on the other hand did and stand by my assertion :P Bethesda is id's Yoko Ono.

Can you please explain that analogy because its failing to compute for me.

DaniJ said:

Can you please explain that analogy because its failing to compute for me.

Yeah I was actually kidding. Anyway Yoko broke up the Beatles, Bethesda may break up what's left of id ;) Really though what we think of as "id" broke up a long time ago, and not all at once or for a single reason.

Could this be related to the internal strife Id is currently suffering from?