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id Games Available on Steam

One of the more surprising things about QuakeCon in terms of announcements was the move to have all (or almost all) of id's catalog of games be made available for download via Valve's Steam service. According to Hollenshead, they were unable to release one of their Commander Keen titles as part of the package. That game is owned by id's former shareware publisher Softdisk. "I'd try to buy it from them and they wanted stupid money for the price," Hollenshead told us. Hollenhead would not comment if their upcoming game Enemy Territory: Quake Wars will be made available via Steam when it is released on October 2.

So why use Steam which was created and run by Valve, a company that many consider to be one of id's chief rivals for both game development and well as engine licenses? Holleshead said there is no such rivalry. "We like the Valve guys," Hollenshead told us, "They got their start in the industry with a Quake engine license. I have enormous respect for Gabe (Newell) and the rest of the Valve guys." Hollenshead also said, "We really see ourselves as game developers first and foremost and Valve sees themselves a little bit differently." Offering all of id's games via Steam has a mutual benefit. "They help us make more money while they make more money and that's just the foundation of a good business partnership."

Wolfenstein Movie

We were hoping to get a real update on the forthcoming new Wolfenstein game that's being developed by Raven Software at QuakeCon (the game was officially announced nearly two years ago at Microsoft's X05 European press event). Unfortunately we didn't get any new real info other than the fact that Threewave Software would be handling the multiplayer features for the game. However, as leaked previous to QuakeCon in the movie trade journal Variety, id has signed a new movie deal for the game series. Producer Samuel Hadida has brought in Academy Award winner Roger Avery to write and direct the Wolfenstein film.

Avary won the Oscar for co-writing (with Quentin Tarantino) Pulp Fiction and has written and directed films like Killing Zoe, Mr. Stitch, and The Rules of Attraction. In 2006 Avary wrote the script for the film adaptation of Konami's Silent Hill and this year his script that he co-wrote (with Neil Gaiman) of the CGI adaptation of the classic heroic poem Beowulf will be released to theaters in November (previous to last week's Wolfenstein's announcement, Avary was supposed to write and direct an adaptation of Atari's Driver game series but there's no word if those plans have been cancelled).

Hollenshead told us that he was genuinely excited about the prospects of a Wolfenstein film under Avary's direction. Avary attended QuakeCon in 2006 and met with id team members where he expressed to the team how much of a fan he was about the Wolfenstein game franchise. "Roger really is a talented writer," Hollenshead told us,"and to be able to have a guy who is excited about your franchise like that and have his enthusiasm for it and to be able to apply his talent to it, it's pretty much a no-brainer. I really see this as a can't miss."

Of course, the 2005 film adaptation of id's Doom franchise didn't turn out as well as expected. "We learned some good lessons about some things that we did right and we learned some things that we would have done differently." Hollenshead told us. One of the issues was basically having concepts in the original script by David Callaham get changed as the director, other scriptwriters, and the movie studio made their opinions known. "That process deluded a little bit of the edginess of the original script that I read on the Doom movie." Hollenshead told us. With the Wolfenstein movie, Hollenshead said that everyone seems to be on the same page with Avary and Hadida on board. "(Avary's) writing what he knows what he is going to direct. He also has a great relationship with Samual Hadida who is putting up the money. This is going to allow all of the greatness to come through." Hollenshead told us that the movie will be based on the Return to Castle Wolfenstein game. So far no studio has been announced for the movie.

New Doom game?

With new games on Quake and Wolfenstein in the works and id's new title Rage on the horizon, it begs the question: When will there be another Doom game down the line? "It's our, from an historical standpoint, our biggest brand," Hollenshead told us, "and we don't intend to not revisit it at some point." He added that there are no concrete plans for id or any other third party developer to create a new Doom game at this time.