// PC GAMER — GAMING
John Carmack apologizes after Sandy Petersen says 'Quake ruined id Software,' and for once John Romero doesn't tell Sandy he's wrong
Three of the principals from the early days of id Software shared some faintly maudlin but ultimately uplifting reminiscences from those long-ago days.
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The 30th anniversary of Quake recently passed by—June 22, 2026 was the day—and of course there were acknowledgements, salutes, and celebrations a-plenty, as you'd expect for such a groundbreaking, influential, and enduring game. But it also got a couple of the driving forces behind it reflecting on those days rather more deeply, and as sometimes happens when youthful memories come to the surface, they got pretty deep into their feelings.
Quake co-designer Sandy Petersen, who joined id Software in 1993, got the ball rolling, writing bluntly on X that "Quake ruined id Software." He said Quake "is an amazing feat of art, programming, and design," and credited everyone on the development team for doing "a brilliant job, fulfilling tasks just right." But, he added, the workload was intense, "and I think it broke us spiritually."
Petersen then ran through a list of everyone who left id "within a couple years of finishing Quake," including John Romero, Shawn Green, Dave Taylor, Mike Abrash, American McGee, and of course Petersen himself. All of them went on to have long and fruitful careers in game development, "so plainly we didn't depart because of some kind of talent issue," Petersen wrote. "We were all highly competent, just a little burnt out after the labor of Quake."
"Id Software was never the same after," Petersen wrote. "In my opinion (only an opinion), the only other truly great game that id produced was Quake 3, and it was not at the level of the pre-Quake games."
Despite clearly being a bit melancholy about the whole thing, Petersen said Quake was "absolutely" worth the cost it extracted from id: "Games are more important than game companies, and Quake is an iconic titan of the gaming world." But, he added, "man alive it seems like the company could have had its act together better and kept that dream team."
Sandy Petersen is pretty famous for having his recollections repeatedly (but respectfully) knifed by John Romero, but in this instance his reminiscences were met with agreement, mostly, from the other John of the original id Software squad: Carmack.
In response to Petersen's missive, Carmack said Quake was "overly ambitious technically," and that the studio "could have done all the great multiplayer and modding work inside a Doom++ engine, allowing the designers to work with a more stable base instead of rug-pulling everything out from underneath them a couple times."
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