To many gamers around the globe, John Carmack is an innovator, an icon, a legend. His vision as lead-programmer for hits like Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake revolutionized the gaming industry and the concept of first-person shooters forever.
Now,
Forbes is reporting that Carmack will be bringing his technical skills and gaming-know-how to the iPhone. "We wanted to do something for the iPhone, but we just didn't have the scheduling or the resources available," he says. "I really regret not having something at launch."
As a co-founder of id Software, Carmack's mobile division has released 3 titles over the last 2 years, selling a total of 2 million copies. Developing for the iPhone, however, represents an entirely new frontier: "We have a title we want to develop exclusively for iPhone," Carmack says. "I'm not announcing anything specifically, but it would be a graphical tour de force."
Though Carmack wouldn't go into details, Anna Kang, president of id Mobile, said their iPhone game "would not be a new IP." In other words, we could be seeing a legitimate and robust version of Wolfenstein, Quake, or Doom on the iPhone in the near future.
Regardless of which title we see, id Mobile has huge, ambitious, and long-term gaming plans for the iPhone according to Kang: ""If we had an infinite amount of time and budget, we could make an awesome massively multiplayer game."
Just the mere prospect of having Carmack's company, one of the greatest game makers of all-time, develop a World-of-Warcraft-esque app for the iPhone is revolutionary, and shows us just how far mobile gaming has come, and just how far it can go.
