Bethesda confirms layoffs at id Software: 'Work on future id titles continues unabated'

by Ben Gilbert on Jan 10th 2012 3:04PM

id Software's parent company, Bethesda Softworks, confirmed with Joystiq this afternoon that an unknown quantity of employees at the Rage development studio have been let go. "As part of its standard business practice, id regularly evaluates staffing to ensure it has a workforce that meets the needs of the studio. As part of that process, some id employees were recently let go," the statement reads.

Despite the layoffs, the publisher additionally noted that it is "still recruiting and hiring qualified developers" for id Software, and that "development work on future id titles continues unabated." id Software is currently working on Doom 4, the next entry in a long-running franchise for the studio, as it has been for the past four-ish years.

Via: Neogaf
Source: @adambromell

Tags: bethesda, bethesda-softworks, id-software, layoffs, rage

Reader Comments (46)

Hope they fired the ones responsible for the great "quality" of rage, specially on the p.c. with all those graphic bugs.......

@Hunter141072
Unfortunately, I believe Romero still has his job.

@Ceridith
Nah, he lost his id gig... 16 years ago

@Ceridith

He lost his job the day he called his possible customers "bitches".......

@Hunter141072

I may be alone here, but I never noticed many bugs on the PC version. There was a *slight* amount of texture pop in in the distance at times, but other than that I had no issues... :S

Is there anything other than that?

@MrClickerson: Then you don't own an ATI/AMD video card. Nvidia GPU's were fine but the former would have horribly low FPS including a ton of texture pop-in. The good thing that came out of this was that AMD finally shaped up their OpenGL support which was horribly neglected for a full year (thus games like Prey and Quake IV would lock up the GPU unless you used a dll from an older driver).

@Hunter141072 Romero lost his job after or around Quake 1's ship date due to conflicts with Carmack. After he founded Ion Storm in 1997 and they started marketing Daikatana did the infamous "about to make you his bitch" ad come out.

Masters of Doom is a pretty awesome book.

This is why I would NEVER be a video game developer. Very insecure job positions.

You could be super passionate about the game you are making, but once it is released, you can easily be given the big F- U!

=( Hopefully these people find quick jobs...it really sucks being unemployed and not knowing how your future will turn out.

@xiLeShadow Too bad that's what my brother is working on. :(
I've told him the same thing, but he has such a passion for videogames as do I. Too bad he's a far better programmer than myself.

@xiLeShadow
Only for the basic jobs, and even then you can roll straight into another company or go freelance.

@xiLeShadow Video games, even passion about video games, doesn't amount to much. It's still business. You all need to get over that.

If you want a "stable" job, work in production support for an MMO or some other service. Project work is no better than contract labor.

@xiLeShadow
Sorry, but if you get laid off then it means you're replacable. Try doing something that a gorilla can't be trained to do.

@xiLeShadow
It's much like being staff for a movie. Once the movie wraps up, that's the end of your contract and you just move on to the next. Honestly I think it's good for staff to be constantly revolving so that the work never goes stale and people don't get complacent... well.... as long as they can find work that is...

News like this is terrible. Especially with good developers. Losing jobs sucks but at least weed out the bad developers. It always seems like the good ones. :(

And this is why most men have shorter lifespans than their wives.

Working under shit conditions like that.

@McDude
You come back from the 50s/60s? Welcome. It's a new world now.

@McDude

This is also why correlation equals causation.

@Ruinkind

Ha, well said!

@Mmmmz

Ya know what other archaic ideas died after the 50's/60's? Racism. Yep, racism never happens anymore. Not since the the Civil Rights Movement.

You tell me how many stay-at-home dads you know, and how proud they are to be in that position. The stigma lives on whether you sit on a nice computer in some quiet suburban neighborhood or not.

@McDude
Racism died? You haven't been down south, have you? Not 50s racism, but it still exists.

@ColorblindMonk

*WHOOSH!*

@McDude Hey, I'm a single father who worked as a stay-at-home/work-from-home dad for awhile and I'm proud of it. But I do get your point, there's a lot of people (mostly women) who jump to the conclusion that when I'm out at dinner with my son or at the playground, that I'm giving my "wife" (actually my ex-wife who has next to no interest in our son) a break when in reality I'm filling the role of both parents. There is a stigma/assumption like you said.

@greyloki

...And it's bullshit, but that's the world we live in.

Wow that sure seems fair... Blame them for your disappointing Rage I suppose.

@hyamzy This is normal for entertainment studios, its nothing personal.
You hire a staff large enough to develop a major production, when that major production is completed and you don't have anything else lined up that justifies such a large staff, you correct the size of your staff. Industry vets are used to this.

Meh this is nothing new. Layoffs occur after the project is finished since they over hire for crunch, and it usually consists of the QA team. Nothing new here, move along.

This is one of the reasons why I think this industry is so inefficient. Almost every studio seems incapable of having more than one project going at the same time. It doesn't make any sense, really. You MAY save a little money up front, but at the same time you don't have much sense of community and most of your grunts will only do what they have to since they know they're going to be fired anyway.

Why do your best for a company that's going to shitcan you rather than move you to another project or start a new project?

Can't blame them. Rage was very disappointing.

@Meghterb1985
Really? Personally I really enjoyed it (even with the awful ending) and frequently play road rage and wasteland legends with my friend.

Currently I'm waiting on the promised dlc, which no doubt they will pull a Clegg on (or a Molyneux if you prefer).

Feel bad for people losing their jobs, but Rage was disappointing.

Another sad day in the gaming industry. Hopefully they find a new job immediately .

Rage was quite alright by me, but Doom 4 is what I'm really looking forward to. Hope this doesn't negatively affect it, or doom it, if you will.

@Pure Black World Tendency
Well I'm a bit nervous about that. I loved Doom 3 but god they overdid shadow/darkness way too much, if not for the ducktape mod I'd say it had a pretty negative impact on the game.

@Pure Black World Tendency

I liked Rage, too. I guess people were expecting a more open world, but the combat was fun. I liked it a lot better than most first person shooters released this year.

I hope they make Doom 4 fast. Doom 3 was the opposite speed of the first two.

Rage was NOT bad, at least on the PS3 version. Come on guys, seriously?

I'd have let go of the people that did PS3's Skyrim, now THAT was bad.

@Vic Fontaine While i agree that the game it's not bad, the textures pop problems in this game are awful, especially on PS3.

Rage sucked ass.. heads rolls.. nothing new..

I really enjoy Rage, but them graphics problems were a pain. Also it had some of the worst textures in gaming. Look anywhere around the enviromwnt and tell me you don't agree.

So...will there be any DLC / anything for Rage at this point? I remember Carmack talking up a storm that there will be true HD texture packs and that not.

I guess it is safe to finally delete this 20GB monster?

Aw man. I worked on Rage for about six months, too. I was very concerned about the possibility of being laid off, even if they had decided to hire me full time after my internship was finished. It's so important to keep developing your skills out side of work and maintaining your portfolio in this industry, because you never know where you'll be a year from now. Right after I quit, Zenimax had sent me a threatening letter over a contest I had participated in outside of work and ended up winning money in, despite there being nothing in my contract to forbid it. For those of us who are still relatively new to this industry in particular, we need to do everything we can to be hirable, and it's really upsetting to me that they had so little regard for my best interests. Especially in hindsight over this.

I'm sure I would have been gone if I had still been there. Very unfortunate, I know so many talented friends who worked their butts off over there and a few are confirmed gone today. I hope they all find themselves great new jobs, and wish them the best.

Other than their engines when has id been relevant? I was a huge fan of quake and started playing online with a 14.4 modem. It's been 16 years since qtest came out and if it wasn't for licensing the engines the studio would have been shuttered years ago. Online first person shooters have changed. id software eh not so much.

You may have liked the game, but the engine was an embarrassment if you're looking at the graphical showcase it was supposed to be. Draw-in is worse than games running UE3's rickety ass.

Honestly I do not like Zenimax

I feel that they are buying up the best IP's and developers of the gaming world and then asking them to perform at 200% all of the time.

Not that is a bad thing but it really puts to much hype and pressure into the smaller companies games which is why I believe that RAGE was unfinished.

That Zenimax forced id to release it before extensive testing.

I think that Zenimax is the next EA

I have rage on the ps3 and I like it, I must admit though that the engine is awful and the texture pop plain ridiculous but the story is still good.

Rage was one the games i was looking forward to play on PC, but after the awful launch i just decided to get it on PS3. While the game it's pretty good and the graphics are great (it's a bless to play a game a 60 FPS game on consoles) the texture pop problem it's ridiculous. They should have tested the game before putting it on the street.

Too bad people got fired, hope they get a nice job soon.

I gotta ask: What's the point of id software anymore? When was the last time they put out a good game? How many people from the "old days" when they put out good games are still there, and those who are (Carmack, Cloud), are they really hands-on involved or just "directors" who are more interested in making rocket ships?

Sometimes I think Zenimax just bought id to get their hands on their IP rights. What else is left?

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Rage

Bethesda confirms layoffs at id Software: 'Work on future id titles continues unabated'

Reader Comments (46)

Posted: Jan 10th 2012 3:06PM Hunter141072 said

Posted: Jan 10th 2012 3:18PM Ceridith said

Posted: Jan 10th 2012 3:58PM darkinchworm said

Posted: Jan 10th 2012 6:04PM Hunter141072 said

Posted: Jan 11th 2012 4:18AM MrClickerson said

Posted: Jan 11th 2012 8:28AM djnforce9 said

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Posted: Jan 10th 2012 3:12PM xiLeShadow said

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Posted: Jan 10th 2012 3:17PM McDude said

Posted: Jan 10th 2012 3:37PM Mmmmz said

Posted: Jan 10th 2012 3:45PM Ruinkind said

Posted: Jan 10th 2012 3:52PM Draugdraugr said

Posted: Jan 10th 2012 5:48PM McDude said

Posted: Jan 10th 2012 7:25PM ColorblindMonk said

Posted: Jan 11th 2012 3:20AM McDude said

Posted: Jan 11th 2012 9:46AM greyloki said

Posted: Jan 11th 2012 6:47PM McDude said

Posted: Jan 10th 2012 3:23PM hyamzy said

Posted: Jan 11th 2012 11:55AM Zero Hoki said

Posted: Jan 10th 2012 3:25PM KenshinSlayer said

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Posted: Jan 10th 2012 3:42PM Meghterb1985 said

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Posted: Jan 10th 2012 4:25PM Pure Black World Tendency said

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