Adrian Carmack
Born (1969-05-05) May 5, 1969 (age 54)
NationalityAmerican
OccupationVideo game artist
Known forco-founder, id Software

Adrian Carmack (born May 5, 1969) is an American video game artist and one of four co-founders of id Software, along with Tom Hall, John Romero, and John Carmack (no relation). The founders met while working at Softdisk's Gamer's Edge division and started id in 1991.[1] Adrian Carmack's primary role at the company was as an artist, including work on Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, Hexen: Beyond Heretic, Quake, Quake II and Quake III Arena.[2] He is credited as the creator of Doom's grotesque, gory art style[1] as well as the term "gibs".[3] During the development of Doom, Adrian built clay models of the baron of hell, the Doomguy, and the cyberdemon before Gregor Punchatz was hired.[citation needed]

He was a 41%-owner of id until he left the company in 2005. At the time the press was told he felt he had done all he could do in the gaming field and was planning to pursue his passions of art. However, in September 2005, The Wall Street Journal revealed he was taking his former business partners to court, claiming he was effectively fired by them in an attempt to force him to sell his 41% stake in the company for $11 million (~$15.9 million in 2022) under the terms of a contract he wants the court to nullify. $11 million is thought to be a fraction of the true value of his stake, which is thought to be closer to $43 million after the company received a $105 million bid from Activision in 2004.[4]

In September 2014, Carmack was revealed as the new owner of the five-star Heritage Golf & Spa Resort in Killenard, Ireland.[5]

In April 2016, it was reported that Carmack had reunited with Romero under a new Galway, Ireland-based start-up, The Night Work Games, to produce a new video game, Blackroom, for which they had launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter.[6] The game has been described as "a return to fast, violent and masterful play on the PC". Later the campaign was put on hold to allow Carmack and Romero time to complete a working demo of the game.[7][8] According to the two developers, their decision was based on players' feedback regarding the playability of the demo. The company behind Blackroom, Night Work Games, was seeking $700,000 to fund the development of the game. Before being put on hold, the campaign had raised $131,052 from its supporters.[9]

References

  1. ^ a b Kushner, David (2003). Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture. New York: Random House. p. 77. ISBN 0-375-50524-5.
  2. ^ Goninon, Mark (February 11, 2015). "Where are they now? - Adrian Carmack". Choicest Games. Archived from the original on July 4, 2018. Retrieved July 4, 2018.
  3. ^ "We Play Doom with John Romero". IGN. December 30, 2013. Archived from the original on July 15, 2015. Retrieved June 2, 2015.
  4. ^ "[Adrian] Carmack Sues id Software". Eurogamer. September 28, 2005. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved June 2, 2015.
  5. ^ Lyons, Tom (September 23, 2014). "'Doom' game creator buys Heritage resort". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved December 18, 2015.
  6. ^ Machkovech, Sam (April 25, 2016). "John Romero, Adrian Carmack announce new video game and not much else". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on April 26, 2016. Retrieved April 25, 2016.
  7. ^ Fields, Sarah (April 30, 2016). "Romero's Blackroom Kickstarter Cancelled, Demo in Development". Game Rant. Archived from the original on January 11, 2018. Retrieved January 10, 2018.
  8. ^ Glixel, David Kushner (May 27, 2016). "Life After 'Doom': Creators of Era-Defining Game Speak". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on July 4, 2018. Retrieved July 4, 2018.
  9. ^ McWhertor, Michael (April 29, 2016). "Romero and Carmack pull their Kickstarter campaign for new FPS Blackroom". Polygon. Archived from the original on June 26, 2019. Retrieved June 26, 2019.

External links

Softdisk
id Software (games)
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