John Carmack has weighed in on the major layoffs affecting id Software, and his response is notably restrained. Rather than reacting with fury, the legendary programmer said he feels sadness about the situation and uncertainty about what could have been done differently. His comments arrived after reports confirmed deep cuts at the studio behind Doom, with dozens of employees in Texas losing their jobs alongside many more in remote positions. The reductions are part of a broader restructuring across Microsoft’s gaming division, a move that has already affected thousands of workers and multiple studios.
Carmack’s perspective carries unusual weight because he helped found id Software in 1991 alongside John Romero, Tom Hall, and Adrian Carmack. Few people are better positioned to understand the studio’s legacy, even if he is no longer involved in its day-to-day operations. In his public remarks, he suggested that id Software may have been viewed internally as a relatively small business within Microsoft’s enormous corporate structure. From that angle, even a respected and influential studio can struggle to justify its place if its games are not generating the kind of revenue expected from a modern blockbuster operation.
The most striking part of Carmack’s response is his blunt view of how the industry works. He argued that for games to keep getting made over the long term, they must do more than earn praise from fans and critics. They have to succeed commercially. That point may sound harsh, especially when discussing a studio with a history as important as id’s, but it reflects the reality of big-budget game development. Admiration alone does not pay salaries, fund future projects, or protect teams from cuts when executives begin looking for efficiency.
His comments also highlight how fierce competition has become in entertainment. Games are not just competing against other games anymore. They are fighting for players’ time and money against streaming services, social media, live-service titles, mobile apps, and countless other forms of leisure. In that environment, even a well-made shooter with a strong reputation can fall short if it does not reach a large enough audience or produce enough ongoing revenue. Carmack openly admitted that he does not know what specific strategy would have changed id Software’s fortunes, but he raised the right questions: could pricing have been different, could there have been more products for fans to buy, could marketing have reached more players, could game design have broadened the audience, or could development have been done faster and more cheaply?
Those questions matter because id Software’s recent output was not creatively irrelevant. The 2016 Doom reboot was widely praised for its speed, aggression, and confidence. Doom Eternal followed with another strong reception, proving the studio could still deliver high-quality action games that stood apart from much of the market. Even if some releases were less impactful, the studio remained one of the most recognizable names in first-person shooters. Its games may not have sold at the level of the industry’s biggest annual franchises, but they maintained a loyal fanbase and a distinct identity.
That may be part of the problem. In a giant organization, being respected is not always enough. A studio can produce acclaimed games and still be considered expendable if the numbers do not compare favorably with larger revenue drivers. Reports have suggested that Minecraft has been one of the key financial pillars supporting Microsoft’s broader gaming portfolio. If that is true, then id Software may have existed in a system where one or two megahits effectively subsidized a range of other teams and projects. That kind of arrangement is common in entertainment, where a handful of massive successes often fund experimentation elsewhere. But when corporate priorities shift, those supporting structures can disappear quickly.
The layoffs also raise difficult questions about what comes next for id Software. Before the cuts, there were reports that the studio had been exploring multiple ideas, including a possible new original property, a new Perfect Dark project, and even a multiplayer or co-op Doom concept. If those ideas were still in early stages, the studio may have been caught in a vulnerable gap between shipped products and future releases. In today’s industry, long development cycles can become a liability, especially when leadership starts demanding clearer returns and tighter portfolios.
There is also concern about whether id Software can remain a lead developer with its own creative direction, or whether it could be pushed into more of a support role. That possibility would be especially painful given the studio’s history. Few developers have had a bigger impact on the shooter genre. Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein are not just old names; they are foundational parts of gaming history. Preserving that legacy matters to fans, but preserving it inside a modern corporate structure requires more than nostalgia.
John Romero also expressed support for the affected staff and emphasized the care and talent shown in the studio’s recent work. That sentiment underscores the human cost of these decisions. Behind every restructuring announcement are developers, artists, designers, testers, and support staff whose work helped keep a historic studio alive. Whatever the business logic may be, layoffs on this scale are a reminder that even iconic teams are not insulated from the pressures reshaping the industry.
For now, id Software’s future remains uncertain. Carmack’s comments do not offer easy answers, but they do frame the issue clearly. Great games can be loved, influential, and critically successful, yet still struggle if they fail to meet financial expectations inside a massive publisher. That tension between artistic legacy and commercial performance is at the center of this story, and it may determine what happens next to one of gaming’s most legendary studios.
I have been trying to find something meaningful to say about the Id Software layoffs.
My “Microsoft will probably be a good steward of the brand” statement isn’t aging well, and this is certainly going to dampen the mood of the founder reunion at QuakeCon next month.
I’m saddened, but I can’t muster anger or outrage over it. I don’t have access to the books, but I suspect that id Software was a marginal business from Microsoft’s perspective. I believe the reports that Minecraft revenues have been carrying several other studios.
To continue being produced long term, games need to succeed, not just be beloved.
Games are competing with every other option for spending your leisure time and money, and the competition is brutal.
You can’t rule out the possibility that executives are idiots, but that shouldn’t be your default belief. I don’t think there is any obvious path that would have doubled the revenue from Id games.
Could they have gotten more with a different pricing strategy?
Could they have created more things for fans to buy?
Could they have cost effectively marketed in a way that reached more players that would have loved and bought the games?
Could they have changed the game designs and broadened the appeal to more players without alienating existing ones?
Could they have produced the games at a lower cost, faster or cheaper?
I really don’t know.
The game isn’t over yet, and I hope the studio rallies through.
Going forward, Xbox plans to take a more streamlined approach to games and studios, rather than the bigger-is-better approach. The company will focus more on franchises like Minecraft, from studio Mojang, which had previously operated more or less independently. Profits from Minecraft, considered one of the most successful video games in the world, were used to fund the rest of the gaming portfolio, according to the person familiar with Xbox operations.
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