id Software Dives Fully into Mobile Development

According to USA Today, old guard PC developer id Software will more fully embrace the mobile gaming market in which it already has seen some measure of success. Anna Kang, founder of Orcs & Elves series and Doom RPG developer Fountainhead Entertainment, will head up id Mobile, the new division devoted entirely to cell phone games. Classic id franchises Wolfenstein and Quake are expected to make the jump to mobile. Doom RPG and the Orcs & Elves franchise were notoriously born out of a desire by id Software co-founder John Carmack to improve the state of mobile gaming as well as give him a chance to work on smaller, more personal projects that do not require large development teams. Fountainhead developed the games using initial technology developed by Carmack. Kang, previously an id employee, is Carmack's wife. She will apparently keep her Fountainhead post while serving as president of id Mobile. Fountainhead and id's mobile games have seen both critical and commercial success. The first Orcs & Elves game has been ported by Fountainhead to Nintendo DS as well; it is not clear whether id Mobile will produce titles on portable non-phone platforms such as the DS. "I was just really appalled at how bad [cell phone games] were," Carmack reportedly stated. "We're already making profit on two million units of games, but we are kind of holding out this hope there might be a breakout moment when the industry gets five to 10 times larger. "Everybody has a phone, and almost every phone is powerful enough to do good games on it."