Does modern Id Software acknowledge Freedoom?

[Artman2004]

I know that John Carmack had an e-mail about Freedoom, but Id Software has changed since then, and Carmack doesn't work at Id anymore. Does modern-day Id acknowledge the existence of Freedoom?

[Hellektronic]

I'm not sure they think it's lucrative enough to even mention, in a lot of ways. The old id was a lot more open to modding and making their games into something different, like John Romero commenting positively on Brutal Doom... but the new one? They strike me as only promoting things that can somehow benefit them from a financial standpoint, like an add-on for their console re-releases of the original two Doom games.

 

I think since Freedom is more of an IWAD, they can't do that, so there's no reason for them to promote or even mention it. Kind of depressing really.

[P41R47]

Good question!

Probably yes, and it could be a problem for they if Freedoom was more known an accepted by the general public.

But right now, i think they might see it as a curiosity, and not a financial problem.

Also, new players want the real deal, even when they might know about the Freedoom option.

When Freedoom reaches a point beyond V1.0 were all the gfx are improved to be on par to the original game, if not better even, thats when new ID will start complaining.

Edited August 23, 2020 by P41R47

[Gez]

What would "acknowledging" entail exactly?

 

Do they know it exists? Probably! Do they have to do something about it? Nope! They have no reason to promote or endorse it, and they also have no reason to attack it. It's just a thing that exists, without their involvement.

 

I suppose they could offer the thing as an official add-on, but they'd wait until it gets a bit more polished and maybe replace the Double Impact levels with something new because they already offer Double Impact.

 

24 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

When Freedoom reaches a point beyond V1.0 were all the gfx are improved to be on par to the original game, if not better even, thats when new ID will start complaining. 

LOL if you travel back in time to 1994 to release it then you'd have a point. But the id Software from today has no reason at all to care about a freeware game for an ancient engine. Freedoom will never be Doom. Doesn't matter if the graphics and sounds and music and levels were to be better, Doom is Doom and there's no way Freedoom can usurp that status.

[D4NUK1]

What with so recently topics trowing "indirect hate" to new Id as if old Id was always 10/10? Geninue question.

Also, John Carmarck e-mailing freemdon is John Carmarck, we should need to learn how to separate the persons of their departements.

 

If they need to acknolodge, yeah sure, but is something that it's possible because iD made the source code free so.. it's also vice-versa?
 

[P41R47]

11 minutes ago, Gez said:

LOL if you travel back in time to 1994 to release it then you'd have a point. But the id Software from today has no reason at all to care about a freeware game for an ancient engine. Freedoom will never be Doom. Doesn't matter if the graphics and sounds and music and levels were to be better, Doom is Doom and there's no way Freedoom can usurp that status.

Yeah, you are right. No way to dethroning it.
And even after Doom appeard, there was a place for Wolfenstein 3D, so yes, even with a better Freedoom, there will be a place for the original game.

I just expressed my stupids idealist dreams about something made with passion tickling the big enterprise.

 

With this poor knowledge of gaming industry, It doesn't surprise me that every business endeavor I do ends badly :/

 

[TheMightyHeracross]

The Doom engine is free and open source, and the Freedoom IWAD doesn't have any id assets, so id couldn't do anything even if they really wanted Freedoom gone for whatever reason. The very worst case I imagine is a forced name change.

[DNSKILL5]

I don't think they have to acknowledge it. It's part of the Doom community. If all I did was play Doom, and never joined any Doom forums then I'd probably never would've heard of freedoom. 

[Skootroot]

On 8/23/2020 at 3:54 PM, jamondemarnatural said:

What with so recently topics trowing "indirect hate" to new Id as if old Id was always 10/10? Geninue question.

 

doomworld cant handle change

[DNSKILL5]

Yeah I think they need to get over that mindset. The “old” Id can’t be around forever, and the “new” one can’t either. There will be another new one and another new one and another and another until either one they go under in a distant future for one reason or another or the entire world ends and the fate of Id might be the least of everyone‘s (including id) concern then. It’s not old or new anyways. That’s so dumb for them to think it like that when they complain. It’s a company, and employees in ALL positions come and go from the start and to the very last day of business. Do you call Walmart new Walmart because the cashier quit (or something along those lines) and got replaced? 

Edited August 27, 2020 by Gerolf

[Gez]

36 minutes ago, Gerolf said:

The “old” Id can’t be around forever

Especially since it seemed to be not a great place to work, despite the coolness of their games. I mean, most of the original members have been booted out at some point, only Donna Jackson and Kevin Cloud are still there.

[Dark Pulse]

The most current id could really do would be to force them to change the name from Freedoom by claiming that it will cause confusion.

 

The engine is opensourced, so they can't do anything about that, and all you need to make a game on the engine is the appropriate lumps in a WAD and new coding support. Advanced source ports extend that even further.

 

But could they stop people from making an independent game running on the engine, even for money? No, absolutely not. Of course, you'd be crazy to make it run on the original engine when you got much friendlier alternatives like GZDoom, for example.

[Graf Zahl]

You might create a game that runs with Doom.exe, but you cannot distribute Doom.exe with it. Although the source is open source and GPL, that exe does not fall under the same license as it wasn't compiled fromt the GPL source and also contains third party code which id doesn't own.