id Software: “Classic” Games Have Sold Poorly On App Store

We’ve all seen what id software has in mind as far as bringing their upcoming Rage to iOS as a 60 frames-per-second FPS, but what about id’s classic games? They’ve already released incredible ports of Doom and Wolfenstein 3D to the App Store, and id’s engine-building maestro John Carmack had promised to bring Quake to iOS devices too, as well as the mobile specific title, Orcs and Elves. What’s the hold up?

TouchArcade got a chance to talk to Carmack, and it doesn’t sound good:

Currently, id is completely focused on Rage, and John isn’t sure when they will get back to the classic games “even though it makes a lot of sense.” He also explained that while both Doom II RPG [$3.99] and Wolfenstein RPG [$1.99] have done well on mobile phones, their performance on the App Store has been less than ideal, leading to the decision to not bring the Orcs & Elves games over to iOS.

That’s disappointing news, because both Doom II RPG and Wolfenstein RPG are great titles. Moreover, when Doom Classic was released, Carmack promised that it would soon be updated to allow in-app purchases of the sequels, Doom 2 and Final Doom. That update still isn’t out.

DON'T MISS
id software’s John Carmack promises “Rage” on the iPad

Rage for iPhone looks incredible, but id’s doing the best FPS ports on the App Store, and their classic library of games is non-pareil. Let’s hope id software figures out a way to get back to the App Store in earnest.

10 comments »

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John Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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boomshakah
I had no idea Doom was on the iPhone! Downloading now…DIE, IMPS, DIE!
Jeff
I’m old and that means I have played and LOVED all of those games. But you know what? Please don’t bring these to the iOS. We want to see new school graphics and interactions that really leverage the iOS device interface. Thanks.
dave
Price the game at 99 cents and they would have sales. They may have lowered the prices recently, but IIRC, they started at $4 to $5.
Steve
Maybe John should check his store publishing settings… When they had the recent QuakeCon sale, I looked to buy most of the apps they sell, but they were nowhere to be seen on the NZ app store. Lost sales right there!
http://www.themacuniverse.com kelly
I have to agree with Dave. I think most of these big name game studios expect these age old games to sell like hot cakes. I don’t know about you, but I have been playing this game for 17 years (doom) – I can’t recall how many times it has had to been re-purchased per device or gaming rig. After so many times of buying the same game for years, I think many people are getting tired of it.
These studios are also complaining that sales are low, yet they don’t do jack with the titles they have out. They promise updates with tons of new content and what not. None of that sees the light of day, then they wonder why people aren’t buying.
I think a lot of these companies should focus on bringing fresh content to the platform instead of just porting old titles. While it’s nice to carry around that old favorite game from 1993, it’d be nice to have something new as well.
Rage looks like it’ll be insanely awesome if / when they release it. I know I am pretty excited about it. I think that’s what more companies, not just id, but EA, and the others should take into consideration. People want quality titles, not rehashes.
Gazoobee
I think they are just bad ports of the games (at least Castle Wolfenstein 3D is).
No one wants to say it out loud but most of my friends and I played that game endlessly on a variety of PCs for years and we all agree that the iPhone version just plain sucks.
They didn’t take any time to work on it and it shows. The controls are horrible and you don’t have any options on half of them. They also released it at a large price point, with no new levels, and no way to add levels. The game is a million years old and there lot of specialised content out there for it, but ID software just doesn’t care.
They just threw this thoroughly unspectacular effort out to make money.
SDurnin
Give us Quake III.
http://www.paythegame.net somian
I’d download it but I can’t legally because I live in germany where I’m not supposed to play Doom and shoot pixel figures because I’m only 20 years old and could run amok after playing Doom.
John Brownlee
Gazoobee, I honestly don’t know how you could say Wolfenstein 3D or Doom are bad ports. They’re the best iPhone ports I’ve ever played, bar none. Your other complaints don’t hold muster either: Carmack has written several post-mortems explaining and going into detail just how much time he spent testing and getting the controls right, and I’ve found the controls in both Wolfenstein Classic and Doom Classic to be as effortless as I could possibly expect.
As for the inability to add external levels, while Doom is lacking this functionality, it’s available in Wolfenstein 3D. I don’t think you really know what you’re saying here.
PFR
Alternate article title: “New Games Outsell Old Games!”