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id Software is an American video game development company with its headquarters in Mesquite, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk who worked on a short-lived game subscription product Gamer's Edge: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack (no relation to John Carmack). Business manager Jay Wilbur was also involved[1]. It was considered the most influential of the many game development companies in the Dallas area, known as the Dallas Gaming Mafia[2]. On June 24, 2009, id was acquired by ZeniMax Media.

The company is best known for creation of the concept of first-person shooters. They are well known for creating the famous Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake game series, and now RAGE built on the revolutionary id Tech 5 engine.

id Software was an early pioneer in the Linux gaming market, and id Software's Linux games have been some of the most popular of the platform. Many id Software games won the Readers' and Editors' Choice awards of Linux Journal. Some id Software titles ported to Linux are Doom (the first id Software game to be ported), Quake, Quake II, Quake III Arena, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Doom 3, Quake 4, and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. Since id Software and some of its licensees released the source code for some of their previous games, several games which were not ported (such as Wolfenstein 3D, Spear of Destiny, Heretic, Hexen, Hexen II, and Strife) can run on Linux and other operating systems through the use of source ports.

RAGE was likely to be ported to Linux in late 2012[3][4] or some time later[5], but the situation became unclear when Timothee Besset, the man who stood behind all the id's Linux ports since the Quake III port, resigned from id in January 2012[6].

id Software has also been associated with novels since the publication of the original Doom novels. This has been restarted from 2008 onward with Matthew J. Costello's (a story consultant for Doom 3 and now RAGE) new Doom 3 novels: "Worlds on Fire" and "Maelstrom".

id Software became involved in film development when they were in the production team of the film adaption of their Doom franchise in 2005[7]. In August 2007, Todd Hollenshead stated at QuakeCon 2007 that a "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" movie is in development which re-teams the Silent Hill writer/producer team, Roger Avary as writer and director and Samuel Hadida as producer[8]. (The project is now canceled[9].) The company was also featured on Marvels for their creation of the 3D First Person Shooter.

The name of the company is currently written with a lowercase "id", which is pronounced as in "did" or "kid", and in the book, "Masters of Doom", also it is said that the name "id" came from the phrase, "in demand". Today it is presented by the company as a reference to the id, a psychological concept introduced by Sigmund Freud. Evidence of the reference can be found as early as Wolfenstein 3D with the statement "that's Id, as in the id, ego, and superego in the psyche" appearing in the game's documentation.

They are currently the lead developer on RAGE 2 with the help of Avalanche Studios.

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