In a recent interview with GameDaily, John Carmack, founder of id Software and creator of games like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake, criticized Apple’s strategy when it comes to gaming on the iPod and iPhone. Responding to the question of whether or not he plans to release any games for the iPhone or iPod, Carmack said, “Steve Jobs and I have not been seeing really eye to eye on a lot of important issues. We were in a fairly heated argument at the last WWDC [Worldwide Developers Conf.] and we’ve had a few follow-ups. I have an iPhone right now and it’s a platform I would enjoy developing for but Apple is not taking progressive steps in regards to [gaming].”
Switching focus to the iPod, he continued, “When they finally allowed games to be put on the iPod… in many ways it’s one of the worst environments to develop games for. You have to work on an emulator… just all these horrible decisions. I expressed my fears directly to Steve Jobs that some of these mistakes might be carried over to the iPhone, so they’re at least aware of all of them, but they’re not giving any spectacular signs that it’s going to be a big deal for them in the next year.” Although a port of Doom is available for the iPodlinux platform, id Software has yet to release any games for the iPod.
