id Software

id Software LLC is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991 by four people who had worked at the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall and artist Adrian Carmack. The studio made important technical advances for PC games, including 3D computer graphics and the game engines that the wider industry later licensed and imitated, working chiefly on the Commander Keen, Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake franchises. Wolfenstein 3D is often considered the first true first-person shooter, Doom popularized the genre and PC gaming in general, and Quake was the studio's first fully 3D shooter. The company distributed early games as shareware through Apogee Software. ZeniMax Media acquired id Software in June 2009, and Microsoft acquired ZeniMax in March 2021.