So is Quake Live the next step for PC gaming?

John Carmack: I don't think this is the future of PC gaming, though it's certainly an aspect of it. PC developers need to start considering the PC as a unique platform rather than a gaming machine that happens to be in your den rather than your living room. The traditional big-budget, media-rich, single-player type games like we used to make at id Software through to Doom 3, all that really has to be done cross-platform on the consoles now, to basically cover the development expenses for something like that. But the PC still has huge success stories, with things like The Sims 2 and World of Warcraft, which have been bigger successes than any console game has ever been, or possibly ever could be in the near future. At the end of the day, you have to look at the PC as a platform with its own strengths and weaknesses.

So Quake Live plays to these strengths?

JC: While Quake Live isn't a big-budget extravaganza, it is consciously playing to what we consider to be the PC's strengths. The PC is still a better information platform in terms of browsing the web and showing a lot of statistics and information. That's still really painful to do on the consoles. It's still got the mouse and keyboard interface which for a competitive first person shooter is still far and away the best way to play, versus playing on an analogue thumbstick or whatever. And I do think that the neat aspect of being able to jump on and play from any place where there's a PC is going to be interesting also.

Would id ever consider doing something like this with a new game?

JC: There's no way we could justify building a modern game for the PC exclusively. Not to say that it's impossible, but it just wouldn't be a good bet. Even a big-budget extravaganza like Crysis didn't do very well in the larger scheme of things. So if you want to develop something on the PC right now, it had better either be cross-platform (like what we're doing with Rage) or it'd have to be something like Spore or The Sims 2, that really caters to the type of game that more people are playing on the PC. Or it'd have to be something a little bit different, like what we're doing with Quake Live. At least that's my assessment of the business situation right now. Everybody's still free to make their own decisions, but I don't think the trends are encouraging for high-end, media-rich, PC action gaming.