Unauthorized id Games Removed From Android Market

Zenimax has brought the hammer down on the Android Market, filing a DMCA complaint demanding that 11 unauthorized ports of id Software games be removed from the site.

ZeniMax filed the complaint over various ports of the id Software classics Wolfenstein 3-D, Doom and Quake, saying that they are "unauthorized versions or contain content" taken from the copyrighted games. As a result, all off the software in question has been removed from the Market.

At least one developer of a Doom port is trying to get his game back on the site with ZeniMax's blessing, however. "Although the Doom source code was open sourced, and the application was based on a port of the PrBoom engine, the application is still suspended," he wrote in a message sent to Android and Me. "My mistake was allowing the download of the Plutonia and TNT WADs, at least that is what I suspect." He also noted that while the software is still available through the web.

ZeniMax acquired id earlier this year and while it would be easy to see this as a case of a big, deep-pocketed company bullying the little guys just for the hell of it, id's recent and by all reports very successful move into the mobile market puts a bit of a different spin on the matter. id launched a mobile gaming division in late 2007 and has released its own iPhone ports of Doom and Wolfenstein 3-D, and earlier this year John Carmack said the studio planned to release several other titles on the iPhone including Quake, Quake 2 and a version of Rage.