id Software has announced the creation of a new mobile gaming division in conjunction with Fountainhead Entertainment, called id Mobile.
The new division will work on games for cell phones as well as the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS, including mobile versions of Quake, Wolfenstein and a sequel to Doom RPG. id Mobile will be headed by Katherine Anna Kang, the founder and CEO of Fountainhead and formerly the director of business development at id.
“We are operating on the assumption that mobile gaming has a potential for huge growth,” id’s John Carmack said in a statement to USA Today. “It’s at a tipping point. Everybody has a phone, and almost every phone is powerful enough to do good games on it.”
Carmack said the id name might make the prospect of developing for mobiles more attractive to new talent who might otherwise seek opportunities to work on more glamorous platforms. Referring to the mobile game industry as “the ghetto of game development,” Carmack added, “It’s going to be easier to attract more people to work for a project when they are actually working for id.”
“The whole reason we are in the mobile arena now is I was just really appalled at how bad (mobile games) were,” he said. “We’re already making profit on 2 million units of games, but we are kind of holding out this hope there might be a breakout moment when the industry gets five to 10 times larger.”
