Monsters of the ID come to mobile

Id Software, the company responsible for Quake, Doom and Wolfenstein, has established a mobile division with a view to porting all three games to mobile phones, according to USA Today.

Id has done mobile games before: the Doom RPG was (and is) a turn-based version of the original 3-D violence, which sold more than a million copies when launched in '05; while Orcs & Elves was more of the same but designed from the ground-up for mobile play, and sold half a million last year.

But according to Id's John Carmack that's just the beginning. "We're already making profit on two million units of games," he said, "but we are kind of holding out this hope there might be a breakout moment when the industry gets five to ten times larger."

None of the mobile games launched by Id thus far include network play, and it's hard to imagine how they could recreate those lost weekends of Doom for a new generation. But the company does appear to understand that mobile gaming isn't just about porting last year's titles onto a mobile phone - even if they're prepared to use the titles of those games to promote their new content. ®