> It was Carmack's job to assert technological dominance and give the industry its next generation of game engines.

Did they really?

Did ID make more money with engine licensing than with game sales?

They needed to ship. I think Quake Engine could wait, and have Doom++ would have given them some slack

This is the opposite to the Boeing problem (shipping the rehashed product instead of the brand new thing)

There was this obscure indy game called Half-Life, maybe you've heard of it.

iD's engines were famously known in the industry as tech demos first, first-party game platforms second. I'm not sure how the revenue picture ended up looking, though. They obviously made a lot of money from their 'tech demos.'

[dead]