John Carmack recently revealed a fascinating bit of backstory regarding his efforts to have VR ports of classic games sold on the official Quest store. In a bid to support Team Beef—known for their work in bringing iconic PC games like Doom, Doom 3, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Quake series, Tomb Raider, Duke Nukem 3D, and the Star Wars Jedi Knight series into standalone VR formats—Carmack offered id Software a bold $1 million sales guarantee.
For those not familiar, to experience these VR renditions today, you need to buy the original PC versions, install them on your Quest via SideQuest, and integrate Team Beef’s tailored code. This means the process, though rewarding, is a tad more cumbersome than a direct store purchase.
The story unfolded when a fan initiated a discussion on X (formerly Twitter) about Team Beef’s Quake 3 VR port. They tagged Carmack, urging him to officially recognize the port. Given Carmack’s history as a co-founder of id Software and lead programmer for Quake 3, the fan’s plea made sense. However, since the company became part of ZeniMax in 2009 and was later bought by Microsoft in 2021, Carmack no longer has direct influence over the intellectual property.
Replying to this interaction, Carmack shared that he did indeed “try” to push things forward. He entered into talks with “the powers that be at Id Software,” suggesting a significant financial promise if they allowed Team Beef to sell these classic titles on the Quest platform. Unfortunately, his efforts hit a wall.
In Carmack’s own words, he “had some hope, but that was still too small potatoes to make anything happen in a Microsoft company.” Even so, Carmen expressed his continual interest. Not too long ago, he had successfully gotten some folks at id Software to test out the VR ports, which left him optimistic—for a while. However, it appears that his strategy, combining both intrigue and financial incentive, didn’t quite succeed in shifting the landscape.
