> for John Carmack who’s the progenitor of a shockingly large percentage of all 3D game engines, starting with Doom.
First of all, Wolfenstein 3D, which used Carmack's engine, predated Doom by a year, but even Wolf3D wasn't the first 3D game or 3D engine. Activision's 1991 Hunter and Mindscapes's 1988 Colony both had very similar graphics and play as Wolf3D. 3D gaming and FPS goes back at least to Atari's 1980 BattleZone, but most place FPS origin with Maze in 1973.[1]
Second of all, by my count, Carmack developed (or also worked on) six distinct 3D game engines. There are an awful lot of 3D game engines now, well over 100 listed here.[3] I think by "shockingly large percentage," you must have instead meant, "small percentage." Maybe Carmack holds the world record for most 3D engines developed by one individual, but it could never be a "shockingly large percentage of all 3D game engines," even with id's OSS releases and subsequent variants.
I should have been far more specific: FPS, and not quite _3D_ at the outset...
You're quite right, especially relative to what I had stated. Its just that the impact of John's decision to GPL Doom and Quake engines gave rise to a tremendous ecosystem that many people don't realize. For instance, GoldSrc which forked Quake is the foundation for the Source and Source 2 engines which power at least 60% of all hours played on Valve in the last 30 days. https://steamcharts.com/top
His patterns have been wildly studied and reused. The word I did use carefully is progenitor. Id engine's direct impact is relatively small, but its legacy is vast.
First of all, Wolfenstein 3D, which used Carmack's engine, predated Doom by a year, but even Wolf3D wasn't the first 3D game or 3D engine. Activision's 1991 Hunter and Mindscapes's 1988 Colony both had very similar graphics and play as Wolf3D. 3D gaming and FPS goes back at least to Atari's 1980 BattleZone, but most place FPS origin with Maze in 1973.[1]
Second of all, by my count, Carmack developed (or also worked on) six distinct 3D game engines. There are an awful lot of 3D game engines now, well over 100 listed here.[3] I think by "shockingly large percentage," you must have instead meant, "small percentage." Maybe Carmack holds the world record for most 3D engines developed by one individual, but it could never be a "shockingly large percentage of all 3D game engines," even with id's OSS releases and subsequent variants.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maze_(1973_video_game)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_engines