John Carmack, the co-founder of legendary Doom and Quake developer id Software, has shared his thoughts on the reported “bloodbath” of layoffs at his former studio, following Xbox’s devastating “restructuring”.
Earlier this week, new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced 1,600 employees would initially lose their jobs, with another 1,600 cuts to come over the next year. As part of the restructuring, some studios – including Double Fine, Compulsion Games, Ninja Theory, Undead Labs, and potentially Arkane – will either go independent or find new management outside of Xbox.
Other teams, including some of the most recognisable studios in gaming – Activision, Bethesda/ZeniMax, Blizzard, King, and numerous other development teams under the Xbox Game Studios umbrella – were all confirmed to be impacted in a note to Xbox employees from Sharma. And it later transpired id Software, widely considered the birthplace of the modern FPS, has been particularly heavily hit.
According to an official WARN notice, 136 id Software workers lost their jobs as part of Sharma’s cuts – 96 based in id’s Texas office and 40 working remotely – meaning that, of the 185 people said to be working for id Software in December 2025, 49 people remain. The cuts, described as “a bloodbath” by one former employee, raise significant questions about the studio’s future.
Soon after, id Software co-founder John Romero, who departed the studio in 1996, addressed Microsoft’s devastating cuts, saying he was “so sorry for everyone … affected by these layoffs”, and praising the team’s recent output which “showed real care, skill and respect for what [id’s much-loved] worlds mean to people.” He also noted “id’s history is critically important to the history of games” and shared his hope its “ongoing legacy” would be preserved. And now, following Romero’s comments, fellow id Software co-founder John Carmack has spoken out too.
“I have been trying to find something meaningful to say about the id Software layoffs,” Carmack wrote in a post on social media. “My ‘Microsoft will probably be a good steward of the brand’ statement isn’t aging well, and this is certainly going to dampen the mood of the founder reunion at QuakeCon next month.”
“I’m saddened, but I can’t muster anger or outrage over it,” he continued. “I don’t have access to the books, but I suspect that id Software was a marginal business from Microsoft’s perspective. I believe the reports that Minecraft revenues have been carrying several other studios. To continue being produced long term, games need to succeed, not just be beloved. Games are competing with every other option for spending your leisure time and money, and the competition is brutal.
“You can’t rule out the possibility that executives are idiots, but that shouldn’t be your default belief. I don’t think there is any obvious path that would have doubled the revenue from id games. Could they have gotten more with a different pricing strategy? Could they have created more things for fans to buy? Could they have cost-effectively marketed in a way that reached more players that would have loved and bought the games? Could they have changed the game designs and broadened the appeal to more players without alienating existing ones? Could they have produced the games at a lower cost, faster or cheaper? I really don’t know.”
“The game isn’t over yet,” Carmack concluded, “and I hope the studio rallies through.”
Sharma’s restructuring announcement and news of its significant impact on id Software came just a day before the studio released its major Revelations expansion for last year’s well-recieved Doom: The Dark Ages.
