ZeniMax Media announced on June 24, 2009, that it had acquired id Software, the Texas studio behind DOOM, Wolfenstein and Quake. Contemporary reports said the purchase price was undisclosed. A later 2017 court filing by id co-founder John Carmack alleged that the agreed consideration for id’s assets was $150 million; that figure was an allegation in a party’s filing, not the price announced at the time or a court finding.
When did ZeniMax acquire id Software?
ZeniMax announced the acquisition on June 24, 2009. The Los Angeles Times reported that the transaction had closed the previous day, June 23. The announcement date and closing date are therefore different.
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At the time, ZeniMax already owned Bethesda Softworks, the publisher associated with franchises including Fallout and The Elder Scrolls. The acquisition brought the id studio into that larger group.
How much did ZeniMax pay for id Software?
Contemporary coverage described the price as undisclosed. The $150 million figure comes from a complaint John Carmack filed on March 7, 2017. The complaint alleged that this was the total agreed consideration for id Software’s assets; it was not a contemporaneous public disclosure or a court determination of the deal’s value.
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According to the complaint, the alleged consideration comprised $45 million in cash at closing, $40 million in cash promissory notes and $65 million in convertible promissory notes. Those figures, like the $150 million total, describe the transaction as alleged in Carmack’s filing.
Microsoft later bought ZeniMax. Its fiscal 2021 Form 10-K says the acquisition was completed on March 9, 2021, for a total purchase price of $8.1 billion, primarily in cash. That was the price for ZeniMax as a company—not a separately stated valuation of id Software.
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Why did ZeniMax buy id Software?
The companies presented the deal as a fit between different strengths. In GamesBeat’s contemporary coverage, Carmack described id’s focus on first-person shooters as complementary to Bethesda’s role-playing games. He also said id wanted more influence over how its games were presented and saw joining a publisher as a way to improve that position.
Carmack said, “We’re really getting kind of tired competing with our own publishers in terms of how our titles will be featured.” He also explained that id could be “just one of many studios at an Activision or an [Electronic Arts],” as quoted in the Los Angeles Times. These comments reflect Carmack’s stated rationale, rather than independently established motives for the acquisition.
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ZeniMax chief executive Robert Altman pointed to rising development and advertising costs and industry consolidation, and said the companies’ strengths complemented one another. Altman also said, “At first we were skeptical a deal could happen, given their success and their history of independence,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What changed for id after the acquisition?
The announcement said id would continue as a studio under Carmack’s direction, with no planned changes to game development and long-term employment contracts for id principals. Those were the companies’ announced intentions at the time, not a guarantee about every later operating decision.
The deal also gave id a publishing route inside the ZeniMax-Bethesda group for future releases. Existing publishing agreements remained in place for Wolfenstein with Activision and Rage with Electronic Arts, the Los Angeles Times reported. Carmack said future games, including Doom 4, would be published by ZeniMax.
Id chief executive Todd Hollenshead described the appeal as working with Bethesda, saying the studio and publisher would have aligned interests in developing and marketing titles, in a statement quoted by PCWorld. That was the studio’s expectation at announcement, not evidence by itself of later commercial results.
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