As I’ve mentioned multiple times, the Quake series of games are my all time favorites. Not too long ago I posted an interview with Tom Hall I conducted in 2005. As promised, though later than I intended, here is my interview with Michael Abrash.
Michael Abrash is without a doubt a gifted programmer and author. His career in game programming began with Space Strike in 1992, and along the way he has worked on a number of well known and immensely popular titles, including Quake.
Jay Bishop: Let’s start with the basics. Can you give me some background on RAD Game Tools and what, if anything, can you tell me about your current project(s)?
Michael Abrash: RAD makes middleware for games, including the Bink video player, the Miles Sound System, the Granny animation system, and Pixomatic, the software 3D renderer for PCs that I work on, along with Mike Sartain. You can find out more at www.radgametools.com.
These days, I’m continuing to work on software rasterization.
Jay Bishop: Quake’s “9th birthday” just passed, looking back at the couple of months before qtest1.exe hit, did you ever envision that the game would have such a large following still? That it would knock the FPS genre on it’s ass?
Michael Abrash: I never thought about it, but no, I wouldn’t have expected it to be anything but a dim memory 9 years later. I had no idea what it would do to the FPS genre at the time, because I was new to the game industry at that point. I just had faith that John Carmack was brilliant and motivated and that the id guys knew what they were doing. Fortunately, it turned out those assumptions were correct 🙂
Jay Bishop: Is there anything you wish you had done differently with Quake? Was there anything you wanted to see done with the game that had to be left out?
Michael Abrash: Not really. Sure, as a game, I think it could have been considerably better – it could have had a plausible storyline, for starters. Parts of the creative team were a bit chaotic (okay, very chaotic :), and that showed. But it was nonetheless eminently playable, and the persistent Internet servers opened up a whole new world, which was enough of an accomplishment for me. Anyway, I wasn’t really a gamer; I was at id because I was interested in the technical side, and in those terms, it’s my opinion that, as John put it in his foreword to my Graphics Programming Black Book, we nailed it. For the hardware of that time, I’m very satisfied with how Quake turned out. Of course, John gets the credit for the incredibly inspired architecture. I just did some optimization and cleaning up, and gave John someone to bounce his ideas off of.
Jay Bishop: Where does working on the Quake Engine rank on your list of professional achievements?
Michael Abrash: At the top. Maybe in a tie with my work on graphics for the first two versions of Windows NT (which became XP), since, like Quake, NT made a big difference. But working on Quake was certainly more satisfying and exciting. Also pretty scary at times – I didn’t know much 3D coming in, so I had to learn on the fly, and John wasn’t big on feedback, so I didn’t know how I was doing for a long time. For the first six months, I kept wondering if I was going to be fired the next day. You know, like Dread Pirate Roberts talking to Westley in The Princess Bride – “Good night. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.” But it turned out I was doing fine 🙂
Jay Bishop: I read a rather old interview with John Carmack in which he said that there were some id employees that didn’t think the Quake source should be released under the GPL. What are your feelings on releasing a game’s source for the modding community?
Michael Abrash: I think it’s a great idea. But I’m not a business guy, and I’m sure there are legitimate business issues with doing this. Most people, understandably, want to make as much money as they can from their work – John’s an impressively idealistic exception.
Jay Bishop: There’s been a lot of coverage on the new Quake Mobile in the past few months. Where do you see this segment of the industry heading?
Michael Abrash: No idea, since I haven’t been following it.
Jay Bishop: Recently Steve Bowler wrote an article for Next Generation titled “Doomed: How id Lost its Crown” in which he leads us to believe that id Software is no longer the top dog in the FPS market and that the Doom 3 engine doesn’t compare to engines for Half-Life 2, Far Cry and the upcoming Unreal Tournament 3. How close to the truth do you think Mr. Bowler is? Can Quake IV and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars win back the hearts of gamers? Or will Doom 3 be “forgotten in the annals of first-person shooters?”
Michael Abrash: It’s been a while since I’ve been close to the First Person Shooter arena, so I don’t really know. I do wish the best for id Software, though – they’re a great bunch of people.
Jay Bishop: I would like to extend a big thank you on behalf of the gaming community for sitting down and talking with me.
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