John Carmack Games Quotations

Programming is not a zero-sum game. Teaching something to a fellow programmer doesn't take it away from you. I'm happy to share what I can, because I'm in it for the love of programming.

It's nice to have a game that sells a million copies.

I'd rather have a search engine or a compiler on a deserted island than a game.

At its best, entertainment is going to be a subjective thing that can't win for everyone, while at worst, a particular game just becomes a random symbol for petty tribal behavior.

The Xbox 360 is the first console that I've ever worked with that actually has development tools that are better for games than what we've had on PC.

Developing games for the PC and consoles is all about everything and the kitchen sink. In many ways, you don't have design decisions to make. You do it all. So I enjoy going back to making decisions about what's important as I'm working on a game.

I'm usually so focused on the here and now and the soon to be that thinking about what I've done in the past just doesn't occupy much time. But when I do look back over everything, I am quietly proud of all that I've been able to accomplish and all the enjoyment I've been able to let people have with the games that we've created.

The Escalation programmers come from a completely different background, and the codebase is all STL this, boost that, fill-up-the-property list, dispatch the event, and delegate that. I had been harboring some suspicions that our big codebases might benefit from the application of some more of the various "modern" C++ design patterns, despite seeing other large game codebases suffer under them. I have since recanted that suspicion.

It is difficult to make good scalable use of a CPU like you can of a graphics card. You certainly don't want 'better or worse' physics or AI in your game

I really think, if anything, there is more evidence to show that the violent games reduce aggression and violence. There have actually been some studies about that, that it's cathartic. If you go to QuakeCon and you walk by and you see the people there [and compare that to] a random cross section of a college campus, you're probably going to find a more peaceful crowd of people at the gaming convention. I think it’s at worst neutral and potentially positive.

We do not see the PC as the leading platform for games. That statement will enrage some people, but it is hard to characterize it otherwise; both console versions will have larger audiences than the PC version.