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Valve helped convince Carmack to take EA deal

id co-founder used to think EA was "the Evil Empire" before signing Rage publishing partnership

John Carmack, co-founder of id Software, has said that before talking with EA Partners, he assumed the publisher was responsible for destroying small development studios.

id has inked a deal with EA Partners for the studio's new IP, Rage, similar to deals already in place with leading PC development studios such as Valve and Crysis.

"I'll admit that, if you asked me years ago, I still had thoughts that EA was the Evil Empire, the company that crushes the small studios...I'd have been surprised, if you told me a year ago that we'd end up with EA as a publisher," said Carmack, speaking to GameSpot.

"When we went out and talked to people, especially EA Partners people like Valve, we got almost uniformly positive responses from them," he added.

Carmack took to the stage for EA's E3 presentation yesterday, demoing the game and stating the developer would be able to receive "full access to the worldwide marketing muscle at EA."

The game is due for PC, Mac, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. More details on the title are expected during QuakeCon, July 31 – August 2.

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Matt Martin avatar
Matt Martin joined GamesIndustry in 2006 and was made editor of the site in 2008. With over ten years experience in journalism, he has written for multiple trade, consumer, contract and business-to-business publications in the games, retail and technology sectors.
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