{"id":678778,"date":"2026-07-07T16:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T16:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/678778\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T16:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T16:10:08","slug":"doom-co-creator-john-romero-weighs-in-on-xboxs-cuts-to-id-software-underlines-the-importance-of-digital-preservation-and-the-studios-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/678778\/","title":{"rendered":"Doom co-creator John Romero weighs in on Xbox&#8217;s cuts to id Software, underlines the importance of digital preservation and the studio&#8217;s history"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Xbox&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/microsoft-xbox-layoffs-2026-double-fine-compulsion-ninja-theory\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recently announced, division-wide layoffs<\/a> are a disaster, and Doom studio <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/xbox-layoffs-july-2026-id-software\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">id Software has been hit particularly hard<\/a> right as it&#8217;s launching The Dark Ages&#8217; expansion-sized DLC. Now, Doom co-creator and id Software co-founder John Romero has weighed in.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m so sorry for everyone at id Software affected by these layoffs&#8230; I know what it feels like to leave id while id goes on. It&#8217;s a strange and painful thing to step away from a place that holds so much of your work, friendships and history,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/johnromero.bsky.social\/post\/3mq2gpttmek2i\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">he posted on Bluesky<\/a> before praising id Software&#8217;s work on Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein &#8211; the latter is now run by MachineGames &#8211; long after he was gone. &#8220;The last few games showed real care, skill and respect for what those worlds mean to people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Beyond the sentiment shared by anyone with a heart, Romero also took some time to explain the importance of preserving id Software&#8217;s history and industry-defining work as <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/dark1x.bsky.social\/post\/3mpyugwk5yc27\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">rumours of id Tech potentially going extinct<\/a> emerge: &#8220;id&#8217;s history is critically important to the history of games. I&#8217;ve preserved id&#8217;s complete early history from our start at Softdisk through to August 6, 1996, including materials and assets that, as far as I know, id itself no longer has. I hope someone is doing the same for the company&#8217;s ongoing legacy (the work, code, assets, stories, and the people behind them).&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Romero&#8217;s own studio, Romero Games, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/doom-creator-john-romeros-studio-not-closed-as-publishers-express-interest-in-saving-cancelled-game\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">faced major problems and layoffs roughly a year ago<\/a>, yet <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/doom-creator-john-romeros-cancelled-shooter-has-been-saved-with-fresh-redesign-inspired-by-elden-ring\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">it was reported in late 2025<\/a> its new game &#8211; an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/elden-ring-walkthrough-8042\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Elden Ring<\/a>-inspired shooter &#8211; is alive and well. Still, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/john-and-brenda-romero-think-current-video-game-industry-crash-is-even-crashier-than-the-recession-1980s\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">he and his wife believe<\/a> the games industry is facing a &#8220;crashier&#8221; crash than what happened in the 1980s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Xbox&#8217;s recently announced, division-wide layoffs are a disaster, and Doom studio id Software has been hit particularly hard&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-678778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gb","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}