id Software has been in direct contact with modding group Team Beef on the subject of potentially releasing their VR ports on the Quest Store.
In a recent thread on X about the Quake 3 Arena VR mod from Team Beef, one replier asked John Carmack, former Oculus CTO and former lead programmer at id Software, whether there's been any progress getting these mods to the official Quest store. In response, Carmack wrote, "I got people at id Software playing the VR ports, and they are now in direct contact with @TeamBeefVR, so I am hopeful!"
Yes, I got people at Id Software playing the VR ports, and they are now in direct contact with @TeamBeefVR , so I am hopeful!
— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) January 6, 2024
While Carmack strikes an optimistic tone, there's no guarantee that an official release will eventually happen. Discussions can often fall through and Carmack is no longer directly involved with either Meta or id Software. Instead, the former CTO's focus is on the artificial general intelligence company he started, Keen Technologies.
UploadVR reached out to Carmack to ask if he had any additional comments about old games in VR, and whether he believes Id classics belong on the Quest store.
Here's Carmack's full reply:
"I have been trying to make something official happen with these for years, and some positive steps were made in the last couple months. It is still early days, but some key people at Id actually played one of the games in VR and appreciated it, so I am hopeful. My best-case scenario would be to get all the games available in the official store as free downloads with the demo content and IAP for the full commercial datasets just like you can get on Steam, and I was offering to make some kind of personal cash guarantee to make it worth their while. This is probably still too small-potatoes for a Microsoft subsidiary today, but an official blessing of just the free distribution doesn't seem out of the question. Fingers crossed!
I have some concerns that Meta wouldn't support putting the games in the main store because they aren't "designed for VR" and will be uncomfortable for many people, but I would be happy just to get them in App Lab.
I am grateful for all the work Team Beef has done in VR with the content from the first couple decades of my career!"
A member of Team Beef contacted by UploadVR declined further comment.
If successful, these discussions could potentially open the floodgates for numerous classic shooters on Quest. Team Beef's previous work on id Software VR mods includes the following:
Currently, accessing these mods requires purchasing the PC version of each game to sideload them via SideQuest.
We'll keep you updated as we learn more.
