QuakeCon | Code Like It's 198x

QuakeCon began in August 1996 as a weekend of Quake in a Texas hotel, organised by players who had met online, two months after the game came out. It happened to be near id Software’s offices in Mesquite, just outside Dallas, so they asked id to help. As id’s chief executive Todd Hollenshead told the story in 2002, “John [Carmack] felt sorry for these guys, who gathered here on their own and didn’t quite have enough to cover the hotel, so he gave them a few bucks and took the time to speak. From then on, we took on the responsibility of putting it on.”

What id then built was unusual: a free event, paid for by the developer and its sponsors, where more than a thousand people carried their own PCs into a hall and plugged them into one network. By 2002 Computer Gaming World was calling it “easily the largest LAN party in the world”, and John Carmack’s annual talk about the technology behind id’s games had become as much a draw as the tournaments.

Fast facts

First held: August 1996, at a hotel in Garland, Texas.
Run by: volunteers, with id Software paying the bills and taking on more of the organising in the 2000s; now by id’s owner, ZeniMax Media.
Where: the Dallas area every year: hotels in and around Dallas in the early years, the Mesquite Convention Center from 1999 to 2002, and since then hotels and convention centres in Dallas and nearby Grapevine.
Admission: free in the 1990s and 2000s; the bring-your-own-computer (BYOC) hall is now a paid, ticketed event.
Size: about 3,000 registrants and 1,250 BYOC seats in 2002; 5,570 attendees in 2004.
Held: every August; online only from 2020 to 2022, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fans in a hotel

The first gatherings were small and informal. Retro Gamer later wrote that QuakeCon “came from gamers and modders joining forces” out of the Quake and Doom fan sites, and that it is hard to pinpoint exactly where it started. Computer Gaming World described a small group of players meeting for “a little weekend fragging” at a Best Western in Garland in August 1996; members of id and the add-on developer Hipnotic turned up to play deathmatch alongside the fans.

In July 1997 the magazine announced “the second annual Quake Convention” in Dallas and expected players from as far away as Australia. John Romero, who had left id the year before, and his new company Ion Storm were among the sponsors. That winter Micron advertised that its PCs had run the QuakeCon ’97 tournament, quoting the chief organiser, Jim “H2H” Elson, and naming the winner, Dan “RIX” Hammans.

id takes over

From 1999 to 2002 the event filled the Mesquite Convention Center, a short drive from id’s offices. It was now a showcase as well as a party. Quake III Arena was the first game previewed at QuakeCon for the fans, in 1998, and in 1999 Computer Gaming World reported that QuakeCon 99, “sponsored by id”, would be showing the game from 6 to 8 August.

Prize money arrived with the sponsors. The 2001 Quake III tournament had a $50,000 purse, the first cash prize at the show, according to IGN Unplugged, and its winner, John “zeRoq” Hill, took home thirty thousand dollars from NVIDIA. That year 3,000 gamers came, and Computer Gaming World described QuakeCon as having become “a mini-E3” for the Dallas shooter community. The first day brought a power cut when the hired generator failed, and id had to bring in a larger one.

Computer Gaming World went behind the scenes in 2002, and its figures show the scale of the job:

around 3,000 registrants, mostly in their late teens to mid-twenties;
1,250 confirmed seats in the BYOC hall, and 1,700 people on the waiting list;
150 volunteers, 8 servers and four miles of cable;
a cost to id of more than $100,000, with admission, parking and a barbecue lunch all free.

Marty Stratton, id’s director of business development, started lining up sponsors in March and finalised the details the day after E3 ended. ATI, whose Radeon 9700 had run the Doom 3 demonstration at E3 that year, put up $100,000 for the tournaments and took preorders for the card on the show floor. Stratton told IGN Unplugged why it was worth it: “It’s only 3,000 people, but it’s also the most vocal and most active users out there.” The hall, he admitted, was “maxed-out and busting at the seams”, and it was the first year every BYOC place had been taken.

Carmack’s keynote

For many attendees the event’s highlight was hearing John Carmack speak. IGN Unplugged reported in 2002 that he had made the talk an annual event, and that it drew nearly everybody away from their computers: “his speech spirals into levels of technology that I’m almost positive that most people in the room don’t completely understand but love to listen to nonetheless.” A question-and-answer session followed, in which fans pressed him on unannounced games while Activision’s PR staff winced. In 2002 the keynote dwelt less on technology and more on Doom 3 itself, and attendees were given tickets to a theatre showing the demo from E3. Carmack’s talks continued every year until 2013, the year he left id.

Growth and new owners

QuakeCon moved to larger venues as it grew. In 2004, Computer Gaming World reported, 5,570 PC gamers came to Dallas, some from Europe, to compete for a $25,000 first prize or just to bring their computers to the BYOC hall. The tenth anniversary event, in August 2005, was held at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center in Grapevine, and id was describing it as “four days of peace, love, and rockets”. Hardware companies used it to launch products: Dell unveiled its XPS 600 gaming PCs there in 2005, and NVIDIA its GeForce 7800 GT graphics card. In 2006 the NVIDIA-sponsored tournaments paid out $100,000 in total, and Edge described an event “long organised by its people, for its people”.

In June 2009 ZeniMax Media, the owner of Bethesda Softworks, bought id Software, and QuakeCon became a showcase for ZeniMax’s other studios as well as id’s. In July 2019 QuakeCon went abroad for the first time, to London. In September 2020 Microsoft agreed to buy ZeniMax for $7.5 billion.

The 25th QuakeCon, planned for August 2020, was cancelled in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It ran online that year and in 2021 and 2022, and returned to Texas in 2023. QuakeCon 2026 took place from 6 to 9 August at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, thirty years after the first one.

Sources

Computer Gaming World issue 156, July 1997: the second annual Quake Convention in Dallas; id and Hipnotic at the first; Romero and Ion Storm as sponsors.
Micron Electronics advertisement, Computer Gaming World issue 163, February 1998: QuakeCon ’97, Jim “H2H” Elson as chief organiser, Dan “RIX” Hammans as winner.
Computer Gaming World issue 178, May 1999: QuakeCon 99 in Mesquite, 6–8 August, sponsored by id and showing Quake III Arena.
PC Zone issue 106, September 2001: QuakeCon’s prize for the Quake III champion and its 1,250-person gathering.
Thierry Nguyen, “New details on id’s next shooters emerge at QuakeCon”, Computer Gaming World issue 208, November 2001: 3,000 gamers, “a mini-E3”, the power cut, and John “zeRoq” Hill’s winnings.
Dan Adams, “QuakeCon”, IGN Unplugged issue 17, October 2002, pp. 18–19: Quake III previewed at QuakeCon four years earlier, the prize purses, ATI’s $100,000, Marty Stratton’s quotes and Carmack’s keynote.
“Id’s Mesquite-roasted QuakeCon is a Texas-sized LAN party”, Computer Gaming World issue 221, December 2002, p. 108: Todd Hollenshead’s account of how QuakeCon began, “QuakeCon by the Numbers”, sponsors and organisation.
Computer Gaming World issue 220, November 2002: Carmack’s 2002 keynote and the Doom 3 theatre.
Computer Gaming World issue 245, December 2004: 5,570 gamers and the $25,000 first prize.
Computer Gaming World issue 252, June 2005, p. 66: the first gathering at the Best Western in Garland in August 1996; the tenth anniversary at the Gaylord Texan, 11–14 August 2005; “four days of peace, love, and rockets”.
Computer Power User vol. 5 issue 10, October 2005: the Dell XPS 600 and GeForce 7800 GT launched at QuakeCon 2005.
Edge issue 167, October 2006: QuakeCon 2006 and its $100,000 in tournament prizes.
Retro Gamer issue 40, 2007: “Con of cons”, on QuakeCon’s origins among gamers, modders and fan sites.
“Developer Profile: id Software”, Wireframe issue 16, June 2019, p. 50: QuakeCon’s first event outside the United States, in London in July 2019; Carmack leaving id in 2013.
Wireframe issue 43, September 2020, p. 19: Microsoft’s $7.5 billion agreement to buy ZeniMax Media.
Wikipedia, “QuakeCon” and “id Software” (web, secondary): Quake’s release on 22 June 1996, venues by year, Carmack’s keynotes “through 2013”, ZeniMax’s purchase of id in June 2009, the paid BYOC event, the 2020 cancellation and the online events of 2020–2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuakeCon and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Software
QuakeCon, official site (web, secondary): QuakeCon 2026, 6–9 August, Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center, Grapevine. https://quakecon.bethesda.net/en