I like John Carmack. He’s a very smart guy, primarily as a game designer but also in his sense of the industry. Doom, Quake, and Doom 3 all revolutionized the industry, and while id has been relatively quiet of late (Rage excepting), I think he’s got a handle on what might move gaming forward again. Of course, like everything else these days, it’s JesusPhone-related.
Carmack feels that the iPhone has huge untapped potential due to its superior hardware, responsive controls, and a ridiculous amount of space available: 10MB or more (the previous de facto limit was around 300KB). Given unlimited time and money, he feels he could make an incredible iPhone MMORPG (not what I would do with unlimited time and money but hey), but in the real world he’s aiming for “something good, and something quick.” Which I’m sure they can deliver on. I look foward to it — as long as it’s not ASCII Doom.