Allowing industry giant Electronic Arts to publish id Software's upcoming Rage is a decision id co-founder John Carmack wouldn't have made several years ago. In a recent interview with Gamespot, Carmack admitted that he shared the opinion 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 [for Rage]."

It was the opinion of other like-minded developers, such as Valve Software, that provoked a change of heart for Carmack. "When we went out and talked to people, especially EA Partners people like Valve, we got almost uniformly positive responses from them," he told Gamespot. Carmack seemed excited during EA's E3 2008 press conference yesterday, stating that the publishing deal provided id with "full access to the worldwide marketing muscle at EA."