If so, then they missed the games that used id Tech 4 and id Tech 5 (almost impossible given the success of Doom 3), and how Carmack continued to invent truly unthinkable performance and fidelity enhancements to real time 3D graphics until the day he left for Occulus.
Then at Occulus he translated that engineering talent into a ruthless attack on latency and other issues with VR at the time. He was even working on this before he left.
Anyone who has watched one of his QuakeCon Keynotes in the past 20 years knows just how much raw talent Carmack has as an engineer. Most of them are on YouTube, you should check them out.
I think this also sums up his weakness though in a megacorp like Meta. He's technically brilliant, and that can go a very long way. But in a large corporation, technical brilliance is secondary to excellence in leadership.
I remember reading an article in the '00s or '90s about how Id worked, and it just seemed not very scalable beyond Carmack.
And while he his companies have had great success, other '90s era peers - Valve and Epic - are on a whole other level today. Technical brilliance brought his company far, but it can't bring you to those heights.
Then at Occulus he translated that engineering talent into a ruthless attack on latency and other issues with VR at the time. He was even working on this before he left.
Anyone who has watched one of his QuakeCon Keynotes in the past 20 years knows just how much raw talent Carmack has as an engineer. Most of them are on YouTube, you should check them out.