Id Software, Inc.
On 30 August 1996, during a fit of unparalleled insanity, Id Software released Quake to the world. Spawning two sequels and a nearly uncountable number of imitations and clones, Quake was a product that spawned an industry. Quake was the first game to include fully-featured, real-time Internet play out of the box. Quake is truly the father of modern online first-person gaming.
What's more, Quake had the built-in ability for people to change it. For the first time, you could not only create custom levels in which to kill each other, but you could actually change the code so you could kill each other in new and interesting ways. :) Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of projects were started to make entirely new games out of the Quake engine. Some failed, others succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, but all of them had fun trying.
After three years of undisputed success, Id released the source code to the Quake engine under the GNU General Public License. This was the event that made QuakeForge and all of the other engine modification projects possible. We all owe Id a debt of thanks, one that many doubt can ever be completely paid. Thanks, guys.
