John Carmack is "really into the idea of a massively multiplayer cell phone title." He adds, "I have absolutely no interest in going and competing with Blizzard in the high end of that [mobile] market, but a cell phone version might be interesting."

His "sneaky little plan," according to a recent interview, is to "graduate a franchise from cell phones to one of the big platforms."

Meanwhile, Cormack continues his work on an upcoming (but unidentified) title, and is lending his abilities to Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and a new Wolfenstein title.

On one hand, game development is a high-stakes proposition; it costs around $20 million to produce a new title. As a result, only one really "new" game is released each year. "We have Doom 3, Quake 4, Wolfenstein," laments Cormack, but acknowledges: "It's not a bad thing. The industry likes that reliability and the consumer knows what they like."

Studies saying that mobile-gaming is "stagnating," while the scuttlebutt is that it's "set to explode". Regardless,  Carmack has a reputation as a successful gaming industry player.  He may very well figure prominently in helping cell-phone gaming achieve its full potential.