It's fucking awesome isn't it? I bought it a few years ago (6-7) and had a blast reading it. Once every two years I read it again or read parts of it again.
Great stuff!

It puzzles me how one game developing companies made it through '90s and live till now, while others kissed the oblivion despite producing quality games back then (New World Computing being an example). Maybe I should find this 'Masters of Doom' and read it, even if I have a hard time reading English non-tech literature.

bristlehog wrote:

It puzzles me how one game developing companies made it through '90s and live till now, while others kissed the oblivion despite producing quality games back then (New World Computing being an example). Maybe I should find this 'Masters of Doom' and read it, even if I have a hard time reading English non-tech literature.

Carmack's extremely conservative approach to how id should be run might have something to do with it. He insisted that they keep it simple and small well into the period that they were making millions. John Romero in contrast left the company and started ION Storm, which was the opposite of small and simple, and produced games like Daikatana years over due and waaaay over budget. id just carried on churning out what it knew, if anything contracting in size.

The guy that wrote this book also did one about Rockstar and the GTA franchise called 'Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto'. It's available in kindle format so I'll be reading that next.

For more about Romero, you may enjoy "Knee Deep in a Dream", a lengthy account of Ion Storm and the development of Daikatana which originally appeared as a feature on GameSpot many years ago. It's a bit hard to get to nowadays; it's probably most conveniently viewed at http://web.archive.org/web/20130424220616/htt … /daikatana.html .

I've read both Masters of Doom and Jacked, both are great.

I'd love to see a movie made about this but theirs probably no commercial viability in it, It was a great read.

Romero didn't "leave" id. They fired him for not working hard enough.

d1stortion wrote:

Romero didn't "leave" id. They fired him for not working hard enough.

Generally speaking, people "leave" after they've been fired.

badmojo wrote:

d1stortion wrote:

Romero didn't "leave" id. They fired him for not working hard enough.

Generally speaking, people "leave" after they've been fired.

But the word "leave" implies that one "leaves" voluntarily and isn't forced out. It's like saying that Steve Ballmer "left" Microsoft recently when the reality is that the board of directors got sick of him and gave him the boot.

Looks much better on your CV if you "leave" a company than if you're fired. If you are on shaky grounds to fire someone, offering them to leave could be the best solution for both parts.

I got that book as soon as it came out in 2003. It is my favorite nonfiction work. Fucking awesome read. I can relate the the college students GPA's dropping and the computer labs at the universities being shut down and locked up at night because the dudes in there could be heard from the college dorms playing Quake deathmatch. Quake deathmatch was that awesome. I would loose my voice sometimes from the screaming and yelling and I laughed so much from the shit that happened in Quake deathmatch that I thought I would need an oxygen tank to keep me from dying from asphyxiation.

I loved reading about John Romero playtesting DOOM E1M7 and thinking about multiplayer/Deathmatch, “If we can get this done, [Doom] is going to be the fucking coolest game that the planet Earth has ever fucking seen in its entire history!” And it was.

FWIW, on further research one could specify it as "forced to leave" instead of just saying they fired him. Carmack was more than clear enough on it though:

http://www.giantbomb.com/john-romero/3040-2/ wrote:

"You're not doing your work! You're not living up to your responsibilities. You're hurting the project. You're hurting the company. You've been poisonous to the company, and your contribution has been negative over the past couple years. You needed to do better but you didn't. Now you need to go! Here's a resignation and here's a termination! You're going to resign now!"

I got the book as a birthday present from a fellow student. It is indeed great and emotionally involving. There are just so many good bits in there, from Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement to implementing Doom multi-player like an afterthought to both Johns tuning their Ferraris.

badmojo wrote:

It focuses on the two Johns, with Romero coming off as the nicer of the two - despite the massive ego he's described as a skilled game designer and supernaturally enthusiastic about id’s games. Carmack, who’s described as an almost inhuman coding robot, comes off pretty badly but the unlikely working relationship of these two nutjob personalities is the focus of the story and makes for a great read.

That probably depends on what personality traits you prefer. Carmack is very introverted, from the description he sounds quite Asperger-like. Describing Romero's ego as massive is an understatement, he thinks of himself as a rock star.

dirkmirk wrote:

I'd love to see a movie made about this but theirs probably no commercial viability in it, It was a great read.

Well, that is a movie I'd watch, as opposed to the Doom movie.

idspispopd wrote:

dirkmirk wrote:

I'd love to see a movie made about this but theirs probably no commercial viability in it, It was a great read.

Well, that is a movie I'd watch, as opposed to the Doom movie.

A TV movie done like "Pirates of Silicon Valley"? I'd watch it! 😁
But G4's about the only channel it could have aired on...