Book of the Week: Masters of Doom
27 Dec 2013
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Doom, I read Masters of Doom. The book is an account of how the two Johns (Carmack and Romero) came together to make Doom and changed the face of gaming. I had a few flashbacks to my early childhood while reading. I grew up with Commander Keen, Wolfenstein and Doom. Two Johns John Carmack and John Romero balanced each other. They both did not have a respect for authority. When they were starting out, they “borrowed” computers from employer during the nights and weekends. They were focused on making games. They could see things that other people couldn’t.
In an increasingly stark opposition to Romero, Carmack expressed a minimalist point of view with regard to running their business. As he often told the guys, all he cared about was being able to work on his programs and afford enough pizza and Diet Coke to keep him alive. He had no interest in running a big company.
John Carmack was the whizkid coder who survived on pizza and Diet Coke. Carmack was not traditionally trained, but immersed himself in research between projects to create the next game engine. Every time patents were mentioned, he threatened to quit since he believed that science only progressed when you stand on the shoulders of those before you. This is why he open sources the engines for the older games. Sorts of fits the stereotypical awkward antisocial computer genius, except that he does martial arts. Romero also had a programming background making his own games, but he wanted to build an empire and be that guy who drives the nice sports car. It was Romero’s idea to license the game engine to help expand the company. Romero chose games over family, resulting in multiple divorces. Family gets in the way of realizing your dreams. That didn’t mean he didn’t love his kids. He couldn’t wait until his kids got old enough for him to share his creations with them. The Johns needed each other. Romero could talk to Carmack about code and communicate with the rest of the team. Having a cofounder is very important when starting a company. Together they were unstoppable. Carmack needed someone to play with his engine and push his engine. Carmack needed someone who understood him. Romero understood. Shareware Before the world wide web, people used to connect to each other by dialing into a BBS and exchange files through a modem. id Software made a lot of money by distributing their games through shareware, which is like today’s freemium model. Like a good crack dealer, the first few hits are free, but if you want more levels you’re going to have to sell out cash. Since people were eager to get software for their computers, shareware versions of the game spread around like a sexually transmitted disease from one person to the next. They did not need to spend any money on marketing. id Software
When his parents divorced. Todd had to do what he could to provide for the family. He moved to Iowa to study business. He took a brief stint as an exotic dancer with the stage name of Preacher Boy.
The team was a cast of characters. They hired a card carrying Mormon with magical undergarments to work on Doom. There was a lot of politics trying to get the favor of Carmack or Romero. It sounded like an unpleasant place to work. This was a precursor to the internet startups in popular culture. People were cast aside after they weren’t needed anymore. That might be the proper thing to do. Those people found success doing other things. Even Romero was booted from id. 
After Romero was forced out of id, he started Ion Storm. Now that he didn’t have anyone to butt heads with, he could make his game, Daikatana. Unfortunately Ion Storm was also riddled with dysfunction. Daikatana took forever to be finished. When you promise big things, you need to deliver. Especially after calling everyone else your bitch. I distinctly remember seeing the ad in PC Gamer. Things were so bad at Ion Storm, the entire team quit. They were referred to as the Ion 8 (a reference to the traitorous 8).
In the information age, the barriers just aren’t there. The barriers are self-imposed. If you want to set off and go develop some grand new thing, you don’t need millions of dollars of capitalization. You need enough pizza and Diet Coke to stick in your refrigerator, a cheap PC to work on, and the dedication to go through with it. We slept on floors. We waded across rivers. - John Carmack
I don’t have to steal computers to program. What’s stopping me? References