Masters of Doom

by David Kushner

  The mainstream media picked up the ball. The New York Times, USA Today, and Variety—the movie industry’s trade magazine—published articles about the business and cultural breakthroughs of Doom. Journalists came to Dallas to see who was behind the phenomenon and reveled in the idiosyncratic world of long-haired gamers and souped-up $200,000 Ferraris. Id wasn’t just a company that made a killer game. It was the portent of something new, something unseen: rich, young, creative guys who were bucking all the sensible routes of traditional business for this strange amorphous thing that, at the time, was not even widely known as the Internet. “Everyone is talking about the power of the information superhighway,” Jay boasted to The Dallas Morning News. “We’re the living proof.” The industry needed a rock star, he realized; id was it.

  Like any good rock stars, the company had an air of controversy. Because of the violence, China was considering banning Doom; Brazil, in fact, would later outlaw the game. Even Wal-Mart, which would be the major retail outlet for Doom II’s release, was beginning to balk at the content. But just as Doom was becoming positioned as the next great scourge of violent games, a safety valve was pulled.

  Since Senator Lieberman’s federal hearings on game violence in December 1993, the industry had raced to find a response that would curtail the threat of government involvement. After another hearing in the spring of 1994, the result was the Interactive Digital Software Association: a trade organization representing all the major publishers joined for the purpose of self-regulation. By the fall of 1994, the IDSA had a voluntary system, the Entertainment Software Rating Board, which would assign ratings much as the movie industry did: T for Teen, M for Mature. The first game that would bear its mark would be Doom II.

  Id not only escaped unscathed but found its bad-boy image further enhanced. The hearings had, ironically, heralded a new, meaner, more violent era in video games, and the gamers of the world couldn’t get enough. Sega’s Night Trap sold out around the country. With the ratings system in place, publishers felt freer to release edgier content. Even Nintendo joined in the party, making plans to release a version of Mortal Kombat II—gore and all. But no developer was positioned quite like id. Now, as the media and fans descended, all it needed was a face, someone they could pin their worship on. At id, there was no competition. When it came time for a lead singer of the band to emerge, John Romero wasn’t only perfect, he was the only one who wanted the job.

  “We’re not worthy, we’re not worthy, we’re not worthy,” the gamers chanted, bowing at Romero’s feet. It was a scorching hot afternoon in Austin, Texas. Romero and Shawn Green were standing inside Austin Virtual Gaming, a six-hundred-square-foot shop above a coffee shop on the main strip outside the University of Texas. Five Doom junkies from the school’s zoology department and local high-tech companies had pooled their cash to open this place just a few weeks before. They figured they weren’t the only ones in town hooked on id’s demonic creation. So they networked a small fleet of personal computers with twenty-seven-inch screens and began charging gamers eight dollars per hour to deathmatch. The occasion this day was the game room’s first official Doom tournament. And, to the elation of the few dozen gamers gathered around the red-pulsing monitors to play, Romero—one of the guys who wrote the game!—was here to fight.

  Though few if any of the gamers had seen pictures of Romero, they figured he was the guy wearing the black T-shirt with the militaristic Doom logo on the front and the bold white words “Wrote It” on the back. The shirt was Romero’s own modification. After id had printed up a bunch of promotional tees, he suggested they add the phrase “Wrote It” for their own. He even sent his mother a Doom shirt with the words “My Son Wrote It” on the back. (Carmack preferred his own favorite shirt—a yellow smiley face with a bloody bullet hole piercing the forehead.)

  Romero had taken to wearing the “Wrote It” shirt everywhere—around the office, around town, around gaming conventions. The shirt had a Moses-like effect. Gamers would spot him in the shirt and do a celebrity double take, parting as he moved through the crowd. The brave few would venture forward with sweaty palms and shaky hands. It happened first outside a CompUSA when the clerk came sheepishly after Romero, who was getting into his yellow Testarossa, and asked for an autograph. Such displays were becoming a regular occurrence, especially when he donned the “Wrote It” shirt. Gamers began not only asking for autographs but literally falling to their knees and echoing the “we’re not worthy!” refrain that Saturday Night Live characters Wayne and Garth bestowed upon rock royalty. The other guys at id couldn’t believe it. In fact, they were embarrassed by it: We aren’t Metallica, we’re gamers.

  But as the enigma around the company grew, the fans and media wanted more and more information about just who id was. In response, the guys created a news file that gamers could obtain by sending a message request or, in technical slang, “fingering” id’s computers. They started posting regular updates about technical matters, but soon the news expanded into lifestyle, giving the skinny on, among other things, the status of Carmack’s and Romero’s Ferraris.

  Fans began to build a sense of wonder about the company, which, as they discovered, was spilling over into real life. This was something new, as Jay described it—“nerd worship.” And there was no one who liked being worshiped more than Romero. Not only had he printed up the shirts but he was starting to change his appearance, growing out his dark hair, wearing his contacts more often. But he didn’t look at the bowing gamers as his minions. He saw them as his peers, his friends. Here were all these people, he thought as he looked down on their bowing skulls, who loved games as much as he did. As the Doom momentum built, after all, Romero was becoming as addicted to the game as his fans were. He and Shawn were now deathmatching on a regular basis, staying long into the night. When he wasn’t playing Doom, Romero was talking about Doom. He was a regular attendant in the burgeoning Doom chat rooms and message boards and newsgroups, discussing the latest mods, deathmatch tourneys, and technical happenings. To the outside world, Romero was id.

  This was as much the others’ doing as it was his. The other owners had no interest in courting the fans or the press. Jay, id’s “biz guy,” did his share, but that came with the territory. When the press wanted to strut out one of the Doom gods, one of the guys who Wrote It, Romero fit the bill. And as Carmack, Adrian, and the rest readily acknowledged, Romero was good at it—funny, likable, bouncing off the walls with energy. He had been the company’s biggest cheerleader from the moment he saw the Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement demo. When he hyped the company, it wasn’t merely the hype of an owner, it was the hype of id’s biggest fan.

  The language of that hype was the language of deathmatch: confident to the point of egotism, inspired to the point of confrontation. Id was the ruler of the world, and Romero was quick to make everyone aware of just how great they were and how much greater they would become. “The Plan,” he posted online, “[is] to get the entire world running NeXTSTEP for development, get everyone connected on the Internet, and own a Testarossa TR512.” Romero lashed out at the popular and emerging operating systems. “DOS blows. DOS-Extenders create developer Hell. Windows sux.”

  By the time he showed up in Austin for the Doom deathmatch in the summer of 1994, Romero was exuding white-hot game-god heat. With the fans bowing, a reporter descended on him and asked why he had come to this tournament. Romero puffed out his chest and said, “So we can beat everybody!” Romero and Shawn found their seats while others played. It was silent except for the sounds of fingers rattling on keys. But all that changed as the id guys began to play.

  Romero hurled a few shotgun blasts into an opponent and yelled, “Eat that, fucker!” The sheepish guy on the other computer looked up in fear. Shawn knew that look—the look of gamer who had never heard true, unbridled smack-talk, just like he’d been the first time he had heard Romero insult him during a game. But now Shawn was a pro and joined right in. “Suck it down, monkey fuck!” he call
ed, after firing a few blasts from his BFG. The gamers cowered. They would learn.

  Romero savored the long drive back to Dallas in his Ferrari. Life was good for the twenty-six-year-old. He had been beaten down by his father and stepfather, picked himself back up, and now, after all this time, finally arrived. He really was the Ace Programmer, the Future Rich Person. He had mended his relationship with his parents, who now had a new perspective on their son’s wayward days at the arcades. He loved his new wife, Beth, and sons, Michael and Steven, who, though still in California, could proudly call him their dad. He had become the man he had envisioned all those years before.

  One night back at the office, Romero decided to share his feeling of success. He stepped into Carmack’s office to find his partner, as usual, sitting at his PC with a Diet Coke. Since Doom’s release, Carmack had immersed himself in side projects: programming conversions or ports of Doom for other game platforms, including the Atari Jaguar and the new console from Sega. Id was getting good money for the gigs, $250,000 from Atari alone. But for Carmack it wasn’t the cash that was intriguing, it was the opportunity to get back into the trenches.

  This was what he truly loved: the work, the rolling up of the sleeves, the challenging of his intellect. And he at least somewhat appreciated the rush of fortune and fame; on a recent trip home he told his father, the renowned Kansas City anchorman, that he would soon be as famous as he was. Like Romero, Carmack had found peace with his parents, who now admired and supported his work—his mother played Commander Keen in her spare time. He had even gone out on a few dates with a woman whose parents owned a Chinese restaurant he frequented. Still, he was spending the majority of his days and nights at id. Nothing pleased him quite like sharpening his chops with low-level programming work. He would need the skills, he knew, when he went off to create his next big game engine.

  But while he had been here, he was beginning to notice, Romero was gone: deathmatching, doing interviews, corresponding with fans online. Something was changing, slipping away. And the work, Carmack thought, was beginning to suffer. Doom II was falling behind schedule. While Romero was out being the company rock star, the levels that he had promised to create were not getting done. In fact, the company was now relying on other level designers—Sandy Petersen and a new employee, American McGee—to get the majority of the levels done. Out of the thirty-two levels of Doom II, Carmack noted, only six were shaping up to be Romero’s.

  Romero had his explanation—the levels he made simply took more time. But Carmack suspected something else: Romero was losing his focus. In addition to the interviews and the deathmatching, Romero was now acting as executive producer on an upcoming game by Raven, the company they knew from Wisconsin. Romero had approached Carmack at one point with the idea to milk the Doom engine for all it was worth. “Let’s make some more games using our technology,” he said. “Let’s get some stuff out there because we can get some money off of this. And Raven’s a good group that would be perfect for licensing the engine and making a great game that we can publish.” Carmack agreed but without enthusiasm. How much bigger did they need to get?

  For Romero, though, it wasn’t just about getting bigger, it was about fun. He loved playing games. He lived for playing games. And there was no game that was more fun than Doom. The deal with Raven would give him more games to play. This night in Carmack’s office, Romero spelled out his new life code: It was time to enjoy id’s accomplishments. No crunch mode. No more bloodshot nights. “No more death schedules,” he happily said.

  Carmack remained quiet. The cursor on his monitor pulsed. In the past, Romero would have stayed here by his side, experimenting with the engine on screen, testing bugs until the sun came up. Tonight, Carmack watched the guy in the “Wrote It” shirt walk out the door.

  ELEVEN

  Quakes

  Everyone has unfulfilled dreams. Maybe the dreams are too costly or time-consuming: fly a plane, drive a race car. Maybe they’re too far-out: fight an alien space war, stalk a vampire. Or maybe they’re illegal: streak through the suburbs, hunt down the boss with a sawed-off shotgun. But the dreams are there, nonetheless, animating minds every day. This is why there is a multibillion-dollar industry that lets people explore these fantasies the best way technology allows. This is why there are video games.

  Of course, video games don’t let people really live their dreams. They let gamers live a developer’s simulation of a dream. The action is digital. It’s confined to a computer or a television or a handheld device. Players experience it through their eyes, ears, and fingertips. But when they’re done careening down the Daytona Speedway or storming an interstellar military base, they feel as if they’ve really been somewhere, as if they’ve momentarily transcended their sac of fat and bones, their office politics, their mounting bills. Games let them escape, learn, recharge. Games are necessary.

  This belief has existed since ancient Greece, when Plato said, “Every man and woman should play the noblest games and be of another mind from what they are at present.” In the fifties, the anthropologist Johan Huizinga wrote that “play . . . is a significant function . . . which transcends the immediate needs of life and imparts meaning to the action. All play means something.” He suggested a new name for the human species: “Homo Ludens,” Man the Player. Marshall McLuhan wrote in the sixties that “a society without games is one sunk in the zombie trance of the automaton. . . . Games are popular art, collective, social reactions to the main drive or actions of any culture. . . . The games of a people reveal a great deal about them. . . . [They] are a sort of artificial paradise like Disneyland or some Utopian vision by which we interpret and complete the meaning of our daily lives.”

  By 1994 there was no more utopian vision of a game than the Holodeck. And the dream of this virtual world simulator on Star Trek was inching from science fiction to reality. Neal Stephenson’s sci-fi novel Snow Crash, published in 1992, imagined the Metaverse—an alternate reality similar to the “cyberspace” envisioned in William Gibson’s 1984 novel, Neuromancer. The Internet was taking off, capable of connecting humans into such a domain. Arcades buzzed with virtual reality games—unseemly machines with big, clunky headsets that, for about five dollars, immersed a player in a first-person polygon world. A new generation of programmers was devoting their work, their lives, to realizing the Holodeck. As John Carmack said, “It’s a moral imperative that we must create this.” His contribution would be Quake.

  The development of every id game began with Carmack telling the other guys what his next graphic engine would be capable of doing. When Carmack first described his vision of the Quake technology, Romero nearly combusted. They had talked about doing Quake, after all, for years. The idea came straight out of their old Dungeons and Dragons games; Quake was the character Carmack had invented who possessed a powerful hammer, capable of demolishing buildings, as well as a supernatural conjuring object, Hellgate Cube, floating above his head. Id had first worked on a Quake game back in the early Commander Keen days but gave up because they felt the technology was not yet powerful enough to do their idea justice. Now, Carmack said, the time had come. The technology was ready to make the most convincingly immersive 3-D experience yet, the first fast-action, first-person game to support groups of players competing together over the Internet. Not only would Quake be id’s most ambitious game yet but it could be the world’s.

  Romero exploded with ideas. “A full 3-D engine!” he said. “Hell, we can have forests and stuff. . . . The artifact that we talked about in Keen—the hammer of thunderbolts—that’s going to be your main weapon in Quake. And you’re going to have this transdimensional artifact, the Hellgate Cube, a cube that orbits your head, and it will just do things! It’ll have its personality and its own programming to where you feel like it’s a different entity; it’ll attack people if you’re good to it, if you’re whacking on someone and taking damage off someone, then the cube feeds off of pain basically in a certain distance around it. So the more pain you do t
he happier the cube is, so it will start doing things for you, it will heal you when you get screwed up or it will teleport you somewhere else. And if you don’t fight for a long time, it’ll start damaging you or it would take off and maybe it’ll come back one day.”

  Romero was so excited, he just had to share the news with all id’s fans. “The next game is going to blow Doom all to hell,” he typed. “Doom totally sucks in comparison to our next game, Quake: The Fight for Justice! Quake is going to be a bigger step over Doom than Doom was over Wolf 3-D (ya know—Doom = Pong).” Romero smacked his keyboard and uploaded the message to the Internet.

  But with Doom II still in development, all the Quake talk began striking the other owners as premature. “Romero’s going out and telling people what we’re doing,” Adrian lamented to Kevin and Jay, “even though we know that all our stuff is going to change, so there’s no need to tell the public all these plans. Romero just likes all the attention, which is why he does it.”

  Jay, having been flamed by gamers on numerous occasions after id missed its promised deadlines for Doom, heard Adrian loud and clear. “Let’s not talk about stuff at this point that’s still projection,” he told Romero. “Because if it doesn’t come to fruition, there’s backlash.” Romero agreed but soon caved in once again. “Quake won’t be just a game,” he told Computer Player magazine, “it will be a movement.” He had to be stopped.

  Late one night in September 1994, Romero sat at his computer, tweaking the final sounds for Doom II. With the game near completion, he took it upon himself to polish the audio effects for the final enemy or “boss” of the game, called the Icon of Sin. To win the game, the player had to shoot the Icon—a hideous beast that spit out cubes that could spawn into other monsters—between the eyes.