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John Romero
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John Romero is a game designer, and was a co-founder of id Software. He is famous for being the lead designer for gaming epics including Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake. He is also credited with ruining video games by spawning the mass-popularization of the first person shooter game and coined the multiplayer term "deathmatch", which in turn desensitized ignorant young males for generations yet to come.
To many though...all of these triumphs pale in comparison to the epic fail that was Daikatana.
Early History
John Romero started his life as a destitute child of a Mexican American man who would take little Johnny Romero on drunk camping trips in the middle of the night. Eventually this model citizen would leave the family for good...and then be replaced by a militant asshole (although this man was far more of a role model than his real father).
Romero's new father ironically tried to keep him out of arcades (where sexual fetishes begin) and failed on epic levels at achieving this. It only pushed him further into the steaming cauldron of gaming. Romero, not able to play games in the arcade without his father relentlessly tracking him down like a T-2000 to smash his face into an Asteroids machine eventually found solace in a computer lab of a local college where he first played Text Based Adventure games such as Colossal Cave Adventure. He soon grew tired of the lack of backstory attached to his games, and right there, before he even knew it, he had found his niche.
Romero's text-based father eventually was prompted to see his son's potential and executed the purchase of an Apple II computer for young Romero. Over the years John became a brilliant programmer, even having his work published and bought by the upstart computer magazines of the time. Even military officials approached John in his teen years about programming a flight simulator for them. Romero, knowing nothing about flight and having been a trench coat mafioso, could never have really been approached by any kind of official military official.
Eventually he would get married to his first wife Kelly and leave his hometown to start working for a self-owned company which almost immediately flopped...his marriage followed suit shortly after. This began his days at Softdisk where he met his famous partner John Carmack, long time friends Tom Hall and Andrian Carmack (no relation to John Carmack). They originally programmed games for the monthly Apple II magazine disk...until the fateful day they had a vision and realized what a hunk of ass Macintosh would eventually become. They started on a new Bi-monthly Gamers Edge disk that included games for the PC. At first they simply converted their older Apple II software to PC until the day that they did the unthinkable...
The Breakthrough
Although most of you newfags were just a glimmer in the testicle of a high school drop out at the time...what happened next would be what made id famous for years. John Carmack had wished to replicate the type of side scrolling graphics found in Super Mario 3 in games for the PC...and one day in a dervish of Diet Coke and Pizza had done it. Sadly this would be how game design would be until Quake...John Carmack invents something amazing...and Mr. Romero stands by and loops "THIS IS THE MOST FUCKING AMAZING THING EVER! FUCK!". Now we should give credit were credit is due...although brilliant...Carmack was like a computer...capable of making code that was optimal and ahead of it's time. John Romero however was able to use that technology and make something brilliant with it. The current technology they had on their hands could turn the video game world on it's heels. Now computers could have games like Super Mario 3. In fact they managed to bang out a PC version of Super Mario 3 in one night and send it off to Nintendo. Unfortunately for them, Nintendo had no interest in what they had done. That technology would go to create Commander Keen...one of the most memorable PC games of the 1980's.
Romero and crew had a hit on their hands and they knew it. They began moonlighting for a Shareware company known as Apogee while they worked at Softdisk. They would load the company PCs into their cars on the weekends and go to a lake house they rented to work on Commander Keen only to return them again when Monday approached. Once Commander Keen started raking in fuck tons of money they eventually gave the finger to Softdisk, screwing over coworkers and friends alike (which would become a pattern for the two Johns).
id Software
The troupe eventually packed up and moved into their own offices in the middle of a sub arctic tundra. Shortly before the move, Romero became romantic with and eventually married a Soft Disk clerk named Beth that gave him room to be a gamer and a programmer. She made the move to the new offices with them. Sadly not much is known of their actual relationship...probably as I imagine Romero was too busy blowing his load over computer games.
They did several projects to keep cashing in off of Commander Keen while Carmack made the new technology. The next innovations were Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. As usual John Romero's sick scatological humor would pave the way for each game. Adrian Carmack was happy to be doing work other than happy cutesy Commander Keen, but Tom Hall who had been behind this kind of artistic direction didn't approve. Tom would eventually be fired because he didn't share a common vision with the rest of the group.
With Wolfenstein 3D's massive success, they moved to Dallas to begin work on the legendary Doom. At first this game was just a graphical leap from Wolfenstein...but then at the last moment, they added what would change the face of gaming for years to come. That addition was networked multiplayer. This is when John Romero coined the term "Deathmatch". Sadly this was also where his career took a dive.
Living like a Rockstar
John Romero became a legend in the games industry thanks to his pioneering work on classic FPS like Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM. Romero's love for games took over his love of programming as he and the whole nation got caught up in the craze of DOOM.
The world fame and success made him a game developer Rock Star, and chick magnet. Romero began living the good life, and cruised around in his customized, yellow Ferrari Testarossa while making all the fans his bitch.
Gradually, Romero started to become distant from John Carmack, and acted as a company cheer leader. Eventually, John Romero got annoyed with super nerd John Carmack's graphics chatter. So upon completion of Quake he left id Software for new adventures.
Ion Shit Storm
John Romero met up with Tom Hall and started a company called Ion Storm through a company called Eidos. John Romero wanted to make a company where design is law, rather than being dependent on the technology. They decided on making their office on the top floor of a massive building. It had glass windows all around, and had a cost of $15 per square foot including the ridiculous air conditioning bill. It cost $250,000 a month just to rent this office suit...let alone pay for everything else. But Eidos had Romero's cock planted firmly in their mouths with a thumbs up.
Romero initially started building his game Daikatana using the Quake 1 engine they licensed from id. The game was based on the legendary sword from the D&D campaign the two Johns used to play together. Ironically, Romero obtaining the sword in the game destroyed the game world that Carmack had meticulously created...much like we all know this game would destroy Romero's credibility. Honestly the game probably would have been fine had they stuck with the technology they started with...but at E3 that year Romero saw it...Quake 2. It made his efforts look shitty in comparison...so like the Ace Programmer and Current Rich Person he was, he would wait and license the engine and have his team try to convert the game to the new engine...but sadly it wasn't that easy and most of his employees left.
At this point Romero fell in love with future Playboy model Stevie Casie and left his current wife Beth. She shared a love of gaming with John Romero and the two of them would finish Daikatana together with the few programmers they could muster to help them. At E3 that year id unveiled Quake 3...Romero eventually just said "Aw fuck it" and released what would go down in history as one of the shittiest games of all time.
The silver lining
While Romero was blowing away his cash in parties and hookers, another team from within ion storm, lead by gaming deity Warren Specter, were diligently working on their own little project...
The Recent Past and Present
Romero would eventually form a smaller company called Monkeystone after being shit canned by Eidos. The software company would produced games for Cellphones and PDAs until they realized no one but casualfags bought into that kind of shit. So then John eventually threw in the towel and worked for Midway on a new Gauntlet game (which actually turned out decently). You would think that id Software clearly won in this case...but you would be wrong. Carmack continued to push the envelope on graphics engines doing some revolutionary work...but unfortunately they would never break free of making games about space marines who blow shit up. For better or worse every game they made from that point was more beautiful than the last, but also just more of the same. Carmack and Romero together were what made id special, and with both of them gone their separate ways. Things wouldn't be the same. Like many great actors, inventors, and world leaders...they changed the face of history...but died with a whimper.
Gazillion Entertainment
John Romero co-founded Gazillion Entertainment in 2009. Gazillion is a big game development company which has multiple MMOs in the works such as Lego Universe, Jumpgate Evolution, Marvel Universe and Marvel Super Hero Squad.
Retrospective
—--Some faggot who thought he was funny. | ||
See Also
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John Romero is part of a series on Visit the Gaming Portal for complete coverage. |
