If you’re into video games, you know Doom. Whether it defined your childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, or whether you just like seeing people trying to get it to run on increasingly ridiculous devices, the game that spawned the FPS genre (well, along with Wolfenstein 3D) is unarguably one of the most influential of all time. In fact, the game has such a rock solid legacy that its main creators (and id Software’s founders), John Carmack and John Romero, are still some of the few game developers to have ever truly reached rock star status.
However, the good times didn’t last too long, as the id Software team famously broke up after the release of Quake. Carmack stayed around and kept making well-received games for a few years before eventually helping spur on the VR movement. Romero took fellow employee Tom Hall, founded Ion Storm, and released Daikatana, which was not only an infamous flop but also had an infamous ad that still colors perceptions of Romero to this day (well, at least the perceptions of people who post on video game forums), before he continued on to a more lowkey but no less prolific development career.
The book Masters of Doom recounted the whole story of Doom and id Software in 2003, but that was a whole 20 years ago, and with the wisdom of age it seems like there’s no hard feelings between Carmack and Romero: They both seem to chalk up any discord back them to youth and inexperience with running a company/project management. In other words, it’s high time we recontextualize John Romero’s career beyond its obviously compelling ties to John Carmack’s career, since all in all that was only a small part of his life. Moreover, I think there’s a tendency out there to think of Carmack as the tech guy and Romero as the design guy, and it’s usually done in a way that dismisses Romero’s work. Luckily, the man himself is here to set the record straight with an excellent autobiography.
John Romero’s Doom Guy: Life in First Person released this last Tuesday (July 18th), when I awoke to a notification telling me my pre-order was ready. I opted to go for the audiobook since it’s narrated by Romero himself. At over 17 hours in length, it’s pretty meaty, and though I’ve only listened to a few hours, I can safely say it’s a must-read (or must-listen) for any fan of video gaming history. Anyone who has misjudged Romero to be someone who just got lucky by teaming up with John Carmack will have that misconception knocked out of their heads within just a few minutes.
Romero describes in detail (and, if you listen to the audiobook, in his own voice) an almost endless stream of historical nuggets that will be music to any video game fan’s ears. It’s as information-packed as a Jason Schreier book (Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, or Press Reset), a bit more interesting (in my opinion) than Sid Meier’s still-well-worth-it autobiography, and much, much better (not to mention more historically sound… again, in my opinion) than Blake J. Harris’s Console Wars.
Whether you want to hear about his stressful childhood and adolescence, the early days of computer programming and video game design, the birth of Commander Keen and id Software, or just want to hear all over again about how a few guys got together, made Doom, and changed the world, this book is for you. I’m only a few hours in, so I can’t give a comprehensive review, but I can give a full-on recommendation to any fan of gaming history. And I haven’t even gotten to the parts about his less-known later life yet!
You can get Doom Guy: Life in First Person from Bookshop or John Romero’s website if you want a hardcover, or you can get the audiobook from Libro.FM.
