The Romero/Carmack dynamic is so fascinating. It’s such a classic case of differing skills and personalities working to deliver something so utterly groundbreaking, but inevitably leading to a messy breakup later. Maybe slightly reductive, but it’s probably gaming’s closest situation to Lennon & McCartney.
Masters of Doom sounds really good and I’m certainly going to pick it up.
Does the book go into much (or any?) detail about modern id? I wonder how many people still there go back as far as Doom 3 (or earlier).
I have increasingly mixed feelings on nuDoom, but I do find it interesting that id remain such a tech powerhouse beyond Romero and Carmack. That legacy hasn’t ever really gone away, or even if it faded a bit, it’s back now even without them. id Tech is a marvel and in the context of modern shooters, I still think 2016 and Eternal top the pile.
No modern id in the book. The book ends in 2002, with Romero and Tom Hall happily working on mobile games, with Romero having really short hair. And Carmack mostly working on his new hobby in Rocketry.
You’re right, it is pretty interesting that id software is still a tech powerhouse even after Carmack. I hope they continue to do well and we get another memoir of their post-2002 years. I’m sure there’s plenty of interesting stories about the Call-of-Duty-like Doom 4 they were working on that was cancelled, as well as how Carmack got more and more interested in VR tech. And then how the new design and tech crew clearly took over at id that worked on the Doom Reboot.
The articles are all on the author’s website. There’s some fascinating, wonderful, and really strange stuff in them. I’d like to own a hardcopy. Maybe it will get wider distribution some day.
Yeah, the international shipping kills me, but I got the JRPG Book last year and kind of loved it, the Bitmap people have some good will with me and I can’t wait to see this one when it finally gets here.
Yeah, these are absolutely coffee table quality… if you have a coffee table. I finally have room for a proper one in the new house and Go Straight is going on that sucker so everyone who visits can become a belt scroller/beat 'em up fan.
I bought the FPS book back when that came out, and holy shit they do a beautiful job. Sewn bindings for the ability to lay flat. I didn’t think books did that anymore. Anyway, I put my FPS book right back in the amazingly high-quality box it came in, and just used the PDF to actually look inside the book. The damn thing is too nice to actually put out on the end table! Very high quality book.
