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Wednesday, Jan 7, 2009
John and I grew up in the Sacramento suburb of Rocklin, sharing a love of Ray Harryhausen, Black Sabbath, National Lampoon, Harlan Ellison, Peanuts and William Castle. We drew perverse comics depicting the traumas of suburban conformity, subverting bland icons such as Richie Rich -- and often got busted in class.
By the 1980s, I was doing more serious comics and making bad short films while John hung out at the local computer store, played games and learned how to work on the new Apple computers. I had no aptitude or patience for scrolling numbers, so I stayed far away. Meanwhile, John created his own games. In Health and Safety class, he sat in front of me writing endless lines of code on sheets of yellow paper; behind him, I drew epic comics and wrote short stories. We both almost failed. John sold his first game when he was 16.
It was cool to see his work in the pages of computer magazines. He moved to England with his family, worked on military computers, then back to America. He cruised through various software companies before co-designing an updated version of the Castle Wolfenstein video game. With its gun-leading-the-way perspective, labyrinthine hallways and evil Nazis (with dogs), Wolfenstein solidified the "first person shooter" genre and became the most visceral action game of the day.
John's devilish sense of humor was all over Castle Wolfenstein, from the clever level design to the increasingly battered face of a player losing strength to the computer-generated insults whenever you tried to quit the game. John and the game's technical genius, John Carmack, soon formed their own company: id Software. With money in the bank and time on their side, id released the computer game that would revolt and revolutionize the industry: Doom.
Id's success became a worldwide phenomenon with Doom's sequel -- Quake. But the Romero-Carmack collaboration didn't last -- after the release of Quake, John Romero left id. The split generated endless commentary from gamers and was the subject of countless press reports. From my perspective it was obvious that John and id were going in different creative directions: Carmack's focus was on extreme technology, while Romero concentrated on game design.
After id, John brought together two of the industry's most original talents, Tom Hall and Warren Spector, to form their own company. Todd Porter also came onboard with his strategy game Dominion. John was the most high-profile gamer in the biz, so the team had no problem finding interested backers. Eidos Interactive, home of Lara Croft, put down the big startup cash.
Most stories about Ion usually start with the late-night ambiance of gamers destroying their pixel alter-egos in one form or another. The trash-talk is foul and funny, witty and mysogynist, homophobic and democratic, and unremittingly non-personal.
I can understand being horrified by the scene. I was at first. However, when somebody shouts out "Suck it down, cocksucker. Your ass is mine!" right before they splatter your player into bloody gibs, it's really little more than the geek equivalent of athletic taunting. Part of the gamer's code is to not take this personally.
Yes, there was a serious edge to the playing, the same earnestness you'd see in any sporting event. I found it interesting that people at Ion who probably never made it on a football team developed the same competitive standards with video games. Myself, I chose a delicate title, "Grumpy Bunny," for the nightly Quake Deathmatches. Since my co-workers had lofty, threatening names like "Master Destroyer" or "Lord Yog Sothoth," I figured that being fragged by "Grumpy Bunny" would be extra-humiliating.
Eventually I too found myself screaming obscenities as I chain-gunned my video opponents. But I was actually a shitty player. John Romero wouldn't even Deathmatch with me because I was so not hardcore.
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