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Sunday, Nov 22, 2009
Yes, the "John Romero Is Going To Make You His Bitch" ad for Daikatana in late 1997. Since game magazines are niche-oriented, the controversy was contained, but it still left a permanent scar on the perception of the company. I thought it was a funny idea to parody the prevalent trash-talk that Doom and Quake had set in motion, but not everyone agreed. The ad's lifespan was short.
Its main effect turned out to be focusing a new wave of trash talk -- this time from gamers aimed directly at Ion Storm. I found it fascinating to work on a project that the online game world obsessed about so intensely. To read daily gossip about events that were and weren't happening gave me a chance to observe the online media's ill-defined "objectivity."
It was almost like a drug to scan the gaming sites and see what nasty news was leaked or invented. I suppose it was one side-effect of the way the industry was so intimately and electronically connected to its fan base.
But the lines had been drawn. All eyes were now on the Storm and of course, Daikatana. To compound the growing pressure, the marketing machine put John Romero everywhere -- making him the poster child for both Ion and all first-person shooters. He made the list of Entertainment Weekly's 100 Most Important People in Entertainment; Time called him the "Quentin Tarantino of the game industry"; CNN did a piece on the Dallas office, where I felt a Warholian thrill seeing myself kick ass on Tekken 3 to a global audience.
Contrary to popular belief, John didn't care about the publicity; he saw it as a necessary evil. He certainly didn't act like a prima donna. We still ate Sonic cheeseburgers and watched Don Knotts movies at his stately home. John Romero is truly one of the least pretentious people you could meet, and I never saw him treat anyone as if he was the gaming world's "rock star." He made it a point to hang out with his fans, e-mail them and be approachable. He loved going to death-match tournaments and battling it out with his peers.
Personally, I got a kick out of seeing my school friend treated like a game god. John laughed it off. His generosity in starting a company and hiring talented people at excellent salaries (with benefits and potential shares) would rarely come into play during the gaming media's war with Ion.
But as Daikatana's release date continued to slip, working at Ion Storm became more and more like being a character in a minor soap opera being played out live in front of the game community. I thought some of the members acted like -- to use their own parlance -- whiny little bitches; they obviously saw themselves as the arbiters of Good Games Everywhere, much like the new breed of film geeks on Ain't It Cool News.
The immediacy of online raving and ranting encouraged a perpetual, streaming critique of Ion Storm. Flame Thrower and Bitch-X were the most nasty and vociferous gossips, running daily doses of rumor, innuendo and even fact. It's a typical media paradigm: put somebody on a pedestal and then kick it away. Their venom made the news irrelevant; the point was to bring down Ion. Everybody at work read these critics, argued or agreed (or perversely sent them the inside scoop), and the attacks didn't contribute to an optimistic environment.
I was disturbed by the hate and bitterness on the message boards. To me, there was an unmistakable jealousy on the part of his detractors. John had spent half his life making computer games, and he didn't have to prove anything with Daikatana. He just wanted to make a cool, original game. Not that he was innocent of a certain hubris, but he did nothing to warrant online thugs dragging his personal life into their stories. I realized how awful it could be in the public spotlight, how difficult to let negative words slide off your back. I don't think John or anybody ever expected this level of animosity.
John helped create a whole genre that literally changed the face of video games. He publicly advocated creators' rights, never met a game he didn't like, never talked ill of people or rival companies. He gave everybody the freedom to do what they were best at. Maybe John had too much trust in people; but this is not a bad thing. And there was definite online fan support for him and Ion. But the cyber-critics had their itchy trigger fingers on the mouse. Ion became the bad guy in the game of life.
