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Sunday, Jul 12, 2009
Id Software is NOT the Dokken of computer gaming! Readers respond to Wagner James Au's "Masters of 'Doom.'"
May 8, 2003 | [Read the story.]
I am the original author of the texture-mapping code in "Ultima Underworld." I feel that Wagner James Au's review of David Kushner's book "Masters of Doom" unfairly paints John Carmack and Id Software's graphical innovations in their early games as merely derivative of what Blue Sky Software was doing with creating virtual worlds for "Underworld."
The truth of the matter is that texture mapping for 3-D computer graphics was not invented by any computer game programmer. It was invented in the middle 1970's by Ed Catmull and was widely used for non-real-time 3-D rendering and in expensive real-time flight simulators before it made its way to computer games. Game programmers of the time were fully aware of this, and the realization that the amount of processing power and the amount of memory that were becoming available for PCs was enough to make this technique a practical one for mainstream computer games was inevitable.
"Ultima Underworld" and "Wolfenstein 3D" were in different game genres with different goals. In both cases, the computers of the day required making trade-offs in their texture mapping. "Underworld," being a role-playing game, wanted a game engine with as much versatility as possible in order to allow a wide variety of scenarios for the player to experience and puzzle out. So, "UW" needed a texture-mapping routine allowing arbitrary angles and rotations and a 3-D engine allowing a great deal of variety in world topology. In order to provide the distance-based darkening seen in non-real-time role-playing games such as "Dungeon Master," it also needed to be able to do some primitive lighting. The price it paid for this was having a smaller view of the world (because of the slower rendering speed) and some nontrivial distortion in the mapping. "Wolfenstein 3D" was a high-speed action game and its designers wisely decided that having a large 3-D window and the fastest possible frame rate were more important for a game in this genre. This wasn't a case of "ruining" the 3-D game genre, but a smart design decision for the game they were trying to make.
Faster computers and better techniques were able to reduce the impact of these trade-offs in later games (for instance, Parallax Software's 1994 game "Descent" had arbitrary rotation, dynamic lighting, 3-D-modeled enemies instead of sprites, and a very versatile world topology), and the rise of 3-D accelerator cards has made most of the early trade-offs irrelevant.
Id Software continues its innovations in the game graphics realm to this day. To whatever extent some of their early efforts were inspired by what Blue Sky was developing for "Ultima Underworld" (which drew on many other games for inspiration), I don't think this detracts from those efforts at all.
-- Chris Green
Wagner Au's use of pop music as analogy to the development of video games is as off-base as his transparent use of an ostensible book review as a platform to launch his sour-grapes missive against id Software and "Doom."
What Kushner understands that Au does not is that marketing, speed and attitude (things that "Doom" had in spades and his pet failure "Ultima Underworld" didn't) matter as much or more than actual innovation or even total sales. Nirvana is exactly the right analogy for id Software: They took the musical and stylistic approach of bands that couldn't be bothered (if you want a band analogous to Blue Sky, try Hüsker Dü or even Mudhoney), added studio gloss, and marketed the hell out of them. Both Nirvana and id had a sick genius at the helm, and both tapped into the same vein of anger and powerlessness.
Au's going on about market share further misses the point -- you can't both dismiss first-person shooters as occupying an insignificant niche genre and simultaneously decry the innovators in that genre as "wrecking the (gaming) industry" and corrupting teens.
I share many of Au's underlying concerns about the psychology of FPS games, but wishful thinking about what might have been won't lessen the impact that "Doom" has had on a generation of kids.
-- Jim McLean
Wagner James Au writes: "With more interactivity would come more demand for intelligent AI -- creatures, people, supporting characters -- to populate these games. They'd get smarter, become more eerily human-like, and allow ever-widening breadth of player expression."
Apparently, Mr. Au hasn't suffered through "Black & White" recently, and somehow managed to miss, while perusing the top-ten sales figures, the astounding popularity of the "Sims" franchise.
There's a strong and deep consensus among many of the aficionados of the gaming industry in general, and the FPS genre in particular, that good, clueful and elegant AI is the next "killer app" as far as gaming is concerned. Witness the proliferation of online gaming, especially among the FPS titles, and you'll see why. Going up against a thinking enemy, and not one that simply shoots more accurately, but is tougher to kill, and/or moves faster than the last one, is what holds and drives gamers' interest.
Mr. Au again: "[Kushner's] key fault, in an otherwise excellent book, is giving far too much credit to games which consistently fell way short of the medium's full potential -- while failing to recognize the one game which did show, so early on, the kind of world-changing promise he professes to want."
This reads like so much "my favorite game got dissed" whining, and detracts from an otherwise informative read. Mr. Au, if you're so hung up on the short shrift apparently accorded "Ultima Underworld," take up the gauntlet [if you'll pardon the pun] and write a book on its place in digital history.
-- Rafe Brox
Salon's review of "Masters of Doom" seems like little more that a postmodern hatchet job done as a springboard to bemoan the lack of creativity and artistry in the gaming industry.
Mr. Au's opinions unfortunately sound like the ranting of a hardcore fan lamenting the fact that superior works get passed up in favor of the sensationalistic. I would know, because I'm a hardcore fan, and the state of the gaming industry, its emphasis on violence and cheap tricks instead of real interactivity, dismays me. But this is the plight of anyone deeply involved in pretty much any entertainment medium: the deep, quality titles always get upstaged by the flashier big-budget productions. While "Ultima Underworld" was truly a revolutionary title from a technical and design standpoint, it wasn't a game you could sell to the masses. "Doom" was a game that was marketable -- it had a simple interface, simple rules and instant gratification. "Ultima Underworld" was a slow, time-consuming game that more or less appealed only to hardcore gamers. It wasn't a title that would have launched the type of frenzy that "Doom" did. It could be argued that no title other than "Doom" could have forced gaming into the public's consciousness.
I'm not a big fan of what happened after "Doom" was released, and the direction the industry took as a result -- violence is abused as a tool to draw the player in, and most gamers' gut instinct when faced with an interactive world is to try to kill its inhabitants. Games like "Grand Theft Auto III" convince me that this trend will get worse before it gets better. But that's like a movie buff lamenting the trend of blockbuster movies being light on script and long on action. "Doom" was "Star Wars" for the interactive medium, and the impact of that is undeniable.
-- Matt Smith
Let's see ... John Carmack and John Romero ruined computer games? Carmack really wasn't that smart? "Doom" didn't cause Columbine but, well ...
What the heck is this story about? "Doom" was successful because Carmack famously gave the tools to users to make their own levels in the game, and innovated modem Deathmatch play. They also innovated game shareware. Carmack's engines are still the gold standard for game designers. He's the D.W Griffith of 3-D games. The Looking Glass Guys, especially Warren Spector and Doug Church, are the Sergei Eisensteins, making worthier games that appeal to a more limited audience. Still, when has "worthiness" had anything to do with popularity? Carmack and Romero made the game they wanted to play.
The thing that is most disturbing about the story is the Columbine connection. The author sounds like the earnest cultural critics of the early '70s, looking at the Manson murders and saying, "Of course the Beatles aren't responsible, but there is a connection ... I mean, their lyrics were written in blood on the refrigerator." Give me a break. If "Doom" didn't cause Columbine, then don't try to implicate it by association.
-- Nick Henderson
Wagner James Au in his article on id Software seems just as guilty of "rewriting history" as the book he is reviewing. Although I agree that first-person shooters are technically a niche market, to call id the Dokken of computer games is a severe mischaracterization. Id's games have always been about frantic, fast-paced action and they excelled at delivering exactly that. As great as games like "Thief," "System Shock" and "Deus Ex" (the descendants of "Ultima Underworld") are, they do not deliver anything like the same adrenaline-pumping rush that you get from playing Quake or Doom online with real human opponents. Another point that Au misses is that id really brought forth the era of online gaming. I think that id's great strength is in making technology that allows people to create immersive worlds. They were always the technical leaders if not necessarily the innovators of new types of gameplay. Some of the games, like "Medal of Honor: Allied Assault" and "Half-Life," that Au mentions as "defined by how much they aren't like id games" were actually built on id's game engines! To call id's games mediocre is just ridiculous, and is more indicative of Au's obvious bias toward single-player plot-based games than any statement of quality of "Doom" or "Quake." And to accuse id of ruining the game industry is even more ridiculous; all genres have their share of copycats and bad games. But if you look at id's catalog of games, they were all technically groundbreaking, fun, addictive and influential. If I feel like a good story or stealthy gameplay, I might turn to a Looking Glass game, but if I want a fast-paced thrill ride experience, I'll turn to id Software.
-- Howie Wang
