Renault on 14/12/2018 at 14:16
Why do you say that? Are you saying he quit as opposed to being forced to leave?
PigLick on 14/12/2018 at 15:52
DOES IT REALLY FUCKING MATTER AFTER ALL THIS TIME
no, no it doesnt.
Renault on 14/12/2018 at 20:15
@Piglick - C'mon man, this is gaming history, super important stuff for sure. I think. Well, they did write a book about it in any case.
So that said, I dug into my copy of "(
https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-Culture-ebook/dp/B000FBFNL0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1544818860&sr=8-1) Masters of Doom" from 10 years ago, here are some pertinent quotes:
Quote:
Carmack knew what he had to do. He had to prove that Romero was slacking. And he knew just how. He wrote a program that would create a time log whenever Romero worked on his PC. According to the results, his partner wasn't working much. When he confronted Romero with the data, his partner exploded. “You're only doing that so you can fire me,” Romero snapped.
Quote:
After all his speculation, Carmack now had his proof—scientific proof—that Romero was not only not working but becoming toxic. With that evidence in hand, he didn't feel the least bit of remorse when he arrived at his conclusion: Romero needed to be warned, officially warned, to shape up. He was talking too much to the press, talking too much to fans, deathmatching too much in the office, and now the rest of the company was suffering. Carmack approached Adrian and Kevin and said, “We need to put Romero on record that he is about to be fired.”
Quote:
“Okay,” Carmack said, “we can't put it off any longer.” Shortly after Quake's release, he sat in a Mexican restaurant called Tia's having lunch with Adrian and Kevin. Romero's time was up. He was clearly not pulling his weight. It was time to let him go. The thought made Adrian physically sick. This is Romero we're talking about. But he knew he was at a crossroads. Either Romero was going to have to leave or Carmack was going to dissolve the company. There was no middle ground. Kevin agreed. It was hard to let someone go, especially given that Romero was one of the founders of the company, someone who'd contributed so much to their success; but there was no alternative.
Pyrian on 14/12/2018 at 22:33
Weird to see so much pushback. And it's not just of the defending this guy variety, this is mostly straight up "don't even criticize" type of stuff.
Look, if Romero was going around pushing himself as the maker of Gunman Taco Truck or whatever, then I'm not going after him for 18+ year old stuff. But as long as he's out reminding everyone that he was connected to Doom, then the events that followed up in Doom's wake are totally fair game.
icemann on 15/12/2018 at 02:26
Brethren: Thanks for that. Interesting stuff. That is not the way Romero tells it. Or in the RG interview anyway.
I stand corrected then. Does the book talk about the complete change in direction for Quake mid-development? Maybe he started slacking off after that happened.
Starker on 15/12/2018 at 03:38
Quote Posted by Pyrian
Weird to see so much pushback. And it's not just of the defending this guy variety, this is mostly straight up "don't even criticize" type of stuff.
Look, if Romero was going around pushing himself as the maker of
Gunman Taco Truck or whatever, then I'm not going after him for 18+ year old stuff. But as long as he's out reminding everyone that he was connected to Doom, then the events that followed up in Doom's wake are totally fair game.
So, what, he's not even allowed to bring up Doom when he's doing things directly related to it? Releasing free Doom content? Better bring up Daikatana, lest anyone forgets.
Also, I don't think it's weird to see pushback at all. I know I'm sick and tired of the constant bashing. Seriously, it's been 18 years, give it a rest, people.
Renault on 15/12/2018 at 03:49
@Starker, you're taking all of this a bit too seriously. John Romero made himself a rock star. 18 years ago has nothing to do with it. You can't forget Daikatana in the same way that you can't forget Doom or Quake. They are polar opposite stages of the career of one of the best known game developers of all time. It all just comes with the territory.
Starker on 15/12/2018 at 04:35
Why, though? Why does he still have to be torn down after so much time has passed? What is the benefit of this? Drive him out of the game industry? Wear him down so that he never makes anything again? At this point, it's nothing more than petty vindictiveness.
icemann on 15/12/2018 at 06:41
Especially when he made 1 bad game and a mountain of great games. I could care less about Daikitana.
Its like saying a musicians terrible after putting out a bad album even though they had 6 great ones.
heywood on 17/12/2018 at 16:31
Romero gets shit for a lot of reasons.
He's a publicity whore
He cultivated the "rock star gamer" image
He tried to take more than his fair share of credit for id's big successes.
He portrayed himself as a game design guru who was never really given the chance at id
When he finally got his opportunity to show the world what he could do, with full control and design freedom, a big budget and no deadline, he produced an embarrassingly bad game
After that, he declared that mobile gaming was the future and went on to make a handful of mobile games that nobody remembers
He was given a chance to lead again by Midway and produced Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows, to middling reviews
Over the last decade, he has announced a few new projects that have failed to go anywhere, including a new studio (Iron Slipgate?) and a new FPS (Blackroom) with Adrian Carmack
Now he has to resort to making Doom levels just to keep his name in the news