Masters of Doom | Doom: Rediscovering History

Content Warning

This review briefly talks about real-life domestic abuse, if you don't like the idea of this but still want to read this page, skip the section that is about John Romero's early childhood.

As well as this, some use of vulgarity is used here.

I'm really, really bad at reading books, I think the last book that I read, like read read (that was made up of at least over 100 pages) would be something like Doucglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide series, and I am ashamed to say that I last looked at them back in the early 2010s when I was still a teenager... oh goodness. Books are just not a medium that I partake in all that often, mostly as I enjoy other forms of art - music, TV and movies, and, of course, computer games. If it means anything, I do read a lot of Wikipedia in my free time (my favourite article changes all of the time, but Piganino, List of songs banned by the BBC, and Wikipedia: Why is BFDI not on Wikipedia are all up there), but they are not what most would call «books».

This is all to say that I finally broke my streak of not reading anything when I picked up David Kushner's 2003 book, Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture, a story that follows the early life of the Two Johns, taking us on the ride from their childhood, skipping around in time here and there, but ultimately seeing our main time in the 1990s where they have now established what was basically a collection of best selling games. Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake are all on their resume. Masters of Doom deals with the great success that came with being a part of such a team, as well as what would be the downfall of the Two Johns. Even if I do know what this tale will bring as... uh, yes, I am a bit of a Doom and Quake nerd, I still enjoyed what this book had to bring, the narrative being written like how a historian would describe the Roman Empire, still manages to keep me intrigued as I get to learn how the people in the room were feeling, something you just do not get if you skim Wikipedia or even the Doomwiki a lot of the time.

We learn the most about the aforementioned Two Johns, John Romero and John Carmack. Kushner compares them to Paul McCartney and John Lennon, but of the video game world, having a partnership that deeply influenced the community they were a part of and having what was quite the hostile and seemly toxic split up.

In Masters of Doom, we get an honest, and sometimes even unflattering, look into the personal and creative decisions Romero and Carmack would make over the years. One of the first things that we learn is that, as a young teen, John Carmack would download how-to guides on how to make bombs over BBS, and would use this knowledge to break into a school that had Apple II computers in, only getting arrested when one of the people that he was with, opened a window to let himself in, triggering a silent alarm. We then learn that Carmack would then be assessed, with the final result being that he was basically a brain on legs with no care for other people's feelings. While I am aware that Carmack, Romero, and everyone else in this book are real people with real feelings and wants and needs, there are times that make you really grate your teeth - Carmack is no exception. His lack of communication, especially towards Romero can really make you want to jump into the book and shake him - if it was written by a less acute author. David Kushner really does a good job at putting you in the shoes of the other people, when you're reading about how John Carmack wanted Romero to stop being such a press darling, it all makes sense, and intern, when the focus is on Romero, you get that having a break and being with gamers is also a good thing.

For the other John, John Romero, he grew up with an asshole of a step-dad who would beat him quite violently when the youngster would disobey him by playing arcade games like Asteroids, but this would very much not stop him at all, and would, in a dark way, be the reason why he found out about computer games (VS arcade ones) at a local college where he would play text role-playing games, soon moving on to making his own on punch cards. Romero seems like a character, or person as he is real, who spits in the faces of anyone who can doubt his ability to do what he wants to do, even if it seems far-out for the 1970s.

With Romero's can-do attitude, as well as his skills in making fun levels, and Carmack being deeply talented at programming, we get to understand why these two made such a great team - it all works, like a well-oiled engine.

While we learn a lot about the ins-and-outs of John and John, the book isn't always focused on these two, they are the main stars of this story, sure, but other names do pop up here and there, such as with Tom Hall, who is characterized as an over-the-top child-at-heart person who slowly becomes more and more frustrated with id Softwear's decision to move away from Commander Keen, a game that he had a large creative part in and moving towards less family-friendly action, namely with Nazi shoot-'em-up Wolfenstein 3D, a series that he seemly didn't have that much fun working on, still wanting to move back to Keen, ending with him being fired from id during the production of Doom.

The book was clearly well-researched and David Kushner clearly wanted this to be something great. At the very end of it, there is a whole page just listing people who Kushner talked to and interviewed, names like Gabe Newell show up, making the legitimacy of the project even more concrete. I'm sure most people would have no idea who Gab Nuel is, but nerds like me get oddly excited to see him cited by Kushner certainly do appreciate the name-drop.

We learn a lot of random tidbits of video and computer game history here, I have a few highlights like how Scott Miller got a phone call saying to tone down the violence in the upcoming Wolfenstine 3D, with id responding by turning up the blood 'n' guts to eleven, or how they would license the code for Wolf 3D to Wisdom Tree, a Christian gaming studio, that would turn it into Super Noah's Aerch 3D at the same time they licensed it to Nintendo.

The idea that the code for Wolfensine would be recycled and turned into, not only an unofficial Nintendo game, but a Christian one, is legitimately funny to say the least. Although there are parts of the book that are let down due to the limitations of the medium; we learn that one night, Romero and Tom Hall make their own DIY phone answering machine that features demonic noises and silly voices - obviously, this is a book so we never get to hear it, so its inclusion can frustrate the reader if they don't have a way of accessing these audio clips.

A personal what the hell moment that I kept on reading to anyone who would listen (and those who were force to hear it) would be when Burger Becky^[1] was commissioned by id to make a Nintendo port for Wolf 3D, but her hands were tied as she was also under contract by Interplay Entertainment, the book goes as follows:

This section of the book is very much of a reminder that id Software, as well as the video game industry as a whole, was (and still kind of is) very much of a boy's club where antics like this are not uncommon. There are other parts in the book that talk about how John Romero and Tom Hall would make off-color sex jokes, or how one time a poor stripper came into the office dressed as a pizza delivery girl, being all but ignored. Clearly, these were boys who were, firstly, just only about in their 20s so are still in their dumbass era of their lives, and secondly all friends. Friends who drank way to much Diet Pepsi. With that said, the former is clearly just ganging up on Becky and is kind of creepy behavior, certainly not the way to handle such an issue.

Luckily, this is the only example that I can think of that is off-putting. Along with this, there is also a whole collection of fun and amusing antidotes splattered throughout the book itself, such as how one day John Romero locked himself outside of his office, with John Carmack opting to open the door with his battleaxe, and yes, proceeding to do so. Another story that I enjoyed reading was when Romero was in conversation with Sandy Peterson, a person who was ten years older than most of the other people there and whom Romero himself was uncertain about joining id due to Peterson being a Mormon.

David Kushner's writing style is easy to follow and I never felt confused or lost during the reading of Masters, including when there was a section on, say, the code for the game. You don't need to be an ace programmer who has spent the majority of their life editing and looking at the source code for Doom to get what is being talked about here, or hell, you don't even need to be a gamer all that much to understand this book, although this is also coming from the same person who knows a fair bit about the ins-and-outs of Doom already, so maybe ask someone else what they think...

With that said, I feel like it might benefit you as a reader to have played a bit of the games beforehand, mostly as it makes the flow of things a lot easier to visualize in your head, but still, I am fond of the way that Kushner describes certain gamer lingo, such as when John Romero NoClips in the final level for Doom II, only to discover his own head has, at least in the game, been put on a spike for the player to shoot at; «Romero ran around in a special mode that allowed him to, for purposes of testing the game, pass through walls – effectively going behind the images the player would see in the game.»

In my opinion, there is a short list of games that are worth playing before picking up Masters, namely Asteroids, Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement, Commander Keen, Wolfinstine 3D, Doom, and Quake - all should be looked at (although I will say, while all but Asteroids have shareware versions, setting up ports/DOSBox for them can be a pain).

This is a long way of saying that this book has very, very little in the way of gatekeeping on who can and cannot enjoy it, with that said, there are some sheer vulgar parts to it. The aforementioned sex jokes are one, as well as that, I was a little surprised by just the amount of times the word «fuck» was said, although the subjects are all 20-something-year-olds, and as someone who is currently in their 20s, I certainly can talk like a pirate while around my friends.

At the start, the story hooks the reader in by skipping to the year 2000, with id Software already being well established, the Two Johns being well successful, and the split of the due well over at this point. While I knew how this story ended, I was still deeply interested in the journey that brought these two at this point. The whole thing was a page-turner that I wanted to keep on reading, even well late into the night (and that comes from someone with dyslexia). So, duh, even before I ask the should you buy it? question, getting a (legal) copy can be easily found on places like Amazon, second, and third, although with a cost of ten pounds, asking yourself if you really want to invest in something like this, especially something so nerdy, can be a little hard to justify, but look, you just read (or skimmed...) this whole page, so I would be willing to bet that you'd like it a lot.

Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture, get your hands on a copy of it if you have even a passing interest in gaming.

The art on this webpage was taken from Twitter, where a larger version of the art was uploaded.

Notes

Note 1: When Masters of Doom was written, Becky had not publically came out as a trans woman, meaning that the book now deadnames her as well as misgenders her, so for the sake of dignity towards Becky, I opted to change the wording in the quote to better reflect her transition. Womp womp, I changed the wording of the book, cry about it I guess.

With thanks to MSP airport for not stopping me from taking out my laptop and writing a portion of this review while waiting for my flight to LHR.