It seems like not so long ago I used to get carried away in computer clubs, where you had to move a few squares across the screen from point A to point B, and then there was a masterpiece in the form of the game Karateka. These days you look at a game that’s, say, five years old — ten, heaven forbid — and you already think: ugh, how could we even play that? And yet 35 years ago it was those very squares on the screen that seemed to us like a miracle of miracles.
And that’s why it’s so fascinating now to read the biographies of people who are, essentially, already legends, who rapidly changed both the video game industry itself and society’s attitude toward it. The story of id Software is just such an example.
David Kushner’s book is titled Masters of Doom, making it clear which game is considered the most famous, which name can attract potential readers. Modern players are more likely to know Doom (2016) and its sequel Doom Eternal, and are unlikely to have ever played those very first games.
For me, though, the acquaintance with the company’s games began much earlier — although back then I paid no attention to who actually made them. I remember playing Commander Keen in the school computer lab. And later, when Wolfenstein 3D appeared, it became not only a breakthrough and the progenitor of all shooter games. It was also the first game my father ever played on a computer — and at that time he was about as far from technology as one could be. So, you could say I’ve walked almost the entire path alongside this company — only as a player.
But when I say that the book tells the story of id Software, that’s not quite true. It’s not so much the story of a company as it is the story of its two founders — “the two Johns,” as the author constantly calls them: John Romero and John Carmack, two guys who “created an empire and transformed pop culture.”
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