Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture Kindle Edition

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.I'm really impressed on how things turn out for the guys that created DOOM. They were successful in tech and gaming but they weren't able to handle so much in so little time. None of the Johns were able to see that they needed each other.I think the book is summarized by a great analogy presented by the author: Carmack was the guitar maker and Romero was the musician that could get the best songs out of them.I really recommend buying this book, it gets interesting from the beginning and it grips you until the end. I even read the index hoping there would be more stories post 2003.

In the middle of 1995 I was building my self a PC, but not any PC but a powerful one with an incredible big, one gigabyte hard disk connected through a super speed SCSII card, a lot of RAM and a cutting-edge graphics card. Besides the thrill to build a powerful computer by myself, the expectations of what I will be able to do was really stimulating. Yes, one of the motivations was to be able to play the new game of id Software, Quake. And that was just the first PC I built in order to keep the pace of id games. Not that I was a video game addict but I was really fascinated with the technology, the immersive illusion of virtual reality I felt when playing the previous game, Doom, even with its crude unrealistic graphics. And with Quake, I can't and should ignore the hours I spent playing by my self and with friends in tournaments and team playing through the Internet. That was a lot of time of my youth but without a written history I could feel that it was like a dream. Fortunately, David Kushner did it with this book.Long and well-researched account of an important part of the history of the subculture of violent and high tech video games and their creators, their lives, failures and technological adventures. I really enjoyed this reading and I recommend it not only for those who lived part of this recent history but for everyone who want to learn about this important subculture.

If you like Doom and/or Quake, you need to read this book. It details the lives and stories of John Carmack and John Romero, two guys who took a dominating stranglehold on the early PC game market and didn't let go. This book is incredibly detailed and you can tell that is was meticulously researched, with firsthand accounts from both Romero and Carmack, along with many other important people. The book reads more like a story than a typical biographical book, which keeps it light and interesting. After finishing the book I have nothing buy admiration for everyone involved. What these guys did in such a short time will never be repeated, and we have a lot of them to thank for how far video games have come today.Overall highly recommended, excellent book, stayed up all night reading it.

Anyone who was part of the DOOM phenomenon will find this book fascinating. I swear I developed PTSD from playing this game. I'd walk around a corner half expecting an imp to leap out at me. When DOOM came out, me and a buddy of mine were hooked so bad on this game we'd speak about our addiction in hushed tones. It was like nothing I ever experienced.Masters of DOOM tells the story of the "Two Johns," John Carmack and John Romero, creators of DOOM and founders of ID software. It's a story of amazing success and spectacular failure, personality conflicts and political witch-hunts. I found the early history of PCs and the sub-culture of game players and hackers enlightening.I recently took a trip down memory lane and played through DOOM 1 and DOOM 2. This book was the perfect companion piece.

Solid read about a group and especially two personalities that helped shape gaming and entertainment. Good pacing and detail though you could tell the author went out of his way to be careful in presenting any analysis or opinion (which is important with living and breathing subjects). Even with the "middle of the road" storytelling, it was easy to place yourself in the story and understand the dynamics because you know these people in your life. Would have liked to have more of the actual business detail of id but its not a business book so not enough to cause any loss of value.

This book is a phenomenal look into the creation of one of gaming most innovative companies ever! It takes you from the very beginning when the "Two Johns" and crew started working together at Softdisk in Shreveport, LA. to the behemoth is became during the releases of Doom and it's sequel. The journey is told without any form of censorship to any of the members or their egos and really gives insight into how friends can completely turn against each other when business gets in the way. If you're at all interested in gaming history (or business) then this is a MUST read for you. I only wish they would release an updated version so we could know exactly how things have continued as the book ends during the 2004 year.Final Verdict: This is a MUST read!!!!

This is a very well written and researched book about an important time in my life, my adolescence. I grew up with these guys and their games and it shaped who I am. Not in a violent “I wanna kill things” way but in forming relationships with others and my interests in computers and what they are capable of. My point being that this book helped me re-live those experiences and learn quite a bit at how those games came to be. You really have a sense of being there with the creators and their experiences that matched closely with mine.If I have to pick one thing I didn’t like is that it seemed to wrap up very quickly after a very detailed story. Of course all the relationships fell apart over time but I didn’t get a great sense of closure. But then again, maybe that’s the point.

Doom was one of the first games to leave a true impression on me as a young teen. Those guttural roars and snarls coming from the row of PC's at a computer game show in Birmingham, wow. This must have been around twenty years ago now, it was mesmerizing. That was the first time I ever saw the game. Doom.In reminiscing like this, it's only fair to emphasize, that this book is written primarily for those with either an interest in gaming history or Doom itself. The stories of hardship and turbulence both these guys faced, towards carving their own stamp in gaming history, I'm sure would make an interesting read for many. But again this is more for those with an ongoing interest in gaming in general I think.The book flows really well when reading. The writing is tidy. I found that the last quarter of the book especially becomes hard to put down as tensions mount and egos bristle. As a hardcore gamer and a budding game historian, I can't recommend this book enough.

I was delighted when someone pointed out the book Masters of Doom. It's not a new title, dating back to 2003, but it covers a period that anyone of a certain age with an interest in computer games will regard with interest.Describing the rise and fall of the two creators of id software, John Carmack and John Romero, it is a classic silicon valley business/bio - with some particularly extreme characters. I knew nothing of these people at the time, but reading the book brought on waves of nostalgia as they were responsible for three of the key milestones in gaming history. I was still programming PCs when Wolfenstein 3D came out and I remember being amazed by the effects and responsiveness they coaxed out of the early PC's terrible graphics. By the time Doom and Quake came along, I was reviewing games for a living. Though my personal tastes ran more to the X-Wing series and Seventh Guest, I was stunned by the capabilities of the id games. They were the only first person shooters I ever found interesting - and each moved on the field immensely. All the first person shooters that are popular today from Call of Duty and Halo to Destiny owe them so much.So from a techie viewpoint, this was fascinating, though the author does tend to rather brush over the technical side to keep the story flowing. And from the personal side, there were plenty of fireworks too. While the book slightly overplays the traditional US business biography style of presenting disasters and triumphs to regularly fit chapter boundaries, there is no doubt there was a real roller-coaster of an existence in a way that all those reality TV stars who overuse that term wouldn't possibly understand.Although there are plenty of other characters, the two Johns are at the book's heart - Carmack the technology wizard behind the engines that powered these worlds, and Romero the designer and flamboyant gamer. The pair inevitably clash on direction and when they split it's interesting that it's the John who doesn't go for the classic US software developer heaven of turning the offices into a playground who succeeds.All in all, truly wonderful for anyone who was into games in that period (and should be of interest to those who have followed them since). It's a shame it stops in 2003, as things have moved on a lot since its 'how the main characters are now' epilogue - but a quick visit to Wikipedia can bring you up to speed.

If you, like me, were a serious player in the 90s and, still like me, you spent endless nights playing Doom, Quake and other related titles such as Hexen, Heretic, Rise of the Triad, etc. you *must* read this book and discover the story behind the the groundbreaking company that created them. The book is a long, deep and fun dive into the story of id software following the parallel stories of John Carmack and John Romero starting far before the id software founding to the time the two guys went different roads. That's a beautiful book and you should read it and go back playing those games yourself to feel the experience again. You will feel very nostalgic but that's a good thing. You loved those games.

I don’t usually read biographies. I find them to be a bit dull and intrusive. But I broke my own rule this time and read “Masters of Doom” by David Kushner. The reason? Well, I am a gamer by heart and loved the computer game “Doom”. It was a game of my youth, a first person shooter full of demons and violence. A match made in heaven…or hell if you like.This book is the account of how Doom came into existence, created by a group of pioneering computer programmers in the 90’s. The book’s main protagonists are the “two Johns”; John Romero and John Carmack. Romero is the crazy, wild designer of the pair, mirrored by Carmacks calm, collected hardcore programmer. There are other ‘characters’ that appear in the book, such as Adrian Carmack, Tom Hall etc. But the two Johns are the focal points of the novel.The book starts with the childhoods of the Johns and describes how they finally meet and how, from humble beginnings, they jump from strength to strength and end up creating a multi million dollar business. Very much the American dream. From reading this book I can only define Carmack and Romero as Geniuses. Programming is hard. I’ve tried it. It’s full of hard maths, syntax problems and logic arguments. Its like trying to measure the moon, with your eyes closed. With your hands tied behind your back. And yet the Johns (and many other bit players of the industry who make an appearance in this book) seem to just “get it”. The book doesn’t show the hard graft that I’m sure went into learning the programming languages, but by the age of 14 they were already coding. You have to be extremely intelligent to be able to pick it up that easy and with this intelligence and hard work they made themselves millionaires.The two Johns’ careers started with creating small simple games in high school on early Apple computers. They then got small jobs with developers such as Origin and Softdisk. Ultimately, with their eagerness and entrepreneurial spirit, they finally branched out on their own. Their beginnings were questionably legal, with them borrowing work equipment and moonlighting. However the whole era just oozed rebellion and breaking loose the shackles of big business so this ambiguity of law just increases the spirit of self actualisation. Where young, passionate, hardworking and not forgetting extremely clever individuals made their fortune in their own way. This book makes it look so easy to make millions from computers. If only it was that easy.Games created by the team include Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake 1, 2 and 3, all synonymous with the video game revolution of the 90’s and both the birth of first person shoot ‘em ups and the prevalence of PC gaming. Its touched on briefly in the novel that the Johns were not the only people capitalising on the rise of the video games industry, but the majority of the book does read like they were.In the end the duo run into the humanity side of all business’. Arguing, jealousy and contempt all led to their eventual split. Following the split, they each run their own companies in their own different styles. With successes and failures, the book tapers out and brings us up to the books publication date.The positives of the book are many if you are fan of the games and the gaming industry. The book goes into some what detail of the creation of the games and gives insights into how the minds of the creators processed. Even if your not a gamer, the book is still a good tale of the underdogs making it big. The tension during the crunch days, when deadlines were looming, is brought to life by Kushner and each characters personality is shown to the reader. For a book written some 10 years after the majority of the facts, it goes into quite intricate details. This is proof of the amount of research carried out by the author. The epilogue at the back tells us he interviewed all parties in depth, as well as spent months sifting through mountains of old computer magazines to gather dates and locations.Theres not much to be negative about the book, its hard to criticise real life. Some of the dialogue felt pushed, but then it would have been transcribed from interviews which would have been dragged out of half-forgotten memories. In my opinion, there wasn’t enough detail on the actual design of the main games, Doom and Quake. It seemed like the design and code was glanced over for tension and drama. More prose than fact but drama sells and too much code detail in the book would have slowed it down and turned it into more of a text book.In all a good book however its audience is automatically narrowed by its genre and topic. Not everyone will find it interesting however I found it enjoyable, intense and fascinating. I could almost see myself writing the next best selling video game and making my millions! Or maybe not…

Wasn't sure what to expect from this as I don't read many books (digital generation) but the nerdy gamer in me ended up very satisfied and wanting more. The book is easy to read and gives lots of background information on the development and aftermath of some of the greatest games of all time. It explores the working relationships of the developers (who are now legend) and gives flashbacks to how weird/awesome the 90s were. I remember playing Final Doom on PS1 at about 8 year old, I had no idea Doom was this huge revolutionary game at the time. Reading this puts it all in perspective, it's bizarre! Amazing book, must read for any hardcore gamers.