The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Doom Guy: Life in First Person by John Romero

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

Doom Guy: Life in First Person by John Romero https://amzn.to/44PgnUL The inspiring, long-awaited autobiography of video game designer and DOOM cocreator John Romero John Romero, gaming’s original rock star, is the cocreator of DOOM, Quake, and Wolfenstein 3-D, some of the biggest video games of all time. Considered the godfather of the first- person shooter, a genre that continues to dominate the market today, he holds a unique place in gaming history. In DOOM Guy: Life in First Person, Romero chronicles, for the first time, his difficult childhood and storied career, beginning with his early days submitting Apple II game code to computer magazines and sneaking computers out the back door of his day job to write code at night. Industry-redefining breakthroughs in design and tech during Romero’s time at id Software made DOOM and Quake cultural phenomena, and this thrilling story recounts every step of the process, from collaborative, heavy metal–fueled days spent crafting the industry’s most revolutionary and cutting-edge games to a high-profile falling-out with id cofounder John Carmack. After years in the gaming spotlight, Romero is now telling his story—the whole story—shedding new light on the development of his games and his business partnerships, from the highest highs to the lowest lows, sharing insights about design, code, the industry, and his career right up to today. Sharing gratitude for a lifetime in games, Romero reveals the twists and turns that led him, ultimately, to be called DOOM Guy. ABOUT JOHN ROMERO Computer and video game legend John Romero has designed and published more than 130 games since his first sale at the age of 16. A teenage programming prodigy, his major achievements include co-inventing a series of revolutionary computer games—DOOM, Quake, Wolfenstein 3-D, and Commander Keen—that launched the industry’s most popular genre, the first-person shooter.

Hi, folks. Chris Voss here with a little station break. I hope you're enjoying the show so far. We'll resume here in a second. I'd like to invite you to come to my coaching, speaking, and training courses website. You can also see our new podcast over there at chrisvossleadershipinstitute.com. Over there, you can find all the different stuff that we do for speaking engagements if you'd like to hire me, training courses that we offer, and coaching

for leadership, management, entrepreneur, podcasting, corporate stuff, with over 35 years of experience in business and running companies as CEO. Be sure to check out Chris Voss Leadership Institute.com. Now back to the show. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. We certainly appreciate you guys being here. Thanks one and all. Thanks one and all.

We've got an amazing guest on the show today and close to my own heart for what I was doing in the 90s. And we'll be talking about his amazing new book, The Story of His Life, et cetera, et cetera, and all that good stuff. But in the meantime, as always, refer the show to your family, friends, and relatives, goodreads.com, for just Chris Foss, youtube.com, for just Chris youtube.com for just christmas linkedin.com for just christmas we're trying to be

cool on tiktok but it's not working i just realized as i was sitting here behind the screen listening to the intro of the chris voss show that it wouldn't even funnier if somehow we come up with some sort of merging of the original doom game soundtrack and the Chris Voss show announcer putting off his usual tribe. But no, it's too late for that. We have John Romero on the show with us today. He is the author of his newest book that's out July 18th, 2023, Doom Guy, Life in First Person. He joins us on the show, and you may have heard of him and if you haven't most likely especially if you're as old as i am you've been playing some of his games and some of

his games that were influenced by him as well uh john is the computer and video game legend who's designed and published more than 130 games since his first sale at age 16. A teenage programming prodigy, his major accomplishments or achievements included co-inventing a series of revolutionary computer games, Doom, The Doom, Doom. I mean, it's not called The Doom, but it's Doom. It's The Doom, but really, technically, I guess it's, I mean, there's only one, right? Well, there's actually a few iterations, I think, after that, but it's it's doom it's the doom but really technically i guess it's i mean there's only one right uh well there's actually a few iterations i think after that but there's doom

and i just boom so there should somebody should be like a whole thing that just drops like boom doom uh quake wolfenstein 3d and commander keen that launched the industry's most popular genre the first person shooter welcome to the show, John. How are you? Doing great. Thanks for having me on the show. Really appreciate it. Thanks for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Give us any dot-coms or wherever you want people to find out more about you on the interwebs. Romero.com is a great place, and our company is romerogames.com there you go so in john in the 90s i spent way too much time playing doom i was addicted i was so addicted i would play it for

six eight hours maybe 12 hours a day and i would be pumping so much uh uh fight or flight chemicals into my stomach that i would get sick and nauseous. And I would have to stop playing for a while, which I really hated. But I am one of your addicted children, whatever you want to call it, to the game. And since then, first-person shooters, you've had me addicted to everything there is that's followed since. But right now, it's Call of Duty Modern Warfare. welcome the show and it's a it's an honor to have you on yeah thanks for having me on i'm excited to talk about the book yeah damn you damn you you know how many hours i wasted on that game i didn't waste any hours in that game a time there

are no wasted hours yeah what is that old thing about fishing? A man's time spending something he loves is not wasted. So tell us, why did you decide to write this book, I guess? It was interesting. The beginning, like the idea was, came from a conference that I went to. A conference wanted, like I do a lot of speaking at conferences. This one conference told me that they've already, they've heard me talk about my games already. And what they wanted was my life. Like, what did I do before the games?

Like, where did I come from? Like, where did I learn how to do this? And so I did. I wrote this talk. And people were really surprised at the talk because I talked about my life before getting into games, which was in a really poor area of Tucson, Arizona. And my family was involved in drugs and alcohol and some deaths. And it was just like people went, whoa.

And they said, this really should be in a book. Like, you should write this down. And when I thought about it, eventually it sounded like a good idea because i'm a game historian and i believe that game history is important to get the the times the dates who the credits all that stuff um down you know in some in some kind of format where people could use it for research and i'm a i'm a game historian so i've really researched a lot of like a lot of game history and i thought you know this this could be like a story of my life and my games, but also a game history book for people that want to know,

when did you start working on Doom exactly? And when did you finish working on the editor? And when did you ship the game? All these details. And so I can put all of that stuff in this book for every game i've made and uh yeah it turned out like that was that was good it was a good idea yeah i remember my biggest nemesis was getting into the third room on doom because that dude would be on the ledge and he just throws shit at you and i had the hardest time clearing that room

and making that thing but i you know i don't know what I can say about that. So you go through and tell the story of your history and what got you into Doom and kind of some of the influences. Give us kind of a 30-foot overview of some of the things or teasers people might find in there. Well, the early stages of my life, which started in Tucson, Arizona, and eventually moved to Rockland, California. And that's when I found computers, basically. I was already very much into arcade games, playing arcade games as much as I could. And then I found the computer at the local college lab in my town when I was 11. So I went into the lab when I was 11 and taught myself how to code on the computer there

and then went to every store in town and learned how to code. And then I started making games and I made lots and lots of games, at least 60 games before I started in software in 1990. And that was when we became a team and we started making really fun games. We created the first-person shooter genre

with Wolfenstein and Doom really refined it. Then Quake took it to the next level. Full 3D internet gameplay, mouse look, like using a mouse to look all around your environment. that was quake um so yeah and then after i left uh after id when i left or sorry after quake when i left id

started a company called ion storm which eventually produced asx which ended up being a pretty pretty great game and uh and then and then i went from one new idea to the next one with mobile phone development and all kinds of stuff. But, yeah, the really high-level story is that when I was a kid, I just wanted to do nothing but make games all day, and I was really lucky enough to just do that. Wow. I tried doing that with the Commodore 64 when we were kids. We used to get, like, a magazine. It was a little PC magazine. It would have, like, coding pages in there.

Compute. Yeah, it was probably compute. So we'd sit there, me and my brother and I, and we'd type in like 8, 16 pages of code to make, I don't know, Pong. Yeah. If you had like one digit off, man, that thing was not going to break. Forget it. I wrote a bunch of games like that.

Did you? Yeah, think yeah published in magazines sometimes they uh i think they left something out like later in us you know like yeah we forgot the q part and we're like that's why that damn thing didn't work so what was your first computer the first computer i got was an apple 2 plus computer in uh 1982 was when we got that. I'd been programming for about three years in any store that had a computer. RadioShack had TRS-80s and other places had Atari 800s. And there was one store that had Apple IIs. And I would just go to all of these stores just practicing basic until we finally got one in 82 at the house and then i was done going

outside you were a man on a mission now i think i see an apple behind you don't i or what do i see behind you yeah that's an apple t plus so is that your original first one that's not my original the original one is in a museum in new york it's called strong museum of play um but uh that is a basically like a it's the same model it's the um it is the apple 2 plus model versus the 2e and 2c and the other ones but that's the one i started on the same model did you did you have the parents that were like hey son you need to go to school you need to get a job you go to college i don't think this gaming thing's gonna work out for you you know it's like uh when uh led zeppelin's parents said to him you know this guitar thing man i don't think

it's really gonna go anywhere make any money did you have those kind of parents or what was that about they definitely did not want me going into any kind of game stuff they they knew that i that i could code and they're hoping to steer me into like business programming but i love games too much and and uh you know like i i would go to the arcade all the time and they told me not to go and i still went and got my face smashed into an arcade machine when they found me there really yeah wow i was gonna ask i was gonna ask you about doom like uh who hurt you but now i know uh yeah exactly yeah the uh all the blood and gore in the game yeah i i grew up like you did i think i was probably 12 i'm assuming i grew up like you did let's think I was probably 12. I'm assuming I grew up like you did.

Let's put it that way. I think I was about 12 when video games came out, and they were arcades. You could go there and, you know. And I lived in Utah, and all the Mormon religious elders were like, video games are Satan! And then you create Doom and prove them right, I suppose, technically. What year were you in Utah? I was about 12 or 11 i was in uh american park utah which is about uh 30 miles south of salt lake city it's like moving i lived in salt lake did you i'm sorry it's like an even lower

part of hell do you remember provo uh yeah yeah i went to i went to see dio and yngwie malmsteen in probo there you go i went to dio's that's right yeah yeah in pro he came to probo god damn man yeah we're old my friend 85 86 yep yeah and uh so uh you asked me a question i think i answered it um did i i don't remember uh yeah i think so my life is flashing before my eyes you're naming all these references that i'm like but uh yeah so so i remember going to those so you you your uh parents weren't quite happy with you when you went into the arcade there yeah yeah that was it was at some point i was banned from the arcade was it just because you were spending too much time or was a you know like for me it was the religious elders didn't like it

oh yeah no they just didn't understand games they didn't know that like that play was my practice for what i was going to do they didn't they didn't they just saw it as a time waster and a money waster to me it was like the world you know it was my my new world uh but it sounds like you had a vision it sounds like you had a vision early on for what you wanted to do you weren't just like playing games yeah i was making them it was it's interesting because if you saw me at my computer at home half the time i was playing games i was playing them to just like see the techniques, to have fun, but really to see the graphic techniques of getting pixels on the screen,

to see what kind of game design ideas these games had, and try to come up with my own. And then I would be coding half the time. You know, I'm sitting there listening to Black Sabbath or Judas Priest or whatever, and I'm sitting there coding, you know an assembly language uh all day long trying to make games there you go now the one thing about doom is there there is a lot of satanic uh influences there i know that because i i once studied satanism after leaving the mormon church and and uh illustrious crowley and different things and i'm probably going to hell but i mean

at least that's where all the Dio and cool bands will be. So Black Sabbath, you mentioned and stuff like that. Did that inspire some of the imagery used in the game? Yeah, I mean, I listened to tons of metal. You know, it was all 80s metal, you know. Ozzy, everything that you heard in the 80s, I listened to all of it. And it was great. You know, I mean, it was in the game, like playing Doom.

Doom is about you shooting demons. So what's bad about that? Like, I don't see anything bad. And if there's satanic imagery, well, what do you expect to find in hell? That's true. You know, like, it all makes sense, right? Yeah. Fire colors. Shooting demons.

There's, like, pumping guts and lots of blood, lots of blood. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It was great. So you'd made Wolfenstein. Now, was Wolfenstein a really big hit, or did Doom just really eclipse that? Wolfenstein was massive when it came out and it was based on a beloved game that was 10 years older like until i say 11 years prior a

game called castle wolfenstein came out in 81 and it was a massive hit on 8-bit computers at the time and we all it's not for there's only four of us we played the hell out of that game 10 years prior right so when we were sitting there um making uh making you know our games were making wolfenstein it was like let's make a 3d version of that game and everybody knew holy crap that's amazing and so we did wolfenstein and that game made tons of money like we made it made so much money and like we're we're like poor kids right two two of us were from poverty two of us were from like normal backgrounds and and checks are just coming in wolfenstein made 250k the first month it was oh wow massive so we're just like all right we're doing the right thing

here keep it going you know we bought stuff for the for our families we bought cars for people like we're pretty generous with our with our money there you go so i mean were you guys programming to you know make a hit or we just kind of like we're just kind of doing whatever the fuck we want and we enjoy yeah that's exactly what it was we're trying to make the best games and after wolfenstein it was like we we we wanted to make a new 3d game like after our side scrolling uh arcade you know mario style games called commander keen and so when i pivoted, I said we need to start making 3D games like Catacomb 3D, which was a game we had just made.

But let's use guns, and let's make Wolfenstein in 3D. And so we all immediately went, oh my god, that's the right idea. And we all pivoted immediately and defined this new kind of game that we now call a shooter, an FPS. And, you know, it was

it was just to make a really great game. And after Wolfenstein, we made Spear Destiny, which was a prequel to it. Then we were gearing up for our next game, which was going to be Doom. And we, at the very, very beginning, we said,

this needs to be the best game that we can imagine playing like what features would go in this game that would make it the best thing that earth has ever seen and so we made a list and one of those things on the list was multiplayer because no one had played like any high-speed multiplayer game there was there wasn't any so doom was deathmatch it was the invention of the word deathmatch it was the invention of the gameplay of deathmatch. Speed running started with Doom. Modding games starting with Doom.

Oh, yeah. We were licensing the engines to other companies so they could make games using our technology. It was shareware, free. First episode, free. The others you can buy if you like them. It was just one thing after another that we just threw all of that you like them. It was just one thing after another that we just threw all of that in that game.

It was crazy. Did you guys have to get funding through anywhere through the process or did it start out with just seed money and sweat equity and on from there? It was all sweat equity. We had no loans for anything in our whole history. Every time we made a game, if it

did well, we would be secure for a while and just make game after game after game until the games just get bigger and bigger and the money comes in and it's bigger and we just keep on putting in the bank and the company account, buy better computers, get into a nicer office, keep on coding, keep on making games.

That's what we did. Wow. I mean, that's the ultimate entrepreneur story because entrepreneurs, that's what they do. Usually mean that's that's the ultimate entrepreneur story because entrepreneurs that's what they do usually they they find something or a problem that that they can't fix or resolve or they like doing they're like hey i can make a better i don't know cinnamon bun right you know or uh uh you know staple or paperclip and they go yeah i can do this better this is a piece of shit i'll make this better and they do it and then they're like hey people really like this bullshit i'm doing and uh

yeah cool let them do it too and uh that's that's the real proponent of it and the love of uh what you do is like so important and being passionate about it you ever get burned out on playing video games not really i love. I love games. The thing is, there are so many better games nowadays. You can just live in these games. What's your favorite game to play right now? I think that would be interesting to people.

Jeez. There's a bunch of different kinds of games. If I just want to take time making... If I don't want to hurry and speed up through stuff i'll play like wordle or i'll play drop seven which are just turn-based games um really simple um but like i play shooters i love playing shooters and uh i play ghost recon breakpoint it's a it's a it's a game i've liked for years now. The whole Ghost Recon series has been

really great. Minecraft was huge. We still have Family Minecraft Realms running. Oh, really? The kids are older now, but we all jump in to play a game. The new Zelda is going to be amazing. I can't wait to play it. I love Breath of

Wild. But yeah, tons of games. every kind of game i don't just stick with just shooters you know i've been playing stack lands which is a pretty cool card based dnd kind of game um yeah there's just there's an unlimited amount of games out there it's just pretty nuts yeah what's it like to sit there and play a first-person shooter and be like i invented this shit i know isn't it funny i didn't think about it i just i just think about like what they're doing with the form and how they're changing it like i really love uh phantom pain you know metal gear solid five it's really really great game um but yeah i just like what people are

doing with it overwatch 2, you name it. I play it and check it out and see what's different about it. And there's so many splinter genres now. There's like Rainbow Six, you know, with the tactical shooters. There's hero shooters, Leo, like Overwatch 2, Valorant, that kind of stuff.

Yeah, it's just, it's amazing all the different stuff they can do. And then there's the shooter where you build a fucking house to protect yourself from people shooting at you, which I played that game and I was like, what the fuck is going on? And I was like,

no, it's popular with the kids, so what do I know? You played Rust? I haven't played Rust. I've seen them i've seen the videos there's like a lot of tiktok videos on it and it's kind of interesting i don't know if destiny uh was the one who pioneered this but i i think they're one of the first to allow people to share their music and social media and video clips i think online or or encourage it or something cool and i believe it and i believe it led to the the

popularity of the game and the blow-up of the game because i remember back i think back in the day they would uh you know they would shut them down on youtube if you posted a video gameplay because it had the music on it and stuff i don't know right i don't know if that's a true or not so um there's some different things that people are going to find out in this book. You created the term deathmatch. You posed as a soldier on the famous cover of Doom. So there you go. Everyone's pretty much seen you and knows you now.

And then there's an interesting tidbit here. You became an accidental professional gamer in your own game, and you've lost one time in a one-on-one in 12 years is that true which game is it yeah it's doom and uh and a lot of times i speak at conferences and when i go to these conferences many times they want to do a doom death match where anyone from the anyone from the conference will challenge me and sit on the other computer and I will deathmatch them. And sometimes,

depending on where we're at, they'll just have heavy metal playing while we're just going crazy deathmatching. It's just super fun for the whole crowd to just watch this crazy violence, metals blasting, people are losing and someone else jumps in there for hours you know

it's really crazy this has got to be the ultimate challenge i've never thought of that i need to play the master yeah i started you know the funny thing i did that at gdc in 2013 for the first time where i had a row of laptops and i was on the last laptop and any game developer this is a game development conference any game developer can come up to a laptop and enter the deathmatch and whoever won out of those I think it was four laptops whoever won would then play me hip one to one on one right after that

I'm just standing there too but it was really fun and then eventually it gets on the stage and there's huge speakers and sound systems and giant video screens and all that so that's what happens with doom it wasn't intentional it just happened because it got to be a thing that people would request you know there's a lot of shit talking in you know i play a lot of modern warfare uh to uh what you might call it there's a lot of shit talking when you kill people and you you know you lose battles and stuff like that yeah and you know

they'll call you you noob or there's probably a lot of words we can't say on air. They'll call you a scrub is a good one. That seems to piss people off. You ever be playing Doom or anything, one of your games with people

and they don't know who you are because you're just over comms and they start shit talking you like you're just some scrub player. You're just like, I made this fucking game. It usually happens in person. If I'm deathmatching people, it's usually in the same room. Wow.

They know it. Back in the day, I would scream. I still do. I play Quake Deathmatch with people at the office. I say so much stuff that it gets written on a chair we call the swear chair oh so all the stupid stuff that i say gets written down on this chair it's covered in horrible things but i remember like i was playing and i was just screaming and my son was at the office and uh and he was he was playing and he had his headset on

and people could hear me screaming and and they basically wanted to like have an intervention just like dude are you okay like you know it sounds like at home you got some like problems going on like you have like a you know a problem with your home life and he's like oh no no that's my that's my stepdad he's just at death matching he's screaming at somebody he made fucking doom uh yeah the uh and and maybe you invented that genre of shit talking i don't know uh i mean that's there's a lot of shit talking that goes on and in the thing i mean people just rage man man. They just rage. Oh, yeah. They do that in hockey. Sports. That's true.

I guess sports. Trash talking in sports for decades or a hundred years. I guess Muhammad Ali used to shit talk, too. So, I mean, yeah. That's right. It's kind of a man thing. It's endemic to sports. There you go. No. and uh one thing that's interesting about people is uh you're known for your long hair

uh but it's connected to your heritage tell us a little bit about that yeah on both sides of my family on on my father's side i'm yaki from the yaki tribe in in arizona and before that the aztecs and on my mother's side my um great-grandmother was full cherokee and so i have i have this uh from both sides and i grew up mexican in arizona uh in the barrio and you know everyone was speaking spanglish and there was mexican food all day and um and and right newton near us like five minute not even a five minute drive is the Yaki reservation. And, you know, we would go there all the time. And you're one of the most influential, influential, influential.

Nice word. I was mixing indigenous and influential evidently. It's been one of those days. Influential, indigenous and Latino technologists and game developers. So that's a nice honor to have. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't plan it. It just ended up, you know, it's amazing.

I'm very proud of my indigenous heritage. And, you know, now more than ever, people are paying attention to it. And they, you know, when i was a kid i wish i had seen somebody like me to in the in the game industry or whatever to look up to so um you know it's good i've heard stories of kids who who really found courage because they saw that i had gone there before them into game development and it kind of gave them the courage to jump into it and and see what it was like that leads me to my next question i had for you you probably inspired tens of thousands maybe i don't know millions of game developers i mean there's there's so many game developers it takes to code a game now especially a big one you know uh it i mean

would it take destiny 10 years to be made or something like that i know the i know there's just crazy amount of of you know stuff that's on call of duty and and uh so you probably inspire a lot of people man to get into the business and all that good stuff yeah i mean it's really kind of you to say that and it's um and it is i mean i was inspired by my programming heroes just to see what they did and just like that's possible i should be able to do that if someone else can do it why can't i you know that was always my that was always my thought process around it and and you know i think this book is really great about showing people that they can do it.

They can do what they want to do. If I can do it, anyone can. You know what I mean? It's not difficult, but you just need the time and the focus to do it. But anyone can. And I think the book is good about really relating to people what I went through to get to where I'm at, to make the games I wanted to make. And so there was that.

There's also just the idea that we've always, as a company, when we were making these games, making Doom and Wolfenstein, we were very into giving people information that they needed. If they need technical information about programming anything, we gave them that information. And eventually, we put our source code out on the internet for everyone to see

how we wrote Doom. Like, here's our Doom source code. Go through it and learn. We opened our games up so people could modify them and have fun creating in our game to make it look like something completely different. Whatever they could dream up, they can use our game as a basis to do that so they didn't need to learn

how to program you know how to how to create technology they just could have the ideas and easily make those things happen through level design and creating new sound effects and stuff like that that was a lot easier than programming so modding wasding was a big part of what we did to help people create and basically get into the game industry. I think I did modding on the game and stuff like that eventually. There was like different mods you could download off of boards

or something like that. What was it like to see Doom get kind of reinvented like on mobile? I remember some guy ported it to mobile or something happened. kind of reinvented like on mobile i remember some guy poured it to marble or some something happened and and i guess the the basic you know doom game was small enough to you know make it on the mobile devices and uh what was it like to see kind of the re the resurgence in the and the you know it's kind of like one of those bands like black sabbath or something where you know

you have the old music and then the new generation finds it and goes fuck yeah and then it's yeah yeah i mean you know luckily we did make the game moddable because it never went away because of the mods like yeah that community is so strong it's been 30 years which is really incredible um but yeah the doom community is basically the best community out there it it it's just incredible and the resurgence of the new dooms you know starting with the 2016 reinvention of doom for modern audiences on consoles and pcs was huge and then doom eternal coming out after that a few years after that was really huge, right? Massive. And doom is so small nowadays with, with computing power and the source that we put out there, that doom runs on a pregnancy stick.

Holy crap. And you can see your pregnancy, you know, you know, uh, inside your PC, there's a, there's a cooler on top of your chip to keep it cool.

Yeah. Those coolers now come with screens and now Doom runs on a cooler chip screen. And it's still popular than ever. I mean you can order it on you can order all the different versions on Steam. I remember when Doom 2 came out. I was really excited about that. That was awesome.

And yeah. Dude I played the shit out of that game. I was obsessed with it. And I probably should have been working on my companies but it was such a great relief um but i there was some some i played it for a couple years and then one day i just started getting sick from the fight or flight chemicals pumping being yeah and i would have to stop for a while and i'm like holy shit what is it what do i have to do and then then I started drinking. That fixed it.

Yeah. So one thing we want to talk about is recently you did something for Ukraine, the Ukraine. Tell us about this project that helps the Ukraine relief funds. Yeah. So I made a new episode of Doom in 2018 and shipped it in 2019. So it's episode five. After 25 years, I finally made another set of Doom levels, and people really liked it.

It was called Sigil. And then people were expecting me to make the next version of Doom, which would say Doom 2, a new Doom 2 release. So as I started working on that, the first, you know, one of the levels that I made for the Doom 2 release, I, you know, when the attack happened, when Russia

attacked, and they, you know, Ukraine really needed people's, needed relief. And I had actually spoken in Kiev before, and just love love the ukrainian people um met lots of great people there and i wanted to just do something to help them out um we decided to take that level out of sigil 2 and to release it and to release this level out there to raise money for ukraine uh red cross relief and uh and so yeah

we raised over 40k uh with the level that we just put out there for that that is awesome i mean it's just such a great thing that's the other wonderful thing about being an entrepreneur you can work on what your passion about build what you love and if you build something great you know other people will love it and then uh And then you can give back. So that's one of the beautiful things about success in that format. And it's funny, too. I mean, you're probably held responsible for gaming competition, e-gaming. I remember my parents used to tell us, and of course other kids, they'd be like, hey, yeah, this gaming's never,

you're never going to be able to job and get paid doing this crap so uh quit doing all this gaming and then like e-gaming came up parents like oh shit and yeah esports yeah you know it's funny uh our games were the first games used in esports um actually beginning with doom when doom came out while we're making doom 2 there were deathmatch tournaments taking place with prizes and everything and you know and and so there were several several conventions start around doom 2 and then when quake came out that transformed everything because now it's over the internet it's full 3d the game is more intense and that really like esports is all about really intense gameplay and quake delivered that so esports really took off with quake and then with the success of our game and our licensing strategy

of our engine that's where we get uh counter-strike right because Counter-Strike was a mod of Half-Life. Half-Life was made from the Quake tech. So Counter-Strike comes out, that becomes a major esports title for a long time before League of Legends ever came around. So Counter-Strike was like the de facto esports title before

League of Legends came out. And it was huge, and that's what really propelled esports beyond our, our first games that started esports. But because Quake was so moddable, you could do a ton of stuff that esports tournaments require, like those new camera positions, being able to follow players and all those cool things that you see in,

in football on TV, you could do that with quake and that's what really started making esports more like like real sports you know yeah it's do you get into vr at all i think we talked about a little in the green room what's your thoughts on vr does it excite you or motivate you at all in vr see the way i look at vr is it's a console like an xbox like a ps5 it's just a different way Xbox, like a PS5. It's just a different way of playing games that are different than the usual. So when a game has been

designed specifically for VR, it is excellent in VR, and it's really effective. You know, like if you've played Resident Evil 7 Biohazard, like that game is so scary when you're in it and you're walking slowly through

a derelict mansion in the dark it's it's terrifying in vr it's everything around you is that whole environment and it's like it's nuts so it is it's really intense and uh and so yeah vr can really deliver deliver a different environment than what you're used to on a flat screen. There you go. Yeah. It's another console. This is kind of interesting, too,

because Apple today is evidently launching, and I'm seeing the pictures go by here, so evidently they did do it because it's been rumored every year and every year it doesn't show up. But it looks like they did finally do it. Yeah, so it looks like they've launched some sort of thing. I can't really spend the time looking at it. But live, they're doing the WWDC 23.

For those of you watching 10 years from now, they're doing that live right now. And it looks like they have launched it. So what do you think? Do you think Apple can break through? I mean, VR has kind of struggled. There's Oculus and stuff like that. Do you think you're an Apple fan? You began on that.

Do you think Apple can make this the, you know, it does that with everything. It did that with podcasts. The podcast was almost dead. Suddenly they stepped in and I was like, why are people downloading the podcast? What's going on? We haven't put in a new episodes up for like a year or two what the fuck is going on and apple's like yeah i decided to do whatever we wanted um do you think they can uh punch through can they make uh can they make these things uh where everyone wants one now i'm i'm not sure i you know i hope so you know um Apple has been thinking about a solution to this.

They introduced ARKit years ago, and they knew that AR was actually going to be the clear winner in the mixed reality technology race. And so they released an ARKit, and this headset that they're releasing is also an AR-style kit. And it's going to be interesting to see. I can't wait to watch the videos because I haven't seen anything about their release. But what I know is that the front of the VR type, even though you can see through it, inside you can see your world with AR overlaid on it.

When you're looking at someone wearing it, there's a face projection on the outside, so there's a screen on the outside to show your eyes and everything. Oh, really? Wow. That's what I heard. I'm going to get one so that when I'm looking at people that I really hate or that are ugly, it'll change their face.

We call it beer goggles. I think that's fine. Maybe that will become popular. That's a good model, yeah. So if Apple does kick ass at this, how pissed off do you think Mark Zuckerberg will be? Well, you know, as a business leader, I think he'll pivot pretty quickly if it's successful.

Yeah, I think he'll be fine. Yeah, he should be able to keep affording at least two cars in a garage. But, you know, Apple's kind of really good at that where the Pioneer gets all the arrows. So they just kind of sat back and watched Mark and the oculus and and all the other stuff and and the metaverse uh which seems to be kind of a failure and uh they just kind of hopefully went oh maybe we can do something better and plus they have such a such a rabid fan base of people that love their products and then there's probably one more service you have to pay for every month now on top of the other 500 that they offer. Well, I think they recently introduced Oculus 3 as well, like the Meta 3.

So they have a new thing out. Apple now is putting their thing out. I still am not sure. Like internally at Apple, there was a lot of contention about whether they should even go in this direction or not. So it's not like Apple's fully 100% behind it. So it's kind of a look and see kind of situation with this. And I think it's still getting expensive.

I didn't see any prices yet, but I think it's supposed to be expensive from what I understand. And that might be the console. Yeah. I mean, you know, you have to, you have to look at it and be like,

which of the kids do we sell so that we can get this? Yeah. Sit in the ER all day. There you go. Well, we could top shop all day long, and thank you for ruining my life. You're welcome. I was supposed to write a book 10 years ago,

and it took me 10 years to write it, and part of it was because i got hooked on destiny and uh console games all right i think now on call of duty modern warfare i'm somewhere around uh let's see i'm pathetically at 1193.9 hours on honor warfare wow so i I have some issues. Well, I'm single. I don't have a wife and kids because I can only afford to play video games pretty much. But video games never divorce me and take half my shit. That's right.

Lastly, what do you hope people come away from in your book? What do you hope you accomplish? Really that people see it as a positive book you know that that uh they see that um people people can see that they can do it because it's like it's a blueprint for how to do this it's like here's all the steps no matter where anyone comes from they can follow those steps and uh and do the same thing you know if they want dream, they can achieve it. And they can see that really what it just takes is focus and determination.

And for people that really care about game history, I really put down everything that I can remember about those games. So maybe that'll help somebody in their path. But really, it's just a lot of gratitude for everything that I was able to experience during that time. And I think people

come through reading the book with like, wow, there's a lot of reflection on how I could have done things better and what I did wrong. But yeah, lots of gratitude. I wanted to make games all my life, and I got to do that. And it's just been great.

There you go. What a life, man. You do what you love, you build what you love, lots of gratitude. I wanted to make games all my life, and I got to do that, and it's just been great. There you go. What a life, man. You do what you love. You build what you love. You give back. I think it's inspiring. It's a great story for just any entrepreneur, too, as well. Has anyone ever done a genealogy pedigree, I think they call them,

where they show which games were inspired or came out of engines of other games in a giant pedigree thing. Someone should do that. There is one for the Quake engine. There's a pretty great one for Quake. There's so many games coming out of that. But yeah, there's...

I don't know if there's a full all of id Software's impact. You know, like the Doom games and then the Quake games. There is a Quake one, but not the other ones. But yeah, you never know. Maybe someone will do that. I remember sitting in an Atari when I was

like 10 or 11 years old. My parents couldn't afford it. They couldn't afford a Commodore. But my friends had an Atari because I guess their parents were ultra-rich or something. And that Pong thing was so great. We were just like fucking pong. And even now it's kind of fun.

So there you go. So I'm probably going to play some doom after this and buy some of the games off the thing. So you've inspired me and go back to my original. There was no game I played like that before. And of course, clearly I'm still playing those sorts of games, but thank you very much for coming

on the show. Really appreciate it, John. Yeah, well, thanks for having me on. I really appreciate the support, and yeah, it's really great. There you go. Give us your.coms wherever you want people to find you on the internets, please. Romero.com. That's where you

can get all kinds of cool merch. And RomeroGames games.com which is our game company there you go uh checking out folks wherever fine books are sold it comes out july 18th 2023 doom guy life in first person it's been wonderful to have him on uh and meet the guy who uh god was that the 90s how old was something? Yeah, it was 93 when Doom came out. I'm 55 now, so wow. But you know what? Whatever a man does, I can't get the quote right off the top of my head,

but whatever a man does that he enjoys in life is not taken away from the quality of his life. So there you go. It's kind of like fishing. I think it's a fishing quote. Anyway, guys, thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time.