The inspiring autobiography of video game designer and DOOM cocreator John Romero
Doom Guy: Life in First Person is the long-awaited autobiography of gaming’s original rock star and the cocreator of DOOM, Quake, and Wolfenstein—some of the most recognizable and important titles in video game history. Credited with the invention of the first-person shooter, a genre that continues to dominate the market today, he is gaming royalty.
Told in remarkable detail, a byproduct of his hyperthymesia, Romero recounts his storied career—from his early days submitting Apple II code to computer magazines and sneaking computers out of the back door of his day job to do programming projects at night in his garage to a high-profile falling out with his id Software cofounder John Carmack, as well as his continued role in the gaming industry today as the managing director of Romero Games Ltd.
His story is truly one of a self-made man, founding multiple companies after a childhood filled with violence and abuse drove him to video game design where he could create new worlds and places to escape to. An alcoholic father, a racist grandfather who did not approve of Romero’s parents’ mixed-race coupling, and a grandmother who once ran a brothel in Mexico combine for an illuminating story of his youth—a story that has never before been revealed.
After years in the gaming spotlight, Romero is now telling his story—the whole story—in his own words.
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“John Romero’s remarkable memory called up names and events that I hadn’t thought about in a very long time, taking me back to the stress and joy of throwing everything we had at projects that truly did break new ground and touched millions of people. It was an amaz - ing mad dash from humble beginnings to the well-known classics Wolfenstein 3-D, DOOM, and Quake, filled with exploration, learning, and the sharing of knowledge. For years, I thought that I had been born too late and missed out on participating in the heroic eras of computing. Only much later did I realize that Romero and I were at the nexus of a new era—the 3D game hackers.”
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John Carmack, cofounder of id Software and founder of Keen Technologies