Motherboard interview with John Romero!

[Mindf!3ldzX]

"The focus was on making the best technology in the world,
but not necessarily the best game design in the world like we had done before" -John Romero

Enjoy! Discussion happening here!

[Mindf!3ldzX]

Learned quite a bit! I won't spoil the video for anyone, hope you all enjoy

[Shambler234]

I saw the box for daikatana.

We've all played that game right?


Any who that was a really cool video, felt like I learned lots.

[Dilligaf]

I think those guys were to 3D fps gaming as Jobs, Woz, Gates and Allen were to computers in general. I can't believe he (JM) didn't make a cent off of Quake. That's just wrong. Cool video... thanks!

[ArrrCee]

Excellent video! If you read the Masters of Doom book, it really dives into a lot of this stuff in a chronological sense and talks a lot about everyone's relationships while Quake was being developed.

It sounds like ID was an incredibly toxic place when Quake was being built.

[Adam]

It's a sad thing that Quake tore the company apart.
Maybe it was for the best.
I guess we will ever know what could have happened if they had stayed together.

Nice find, mindzy.

[Mindf!3ldzX]

Glad everyone is enjoying, when the video came through my feed it was less than 1 hour old,probably a lot younger but I just knew I had to share it with the Quake1 loving masses.

[grave_digga]

Very nice interview, i enjoyed it a lot. I hope he will make another good game soon as he talked about in the other JR thread here.

[golden_boy]

Holy crap, he made no money out of Quake? And he made how much of that game? 60%? I read once that he even had to finish other people's levels up because everything was falling apart. So the guy who finished off the game and put it on the internet got no money from it? That's just madness.

Pinnacle of abstract level design, that might just be true. They used the 3D room-over-room ability to its fullest, Quake's levels are often really vertical with a lot of really unique stuff in them, and I know how hard it is to really build 3D spaces instead of just horizontal, doomlike. They absolutely killed it with the level design on Quake.


Interesting business model with just allowing companies to sell the shareware version and keep the money, that would have been a large part of getting the game literally everywhere. This makes me wonder even more why companies no longer do demos, you'd think a free demo would be a great way to get exposure, assuming the game is any good.

Perhaps the games not being any good is the reason why people don't do demos anymore.

[Mindf!3ldzX]

Holy crap, he made no money out of Quake?

That part was astonishing to me.

[Adam]

There has to be more to that.
I guess that he forfeited royalties because he maybe broke his contract (I don't know this)
but I would of thought that he at least got paid while he was working there.

[Mindf!3ldzX]

There has to be more to that.
I guess that he forfeited royalties because he maybe broke his contract (I don't know this)
but I would of thought that he at least got paid while he was working there.

That's a good point. I have never known someone ever to enter an agreement to do work with the knowledge that the work would have financial kickbacks/payment for services rendered, and then all of a sudden be okay with not getting paid.


It seems at face value, only it would occur in a twilight zone of sorts.

iunno, what I do know, is I'm just glad he didn't abandon ship immediately and he seen the game through to the end. I am extremely grateful Quake ended up the way it did, I can only imagine how unpolished the game would have been if he had not stuck it out for Quake's sake.

We are most definitely in the realm of speculations and assume has an adage attached to it for good reason I suppose.

I'm just ready to be an alpha/beta tester for whatever game he ends up making. I'd fight tooth and nail to have that honor haha. Hey, one can dream yeah!

[Syluxguy28O3]

what i really liked when he talked about doing things different with each game. on of the many things naysayers say about quake it the palette. but i suppose that they were intentionally going in that direction to darken the tone of the game, in contract to the (abiet slightly) lighter tone of DooM and wolf 3d.

[Dilligaf]

Interesting business model with just allowing companies to sell the shareware version and keep the money, that would have been a large part of getting the game literally everywhere. This makes me wonder even more why companies no longer do demos, you'd think a free demo would be a great way to get exposure, assuming the game is any good.

That move was genius IMHO I don't think they really realized what they had there. Doom/Quake were the predecessors to ALL the fps games that have come along sense...

[Moon[Drunk]]

Regarding Romero not getting any money out of Quake, I guess as someone else wrote he did not get any royalties from Quake but I guess he as co-founder of ID software should at least receive some money for his procentage of the company when he left, right?
He stated that he left (was forced to leave) the company after Quake was released but not if he sold his part at that time or later on when the Company's value improved due to Quake? Just a thought.....

Anyhow, nice find Mindz