WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: The id Software Story Part Two 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:12.039 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey therein 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:15.680 Welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:19.720 an executive producer with iHeartRadio, and how the tech are you. 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:23.040 It's time for another tech Stuff Classic episode. This is 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:26.759 actually the conclusion of a two parter. So if you 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:29.720 didn't listen to last week's classic, which was The ID 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:32.720 Software Story Part one, I recommend you go do that 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:36.000 first because this is The ID Software Story Part two 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:39.279 and you don't want to walk into a movie right 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:41.199 in the middle right, you want to see it from 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:45.559 the beginning. Anyway. This episode originally published way back on 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:50.239 April seventh, twenty seventeen. Hope you enjoy. So in our 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:53.640 last episode, I really talked about the people responsible for 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:57.320 forming ID Software and how they found early success with 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:01.480 titles like Commander Keene and Wolfenstein three. Today we'd pick 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:03.600 up where I left off with the development of the 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:09.360 blockbuster title Doom. Now, the company was still just a 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.920 small team of developers and they had a problem. There 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:15.760 weren't enough people to work on a follow up to 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:21.839 Wolfenstein and simultaneously work on the new Doom project. What's more, 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.360 the people at ID Software all wanted to work on Doom. 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:28.080 They wanted to work on something new rather than create 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:31.399 a sequel to an already existing game, but there was 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:34.200 a lot of pressure from apage to create a sequel. 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:38.280 Wolfenstein had been the most successful title to debut on 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:42.600 Apagee in its history, so they decided to do the 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:47.120 reasonable thing. They outsourced Wolfenstein too. They licensed out the 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:50.920 work to apage, which got started on the project, but 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:55.160 after some time in development, ID Software didn't really see 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:57.920 it progressing very well. They didn't think it was a 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:02.000 making it a progress, so they pulled the plug on 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:06.000 the project. Apagee ended up taking these lemons and making 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:09.919 Lemonade later on, converting the work they had already produced 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.960 into a brand new title called Rise of the Triad. 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:16.320 Talk a little bit more about that in a second. 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:20.720 They also hired a couple of folks in nineteen ninety three. 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:24.040 One of them ended up making a big name for 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:26.480 himself a little bit later on in the video game world. 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:30.400 That would be American McGee. He's perhaps most famous for 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:34.320 his Dark Alice in Wonderland inspired games, which he made 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.760 with EA. After his tenure with ID Software ended in 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:42.600 nineteen ninety eight, McGhee started at ID as a tech 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:45.840 support worker and eventually worked his way up to designer, 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:49.320 but there was a point where the company decided that 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:53.840 McGee's work and the company's direction were no longer a 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:58.200 good fit, and so he was let go. One thing 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:02.200 that did make Doom possible was the evolution of computer hardware. 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.400 The team had been bumping up against the upper limits 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:09.000 of the previous generation of PCs, but over time, the 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:14.000 really expensive Intel three eighty six microprocessor cost had started 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:16.600 to come down, and now it was finding its way 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:22.720 into consumer level PCs. More people were able to afford 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:25.520 a three eighty six PC, which was better equipped to 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:28.480 handle the demands of a BFY game engine, or at 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:31.760 least BF at the time. Now three eighty six had 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:34.080 been around for a while. It first launched in nineteen 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:38.960 eighty five. This Intel microprocessor, it took about a year 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:44.160 for manufacturing to ramp up to the levels that Intel wanted, 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:47.680 but even when they did reach those levels, they were 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:50.640 still really expensive, so very few people were actually able 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.280 to afford them. By today's standards, a three eighty six 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:57.680 microprocessor would probably seem pretty crude and clunky. It had 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:02.920 only two hundred and seventy five transistors on it a 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:08.560 little microprocessor. Now, I say only because today's microprocessors have 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.360 more than a billion transistors on them, so two hundred 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:15.560 and seventy five thousand is nothing compared to today's microprocessors. 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:19.120 The clock rate, as in how fast the three eighty 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:23.440 six microprocessor could work, was between twelve megahertz up to 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:26.440 forty megahurts if you're overclocking it on the extreme end. 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:30.360 And again, your basic smartphone today can outperform those specs. 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:33.520 But at the time it was a state of the 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:37.440 art machine and it was just what it needed to 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:41.360 take the next step in game development. John Karmack, at 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.480 the ripe old age of twenty one years old, began 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:48.720 to experiment with stuff that older game engines just couldn't handle. 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:54.120 That included creating irregular shapes in the environment, like irregular 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:57.600 walls or floors that sloped around. He also wanted dynamic 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:00.480 lighting and the option to move in or out doors. 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.800 These were all elements that would have been really challenging 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:08.080 back in the older Wolfenstein days that game engine just 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:11.400 couldn't handle this kind of level of complexity. And then 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:14.520 he also had another goal. He wanted gameplay to be 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:18.680 immersive and fast. Fast was really important. It had to 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.480 be a fast paced game and really get the player's 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:26.479 blood pumping, so he wanted these abilities, this ability to 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.760 make more complex environments, but not at the expense of 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:34.400 the speed of the game. As Carmak worked on the engine, 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:39.480 Romero started programming the levels and designed much of the 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:43.440 look and sound of the game. For inspiration, the team 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.159 looked at the art of hr Geiger, and that was 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:50.880 Geiger's work that inspired the Alien film franchise, so the 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:54.560 team used that art to guide decisions in level and 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:59.279 monster design. The walls in Doom sometimes have hideous faces 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:02.280 incorporated in to them, and many of the demons look 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:05.359 pretty monstrous as well. Romero points out that by today's 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:08.240 standards they might seem a bit cartoony, but at the 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:11.520 time it was considered a really etchy approach to game design. 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:14.880 Tom Hall, who had put up some resistance during the 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:19.480 development of Wolfenstein three D, campaigned for a rich story 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.719 for Doom. He had in mind an opening scene that 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:24.760 would set the rest of the game in motion, and 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:26.800 in that scene, the player would be taking on the 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.000 role of a soldier in the middle of a card 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:31.080 game with the rest of his squad, and in the 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.920 middle of the game a demon would burst in, killing 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:36.719 everyone but the player, and then the game would start, 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:40.320 and his ideas helped shape design decisions, but as he 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:43.320 tells it all later on, the focus was really more 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:46.320 on the technical side of making the game work and 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:50.080 less on the narrative or story side. He'd say it 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.640 would be a few years before you would see a 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:58.080 first person shooter incorporate deep story elements, and the game 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.760 he cites is really nailing it. Half Life, which was 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:04.599 a from a totally different company. It's from Valve, that 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.159 would be the first real example of that sort of thing. 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:11.119 But he wanted it to be Doom, and he started 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:13.160 to feel really discouraged that a lot of his ideas 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:16.440 were being rejected. He wanted rooms to have a purpose 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.400 in Doom, so that when you walked into a room 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.640 in the game, you understood why the room was there. 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:26.040 It had a reason for existing. It wasn't just one 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:28.800 in a series of rooms that make up a level, 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:34.200 or just a weird interchangeable environment with undefined spaces. In 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:37.720 his Doom, you wouldn't wonder why two rooms connected together, 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.680 or what purpose a weird path might serve, it would 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:43.320 have a reason and you would understand what it was. 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:47.679 To him, level design needed to make sense and serve 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.200 the story, but the development of the game didn't really 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:54.400 allow for his designs, and so the levels were less detailed, 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:58.440 less logical. Hall himself designed about seven levels, according to 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:01.920 his own estimation. He said Romero was responsible for some 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:04.760 of the more iconic levels in Doom, particularly the ones 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:09.440 that used multiple vertical planes. You know, multiple levels within 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:13.160 a game level. So I'm using level in two different 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:17.239 ways here, game levels meaning at a stage in a game, 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:20.840 and levels within the game or within that stage rather 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:26.280 meaning different vertical platforms. Hall's account of those days sound 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:28.239 like they were pretty rough. He said that the team 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:30.800 was working every day, seven days a week, for up 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:33.640 to sixteen hours a day, and he said he was 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:37.040 feeling increasingly isolated at that time. The rest of the 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:41.840 team sensed this as well, and eventually, in nineteen ninety three, 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:45.880 Romero invited Hall over for dinner and then told him 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:50.040 they were letting him go. He was essentially fired, but 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:54.720 they had also secured another job for him over at Apogee, 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:56.560 so he already had a place to go. It wasn't 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:59.600 like he was just cut loose, and in twenty fourteen 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.120 said that ultimately this came as a huge relief after 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:06.120 the Shock War off. He was the first of the 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:10.199 four main founders of ID to leave ID Software. He 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:12.480 would move on to Apagee and work on Rise of 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:16.160 the Triad, which I mentioned earlier. It was the game 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:20.360 that Wolfenstein Io would turn into. He'd work on other 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.440 games too, before moving on to co found another studio. 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:28.679 The other studio he co founded was one called ion Storm, 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:32.240 rather infamous in video game circles, and his fellow co 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:36.640 founder was John Romero. But we'll get to that part 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.080 of the story a little later, and ion Storm could 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:42.040 be its own episode all by itself. It was a 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:43.959 heck of a story. I remember when all of that 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:51.119 was unfolding. Meanwhile, in nineteen ninety three, Adrian Carmak relished 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:53.240 the subject matter of Doom. It was kind of like 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:57.400 the opposite of Tom Hall's reaction. He thought it was fantastic. 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:01.400 He took great delight in designing and drawing numerous demonic 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:05.079 critters and nightmarish environments. He was happy to move away 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:08.280 from the more family friendly art style that Tom Hall 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:13.160 held dear. He and Kevin Cloud, his assistant, designed tons 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:16.280 of monsters, and then they commissioned a sculptor to come 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.360 in and create three dimensional models of the monsters out 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:22.600 of clay. Then they would paint the models and scan 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:26.400 them in to create virtual models for the game itself. 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:30.360 And it gave Doom a really unique look. And I 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:35.120 realized that really unique is redundant. Someone who joined ID 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:39.959 Software during the development of Doom was Sandy Peterson. He 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:43.280 was a programmer who had worked for Micropros before joining 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:47.840 ID Software. Micropros was another huge name in the computer 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.880 gaming industry in the nineteen eighties. In particular, one of 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:53.920 its founders is a real legend in games, Sid Meyer. 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:58.760 Peterson would end up designing nineteen levels for Doom, even 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:01.920 though he joined the project after it had already started. 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:06.160 As the game neared completion, they had a big decision 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:09.439 they had to make. They felt they had outgrown Apagee's 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:13.600 business model, which involved that shareware approach to get gamers interested, 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:17.199 followed by sending a physical copy of the full game 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:21.000 once an order came in. Abajee only had a couple 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:25.840 of employees handling incoming calls, and the folks over at 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:29.440 it were getting frustrated because orders were coming in faster 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:33.520 than apagee could respond to them, and they asked Scott 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:37.439 Miller if he would invest in that department and grow it, 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:41.320 and he seemed reluctant to do that. So ID Software 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:44.880 decided they could do this for themselves and just do 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.560 what apage had been doing for them, using the Internet 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:51.200 for distribution and keeping overhead costs low so that they 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:54.320 don't have to worry about producing physical copies and all 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:56.560 that kind of stuff. So they moved out to strike 0:11:56.600 --> 0:12:00.200 out on their own. Now I got more to say 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:04.320 about this next phase in ID Software's evolution, but first 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:15.439 let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. During 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:20.760 alpha testing of the Doom game, ID Software sent unfinished 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:23.520 copies to a few playtesters to look for bugs and 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:27.480 get feedback on how the gameplay was coming together. An 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:30.760 early build of the game that alpha build ended up 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:33.760 leaking onto the Internet, which got a ton of attention, 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:37.079 despite the fact that it wasn't a complete game and 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:40.520 ID software was genuinely worried that it could end up 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.760 tanking the game. If people played something that wasn't finished, 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:48.520 they might have an incorrect assumption of how the game's 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:52.079 going to turn out, but actually it helped drive excitement 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:54.360 for the title. People were really eager to get hold 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:57.960 of the finished copy. The retail price for the game, 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:01.520 at least at one point was a was suggested at 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:07.800 nine dollars. That's insane, right. The game launched on a 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:12.440 server on December tenth, nineteen ninety three, at the University 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:17.400 of Wisconsin, and almost immediately the server crashed because so 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.480 many people were dialing in to try and get a 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:23.240 copy of this game, and since it was about midnight 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:26.280 when the game went live, it meant there was several 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:29.160 hours before someone could get everything back online, but that 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:31.720 really only helped drive the demand for the game further, 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:36.720 and soon it became a best seller. Wolfenstein three D 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:40.080 gave birth to the first person shooter genre, but Doom 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:44.680 defined it, and id Software built in a feature that 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:49.280 would become standard in nearly every FPS to follow Doom, 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:54.280 and that was the death match. That was Romero's term 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:58.040 for a competitive match between two or more players. Using 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:02.040 the game engine Doom, up to four people could play 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:06.040 against each other on physically networked computers, a local area network, 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:10.120 or a land or you could play against a single 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:13.800 person over the internet. It was the birth of competitive 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:17.600 multiplayer for first person shooters, and it's another reason why 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:22.480 people cite Doom as the real father of the FPS genre. 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:27.520 So while Wolfenstein three D did it first, Doom really 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:33.520 got the form factor down. And before Doom, Wolfenstein was 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.240 the biggest hit from ID Software with more than two 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:39.360 hundred thousand copies sold, but within a couple of years 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.680 of launch, Doom sales blew that number out of the water. 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:46.120 By nineteen ninety five, it was estimated that ten million 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:49.600 computers had a copy of Doom on them. Whether or 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:53.200 not all those copies were full paid copies is another matter, 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.560 because again the first few levels were offered as a 0:14:56.720 --> 0:15:01.640 shareware download. The game received positive fans loved it. The 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:06.320 multiplayer was huge, an enormous innovation, and ID Software was 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:10.560 the darling of the computer games industry. And it also 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.360 had another big innovation built in with Doom. And this 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:16.680 was a choice that John Carmack had made. It was 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:20.720 incredibly accessible to the modern community. Now, a mot is 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:25.040 someone who modifies games. They tweak code to create new 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:30.400 types of enemies or environments, new levels, new items, new weapons. 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:34.120 A modern friendly game is one that can transform in 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:37.880 all sorts of ways with a minimum of fuss upon 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:40.360 the part of the motters. They don't have to end 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:44.080 up breaking code in order to make it happen. Now, 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:46.160 there are a lot of titles out there today that 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:50.480 have a reputation for supporting creative mods, such as Skyrim 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.960 or a Grand Theft Auto five. Doom was an early 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:56.920 example of this. John Carmack designed the code so that 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.360 it wouldn't be too difficult for the modern community to 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.160 tweak it, and in fact, this would remain one of 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:06.560 his principles throughout his career. The result was that Doom 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:09.440 was viewed as a must have game because even if 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:13.479 you grew tired of the original gameplay, the modern community 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:16.320 was always adding new stuff, which meant that you had 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:21.800 a continuously refreshed game. You could just download the mods 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:25.440 and incorporate it into your own copy. It was so 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:29.320 big that during the presentation for Windows ninety five, Bill 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:32.120 Gates had a segment in which he was keyed into 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:36.200 the frame of a Doom game. And yes, it's just 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.520 as embarrassing and awkward as you are imagining right now. 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:45.800 Bill Gates standing there wearing a kind of a costume 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:50.840 holding a rifle in the middle of the rifle, his 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:54.800 hand nowhere near the stock or the trigger, talking about 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:59.480 how he's going to enter the next Doom tournament, and 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:03.160 then a Doom spread appears to his left. He turns, 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:06.000 holds the rifle out still by the middle, by the 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:10.200 way finger nowhere near the trigger, and blasts the bad guy. 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:15.120 It's awful and you should watch it anyway. The fact 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:18.240 that even Microsoft was acknowledging this showed what a big 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:20.439 deal it was, and the fact that this was a 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:26.159 game that was going mainstream. Like the Wolfenstein engine before it, 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:28.920 a lot of other computer game companies wanted to license 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:31.840 the technology powering Doom. It was light years ahead of 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:35.960 anyone else, so ID Software was happy to oblige for fee. 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:39.119 Companies could use the underlying engine for their own games, 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:41.840 and that brought in another steady stream of revenue into 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:45.720 the company, boosting the already impressive cash flow from game sales. 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:50.359 The ID crew found themselves flush with moolah, and not 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:54.840 everyone handled success the same way. So here's a way 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:59.320 to contrast people. Both John Carmack and Romero bought expensive 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:05.080 sports car like Ferraris, but John Carmack limited his lavish spending, 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:08.000 and much of his life didn't really change that significantly 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:12.000 compared to what it was before. Meanwhile, John Romero jumped 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.080 a little further into the deep end of luxury. He 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:18.159 bought a big house, he bought more luxury cars, He 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:22.360 started throwing big, elaborate parties, and people began to get 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:24.959 a little worried that perhaps he was getting caught up 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:29.600 in the lifestyle. After Doom went gold, John Carmack went 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:32.879 back to the drawing board to create guess what yep, 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:38.399 the next generation game engine. Essentially every time they release 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:41.359 a game, Carmack wanted to build a better game engine 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:43.800 for the next game. He never wanted to just rest 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:46.639 on what he had built and then churn out sequels. 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:49.480 He didn't find that satisfying. He wanted to make something 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:53.560 better than what he made before, and he really wanted 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:58.760 to crack the nut that was true three dimensional figures 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:01.600 within a game, not three D that projects out, but 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:04.720 figures within the game that have three dimensions within that 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:09.480 virtual environment. Doom was a big jump from Wolfenstein. But 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:12.879 you couldn't look up or down in Doom. You always 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:16.000 look straight ahead, no matter where you were facing, and 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:19.360 the critters you ran into were represented by two dimensional sprites. 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.560 They weren't three dimensional virtual figures. They were kind of 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:27.119 like flat cardboard cutout characters. What version of them you 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:29.720 saw was dependent upon how you were facing them, but 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.880 it was always flat. Carmak wanted something more sophisticated than that, 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:37.320 and when he wanted something, essentially, he would go out 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:41.800 and build it. Meanwhile, ID Software received a request from 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:44.919 a game publisher to create a version of Doom for 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:49.920 store shelves, which became Doom two. So Doom Too was 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:52.760 the one that you could find in a box in 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:56.480 computer game stores in the mid nineties. It was actually 0:19:56.680 --> 0:19:59.880 really similar to the first game, just with some new 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:03.479 levels and a couple of new designs, but mainly it 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:07.080 was Doom, just with slightly different layouts. But it was 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:09.640 another big commercial success because it was more of what 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:14.239 people loved. Now on the company side, ID Software had 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:15.960 grown to the point that it could hire a few 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:19.760 new people, and Romero cut back his work hours. He 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:22.560 had been working fourteen or sixteen hour days and so 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:25.080 now he moved to a more normal eight hour day, 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:30.280 much of it spent playing Doom against ID Software fans. 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:33.520 He also spent a lot more time in engagement with 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:36.720 fans in general, and again people at ID Software began 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:39.480 to worry that perhaps Romero wasn't as involved as he 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.879 needed to be. When it came time to look at 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:46.960 what came next, the group agreed upon another idea inspired 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:49.879 by their Dungeons and Dragon sessions. So in their games 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.600 they had a mighty warrior named Quake, and he was 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:57.760 a fierce melee fighter. He used melee weapons like hammers 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:01.879 to whack bad guys, and Carmack and Romero both thought 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:04.480 this would be really interesting to create a three D 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:08.560 game first person shooter, but instead of being a shooter, 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:11.560 it's a first person melee game. You have to use 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:15.080 a hand to hand weapon and attack enemies. It would 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:18.879 require a new approach to game design, new enemy design 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:21.920 in order to make it fair but challenging. It was 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:24.880 something the team was really eager to take on because 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:27.160 it was different enough from what they had done before 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:31.280 to really be engaging. So they set out to make 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:34.800 a fantasy based hand to hand first person combat game. 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.800 There's only one little problem. They did not have a 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:42.359 game engine yet, they had nothing to build upon. Because 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:45.840 John Carmack was falling behind on delivery dates for a 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:50.240 working game engine as he encountered unanticipated problems while building 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:54.080 a three D engine. Meanwhile, other teams were creating concept 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:56.719 art and level designs, but they couldn't do anything with 0:21:56.840 --> 0:22:00.280 them because there was no engine to build upon. So 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:03.480 the company had already announced that was working on a 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:07.439 game called Quake, and it was already starting to miss 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:11.240 some promised release dates. And without a working game engine, 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:13.760 it didn't make any sense to put anything out, and 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:16.280 they couldn't really predict when something would be done because 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:19.360 it could take ages after the game engine is done 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:23.600 to build a brand new type of game. Remember, they'd 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:27.120 have to design a first person melee game and then 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:29.240 test it to make sure it was working, and then 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:33.320 fix anything that wasn't working. This process could take another 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:37.040 year or longer, and that's in addition to however long 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:39.240 it was going to take Karmac to finish the three 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:42.920 D engine. This is where things first came to a 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:47.439 head in ID Software. Romero and Kevin Cloud both felt 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:49.920 that it was really important to be innovative and push 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:53.720 for new features with every new franchise, so they really 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:57.439 wanted to incorporate this melee approach in this new game, 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:00.040 it would mean that Romero's designs would be part of 0:22:59.920 --> 0:23:02.800 the game. It would mean that they would have something 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:05.720 totally new to talk about. They didn't want to just 0:23:05.840 --> 0:23:09.520 keep making games in older franchises, but the rest of 0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:13.480 the team, including John Carmack himself, said that it was 0:23:13.520 --> 0:23:16.880 more important that they release another game in a timely fashion, 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:21.439 using the Doom franchise or using the Doom engine, even 0:23:21.840 --> 0:23:23.960 because it would get the game out much more quickly. 0:23:24.560 --> 0:23:27.359 So it came down to Romero and Kevin Cloud versus 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:33.840 pretty much everybody else, and everybody else won that argument. Ultimately, 0:23:33.880 --> 0:23:38.000 they decided to drop the melee combat aspect for Quake. Instead, 0:23:38.440 --> 0:23:41.800 it would become another first person shooter, similar to Doom 0:23:41.840 --> 0:23:46.600 and Wolfenstein. However, they were going to wait for Carmak's 0:23:46.680 --> 0:23:49.600 new game engine to be finished. The big advantage here 0:23:49.720 --> 0:23:52.960 was that they had already built first person shooters. They 0:23:53.000 --> 0:23:55.280 knew how to build first person shooters, so they didn't 0:23:55.320 --> 0:23:59.800 have as much uncertainty about game mechanics. That part was easier, 0:24:00.119 --> 0:24:01.800 meant that there was going to be less on the 0:24:01.840 --> 0:24:05.879 development time once the game engine was finished. If they 0:24:05.880 --> 0:24:08.400 had gone with that melee approach, they'd have a lot 0:24:08.440 --> 0:24:12.560 more testing on their hands, so they went with the 0:24:12.600 --> 0:24:15.080 first person shooter model, and they cut out a lot 0:24:15.119 --> 0:24:17.960 of uncertainty, even though that meant refining something they had 0:24:18.000 --> 0:24:23.159 already done earlier. They had also by that time, gained 0:24:23.480 --> 0:24:27.960 a pretty substantial fan club, including some famous fans. One 0:24:28.000 --> 0:24:31.760 of those fans was Trent Resner from nine Inch Nails. 0:24:32.280 --> 0:24:35.160 He was a big fan of Doom, and so once 0:24:35.160 --> 0:24:36.919