There is no programmer more closely related to their work than John Romero. Co-founder of id Software with John Carmack, he became the face of Doom, Doom 2, and Quake, which blew up more than just the video game industry; they shook up Congress, international markets, and multimillion-dollar businesses. He brashly took the medium of gaming from the era of Pong to a time of first-person shooters.
His rock star persona, long hair, and potty mouth are well-known among those inside and outside of the video game industry. His name was uttered by President Bill Clinton and Senator Joe Lieberman as a poster boy for why America’s youth were so violent and angry. And, of course, there was the infamous “John Romero’s about to make you his b****. Suck it down” advertisement for Daikatana (an idea suggested by Mike Wilson). Yet, for a man who enjoyed the spotlight, there are several facts about Romero that never made it to the newspapers.
10 Alfonso Is Born
Long before he was building the greatest arena shooters of all-time, he was born Alfonso John Romero. It’s fascinating to consider that, at one time, the tale of the two Johns could have been the tale of John and Al.
However, gamers are lucky to be able to call him by either name. He was born at an even four pounds a full six weeks before his due date. Having the fastest time wasn’t just his goal for completing Doom levels, Romero was symbolically born to be the quickest.
9 “Rich Bachelor”
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” a teacher asked Romero at school one day. The answer was to be written and discussed. Other students gave the typical answers: doctor, president, teacher, etc.
Romero gave a passionate reply. It was not to be a programmer, developer, but it was still quite predictive of his future. He wrote about how his dream was to be a “rich bachelor.” Romero was actually married for most of his adult life, but he was rich and he definitely lived the life of a bachelor.
8 Scrappy Childhood
Romero would grow up to set the stage for the ridiculously hard Doom franchise and inspire other developers to make games even tougher. Games this difficult matched the identity of a man who had to be tough-as-nails just to realize his dreams.
In order to learn to program, Romero had to wake up at 7:30 in the morning to avoid his stepfather and sneak off to a local computer lab. In order to make ends meet, he took side hustles, even pocketing extra money on his paper route.
7 Young Artist
Long before the days when gamers would need tips to fight the maliciously-rendered Marauder, Romero was planning out the art — not with the computer, but with pens, paint, crayons, pencils, and paper. They were just as violent as the games he would end up making.
He once got in trouble for drawing a torture scene where a victim’s feet were being burned. His favorite drawings became a series about a dog named “Chewy,” who was constantly getting killed by a variety of weapons and devices.
6 Recruited By Military
After seeing his programming capabilities, a military recruiter who frequented the computer lab offered Romero a job. Seeing his potential to make brutal combat simulators like Doom, he deemed it possible that the young Romero would be able to make a pseudo combat simulator.
Romero seriously considered this offer, but he decided he wanted to make a video game that targeted those looking for entertainment and fantasy, not education and realism. Still, the offer gave him the confidence he needed to pursue his desired career path.
5 “Ace Programmer”
Doom Eternal throws some seriously beastly weapons into the hands of the players, but none of them can exist without the developers capable of designing them. When Romero first started to reach out and build his contacts and accomplishments, it was clear he already had these astounding guns in his mind.
His resumé included a list of his basic accomplishments and the programming languages that he had taught himself. It also included a bit of fluff by the name of the applicant, which read: “John Romero: Ace Programmer” on the top.
4 Mazes
What happened behind the scenes at Doom would end up changing the video game world. There is no greater evidence of this than the discoveries made by the gaming staff at Softdisk before they ever became id Software.
While John Carmack would be accredited with most of the breakthroughs, it was John Romero that ended up making the biggest advancement in gaming since the invention of the video game itself. He was the first person to make a navigable maze appear on a screen, giving gaming a third dimension of movement.
3 “Crunch” & “Deathmatch”
Video game “crunch” would become a negative thing in Romero’s life but it didn’t start that way. Accredited with being the first to use the word in correlation with pushing out a game, Romero spoke fondly about the time the original gang would spend together, eating pizza and burgers, sleeping in the office, working long hours, and being good buds.
One term that would not lose its luster was “deathmatch.” He saw the sport-like quality of fighting with other players, like a boxing match. However, he wanted to specify that the loser, unlike in boxing, would perish, so he put “death” and “match” together to coin a legendary phrase still cherished today.
2 Hacking
As they play through a lengthy video game campaign, elite gamers oftentimes turn to mods and coding to make the experience more enjoyable. This was true at the beginning of Doom and it has persisted until today — in fact, the modding scene for the original Doom is still very much alive and kicking, as Romero himself might be able to tell you.
At first, many gamers believed that the ability to hack the source codes was a mistake. In actuality, Romero insisted on it. As a person who learned programming by fiddling with codes, he always wanted to make sure that gamers of today were given the same opportunity. Plus, he saw the hacks and modifications as a learning experience for both himself and his team.
1 “Wrote It” & Merchandise
After this early stage, Romero found the spotlight and became a sensation. His personality, clothing, cars, and advertising became signatures of his personality. The media has stopped camping outside of his doorstep, but players still can’t get enough.
Romero made custom t-shirts for his developer teams that said “wrote it” with the game logo on them. Items and other merchandise like this, along with some autographs, are occasionally sold online by the Master of Doom himself, John Romero.
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