Masters of Doom

Hardcover, 1st edition.

Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture is a non-fiction biography written by David Kushner and published on 2003-05-06. It is about the lives of John Romero and John Carmack, two game developers who co-founded id Software, and created the video game Doom. The book describes their lives from childhood into adulthood as they expanded their video game hobby into a career, and into stardom.

I bought this book as part of a Humblie Indie Bundle for audio books.

Status

I own the audio book read by Wil Wheaton and am currently listening to it.

Review

Good

• The book goes into a lot of detail about the lives of John Romero and John Carmack, where they obtained their skills, the challenges they faced growing up, and their rise to stardom in the video game industry. It also includes general life stories of Tom Hall, Adrian Carmack, Jay Wilbur, and various other people involved with their lives.
• Kushner had direct interviews with both programmers, so a lot of the information is first-hand.

Bad

• The author romanticizes earlier computer platforms and game, describing them in a not-entirely-accurate way. For example, he suggests that players tried to "shoot" at the Easter egg in Adventure, but the game doesn't even have a way to shoot.

Ugly

• Nothing.

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