John Romero

Co-founder of id Software, designer of Doom and Quake, and creator of the deathmatch.

via Wikipedia: John Romero · see source

Alfonso John Romero (born October 28, 1967) is an American and Irish video game developer. He co-founded id Software and designed their early games, including Wolfenstein 3D (1992), Doom (1993), Doom II (1994), Hexen (1995) and Quake (1996). His designs and development tools, along with programming techniques developed by the id programmer John Carmack, popularized the first-person shooter (FPS) genre. Romero is also credited with coining the multiplayer term 'deathmatch'.

Quick Facts

Birth name

Alfonso John Romero

Born

28 October 1967

Birthplace

Colorado Springs, Colorado, U.S.

Occupation

Video game designer, programmer

Partner

Stevie Case (1998–2003)

Children

Known for

id Software
Ion Storm
Romero Games

Notable works

Commander Keen series
Wolfenstein 3D
Doom series
Quake
Daikatana

Lore & Background

Following disputes with Carmack, Romero was fired from id in 1996. He co-founded a new studio, Ion Storm, and directed the FPS Daikatana (2000), which was a critical and commercial failure. Romero departed Ion Storm in 2001. In July 2001, he and another former id employee, Tom Hall, founded Monkeystone Games to develop games for mobile devices. In 2003, Romero joined Midway Games as the project lead on Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows (2005), and left shortly before its release. He founded another company, Gazillion Entertainment, in 2005. In 2016, Romero and another former id employee, Adrian Carmack, announced a new FPS, Blackroom, but it was cancelled after failing to find a publisher.

Reader's Guide

Romero's early career included programming games on an Apple II, with his first published game Scout Search appearing as a type-in program in the June 1984 issue of Apple II magazine inCider. He worked at Origin Systems in 1987, then co-founded Inside Out Software, and later joined Softdisk in 1989. He co-founded id Software in 1991. At id, he designed levels for Doom, Quake, Commander Keen, and Wolfenstein 3D: Spear of Destiny, and wrote tools such as DoomEd, QuakeEd, and TED5.

Did You Know?

Romero's head appears as the final boss in Doom II's 'Icon of Sin' level, with a reversed audio message saying 'To win the game, you must kill me, John Romero!'
He created 28 games in 5.5 years with a team of fewer than 10 developers during what he called 'Turbo Mode'.