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John Romero, co-founder of id Software and designer on many classic titles such as Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein, has announced he will publish his memoirs on January 10, 2023. Titled Doom Guy: Life in First Person, the book will cover Romero's career from his earliest days programming in his garage to co-founding id Software, and details from his personal life such as his falling out with id co-founder John Carmack. It will also detail his difficult childhood growing up with "an alcoholic father, a racist grandfather who did not approve of Romero’s parents’ mixed-race coupling, and a grandmother who once ran a brothel in Mexico," and how software development helped him escape that. "Code and games changed the trajectory of my life," said Romero in a recent Tweet about the book, also describing it as "a positive story of gratitude for a life in games."

Romero is currently working on Sigil 2, a game made up of Doom II modded levels. You can download the original Sigil, made up of Doom mods, from Romero's website here.

You can pre-order Doom Guy: Life in First Person on Amazon.

 

[RedoLane]

That guy was one of the reasons why I became a gamer in the first place.
Started with Doom, and never got tired of it.

I figured Romero would reach a point where he's done so much in life, that he could write a book about it.
He also got interviewed recently for the FPS documentary project(Indiegogo campaign will end soon!).
That being said, I'm definitely gonna buy that book.

 

[FAST6191]

He has had some interesting stories in interviews and whatnot* over the years.
Sitting here though I am not sure I have seen a game industry player autobiography before. I can't say I will be reading it as I have never really liked any autobiographies I have read/attempted to read before but hope we get something that might change that.


*probably my favourite, and shock horror it was IGN that did something interesting

 

[AkiraKurusu]

John Romero's about to make you his bitch.

 

[relauby]

Sitting here though I am not sure I have seen a game industry player autobiography before.

There's been a handful. Reggie Fils-Aime published one at the beginning of the month, and Sid Meier released his a few years ago, I think.

 

[Milenko]

John Romero's about to make you his bitch.

The Daikatana era will be an interesting read

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

Suck it down

 

[lokomelo]

There's been a handful. Reggie Fils-Aime published one at the beginning of the month, and Sid Meier released his a few years ago, I think.

Sid Meier has undoubtedly a gaming career, but Reggie is just a regular business man that happened to get a job in place that make advertisement, translation and law stuff for a Japanese gaming company. He knows gaming as much as Nintendo lawyers and janitors do.

(probably even less than the janitors: https://nintendolink.com/2021/06/23/that-time-the-game-boy-was-invented-by-a-janitor/ )

 

[Creamu]

Can't wait. Hope he writes about the commander keen era.

 

[JayPea]

Wonder how much of it will tally with the stuff in Masters of Doom? Which is a pretty good read if you're into, uh, reading?

 

[TVL]

I've read Masters of Doom a few times. I enjoy the time before Wolfenstein 3D and Doom the most. John Romero also seems to have saved all his old notes and printouts from every game he's ever made. Going to read this book for sure.

 

[Noctosphere]

Please make a game adaptation out of it

 

[CraddaPoosta]

John Romero's about to make you his bitch.

Every goddamned time I think I am going to be the first to make a specific comment, someone already beat me to it.

 

[LoggerMan]

He's taking a break from his busy schedule of making Doom 1 maps.

 

[AndorfRequissa]

sounds like the dudes therapist told him to write about this. im interesting in gaming and stuff but history about his family doesnt really matter at all .

 

[Kwyjor]

There's been a handful. Reggie Fils-Aime published one at the beginning of the month, and Sid Meier released his a few years ago, I think.

And Ken Williams from Sierra had something out not so long ago too.

John Romero also seems to have saved all his old notes and printouts from every game he's ever made.

I remember he used to have a link to Kneedeep in a Dream on his website, stating that he'd already started to forget much of the Daikatana saga. And that was already many years ago.

sounds like the dudes therapist told him to write about this.

Eh, I expect much of it is technically going to be "written" by someone else. Not that there's anything wrong with that; I'm sure he'll be well compensated.