Celebrity status and how it corrupts us
By: Dylan 'Lee' Burrows
Tags: Technology, Doom, Biography, Celebrity, Gaming

As a creative, the idea of becoming famous in your field is an exciting idea, the idea that people all across the world could know your name truly is an intoxicating concept. What happens though, when that dream comes to fruition? Do we continue to ride the creative wave with a cult following to boot or do we sink away into the Rockstar lifestyle forgetting how we even got there? Let’s explore that idea.

This the tale of two Johns — Carmack and Romero, two of the most renowned game developers in the industry, responsible for the creation of the influential first person shooter ‘DOOM’ (1993). Unbeknownst to them, DOOM would end up becoming the most ubiquitous pieces of software in the world (c. 1995), even overtaking Windows 95 with its sheer volume of downloads[1]. As you can imagine, Carmack, Romero and the rest of their team (known collectively as ‘Id Software’) attained a legendary status in the game development community, but how did the two of them handle their newfound status? Let’s find out.

John Carmack (far left) and John Romero (second from the right)

John Romero’s Resignation

After the production of DOOM and its sequel (along with other less relevant games), Carmack and his crew began work on an ambitious project with their newfound riches — ‘Quake’, a game that would revolutionise the gaming industry as one of the first ever games to use full 3-dimensional graphics [10]. However, during Quake’s development there was a clash between Romero and Carmack over the future of id software. Carmack wanted to make slow and steady progress while Romero wanted the game to follow his over-ambitious vision. Carmack then accused Romero of not pulling his weight and focusing too much on living a Rockstar’s lifestyle with his newfound fame. John Romero later resigned after the release of Quake.[2]

Carmack in the present

Carmack would continue to produce games without John Romero, later leaving Id Software to pursue other goals[3], currently holding the title ‘consulting CTO (chief technology officer)’ of ‘Oculus’, one of the leading virtual reality businesses [4]. John Carmack never let the fame get to his head and always kept a solid vision in his projects (at least in my opinion). I believe he was the voice of reason to Romero who was an ambitious and hot-headed but a talented developer. What happened to Romero after he resigned, you may be wondering — I shall enlighten you.

Ion Storm

After his resignation, John Romero founded his own company ‘Ion Storm’ where he would create one of the most infamous video games of all time ‘Daikatana’[5]. Daikatana was met with immediate criticism due to its controversial marketing campaign which tried to sell itself on John Romero’s fame — but unintentionally just came across as offensive (see below)[6]. Not only that but the game had an unfinished feel with many glitches and near-unplayability [7]. Due to John Romero not having Carmack as his shoulder angel — and his unorthodox marketing approach, Romero ended up delaying the game several years from 1997–2000[8] as he spent too much time living a hedonistic lifestyle and not focusing on his craft[9]. It was clear that the fame had corrupted Romero and made him lose sight of what made his early projects like DOOM so thrilling.

‘John Romero’s about to make you his b*tch.’ and other terrible slogans.

Perhaps however, this is not the fault of Romero, but instead a natural human impulse to become complacent. According to Lowers & Associates, one of the leading causes of complacency is the consequences of a moment of insight [11]. For example, after the success of Doom, Romero was so busy riding his wave of success that he failed to notice how distracted he was from his other projects. Instead of working hard on his future games he spent all day revelling in the success of Id Software’s big ‘eureka moment’.

In conclusion, while fame is something we creatives all covet (or pretend not to covet), it is important that if we reach that level we stay humble and focus on our craft instead of the many temptations of being a celebrity. Follow in the steps of John Carmack and use the money to improve yourself and your talents — instead of spending it on quick thrills and materialistic objects.

Dylan ‘Lee’ Burrows

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