John Romero
Overview
 
Alfonso John Romero is a game designer, programmer
Game programmer
A game programmer is a software engineer, programmer, or computer scientist who primarily develops codebase for video games or related software, such as game development tools. Game programming has many specialized disciplines all of which fall under the umbrella term of "game programmer"...

, and developer
Video game developer
A video game developer is a software developer that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game console, such as Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers.Most developers also...

 in the video game industry. He is best known as a co-founder of id Software
Id Software
Id Software is an American video game development company with its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack...

 and was a designer for many of their games, including Wolfenstein 3D
Wolfenstein 3D
Wolfenstein 3D is a video game that is generally regarded by critics and gaming journalists as having both popularized the first-person shooter genre on the PC and created the basic archetype upon which all subsequent games of the same genre would be built. It was created by id Software and...

, Dangerous Dave
Dangerous Dave
Dangerous Dave is a 1988 computer game by John Romero. It was developed for the Apple II and DOS as an example game to accompany his article about his GraBASIC, an Applesoft BASIC add-on, for the UpTime disk magazine.-Summary:...

, Doom and Quake. His game designs and development tools
Game development tool
A game development tool is a specialized software application that assists or facilitates the making of a computer or video game. Some tasks handled by tools include the conversion of assets into formats required by the game, level editing and script compilation.Almost all game development tools...

, along with new programming techniques created and implemented by id Software's lead programmer John Carmack, led to a mass-popularization of the first person shooter, or FPS, in the 1990s.
Quotations

To win the game you must kill me, John Romero!

Distorted and reversed to create the sound uttered by the final boss in DOOM II.

I completely love playing and designing games and always will. I am so into games that I listen to game music all day. That may sound strange, but you can guarantee I'm a hardcore gamer|gamer and would never let you down by designing a crappy title.

I think Doom|Doom had just the right mix of elements that keep people coming back to it: great monsters, excellent weapons with great balance, a spooky environment and extreme speed.

If you walk into CompUSA or Babbage's and see the vast array of game titles on the shelf, chances are that 95% of those titles are not worth playing.

In marketing I've seen only one strategy that can't miss - and that is to market to your best customers first, your best prospects second and the rest of the world last.

 
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