Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture

by David Kushner

Within two weeks, Carmack had two computers networked to each other in his office. One represented his first-person point of view, the other represented the other player’s. On cue, he hit the button on his keyboard; his character moved forward on the computer in front of him. He pictured the little packets of data traveling across the network line flowing into the computer across his office, translating instantly into the space marines on screen. The computers were talking to each other. And Carmack knew the result. He glanced over at the computer to the right and saw his character, now represented in third-person, running across that screen. He had made a consensual virtual world, and it was alive. Romero flipped when he came into the office. “Oh my God,” he screamed, “that is sooooo awesome!” He dashed back into his office, and Carmack started the game again, this time with Romero connected from his own machine. Romero watched as the space marine Carmack controlled ran down a hall. Romero chased after him, unleashing a shot from his gun—boom!—sending Carmack flying back through the air in a spray of blood and screams. “Suck it down!” Romero cried. Soon everyone in the company was taking turns in multiplayer mode, chasing each other, hurling off explosions. The office filled with screams, not just digital screams, but real screams, human screams. It was an arena, and they were all in it, competing, running, escaping, killing. They began playing one-on-one matches as well,...