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

by David Kushner

Why give up 50 percent of their sales when they could do the self-publish completely on their own? Doom would surely be as big as, if not bigger than, Wolfenstein. Jay, Tom, Adrian, and especially Romero—who, from the moment he suggested they leave Softdisk, had always been looking for ways to grow the business—agreed. The only dissonant voice was Carmack’s. In an increasingly stark opposition to Romero, Carmack expressed a minimalist point of view with regard to running their business. As he often told the guys, all he cared about was being able to work on his programs and afford enough pizza and Diet Coke to keep him alive. He had no interest in running a big company. The more business responsibilities they had—things like order fulfillment and marketing—the more they would lose their focus: making great games.