Hello everyone And welcome to the switch statement podcast It's a podcast for investigations into miscellaneous tech topics
This is our eighth episode on Masters of Doom by David Kushner.
matt_ch8:Hey, John, how's it going?
jon_raw:Hey, Matt, it's going really well. How are you doing?
matt_ch8:I am doing pretty well. Just took, just took the LSAT. Now that I know that me becoming a lawyer is kind of like a low key B plot in this, uh, podcast, but, so I figured I'd add a little, add a little nugget. Well,
jon_raw:It makes me want to, I don't know, get licensed to do something. Maybe not law. That sounds like a lot of work,
matt_ch8:yes, no, uh, the LSAT kicked my butt, but you know. It's behind me now, hopefully.
jon_raw:and now you just have to go to school for multiple years.
matt_ch8:well, right. It's like, I've taken, taken the tiniest step on this thousand mile journey.
jon_raw:yeah.
matt_ch8:but we're not, we're not there yet. I get to just kind of bury my head in the sand until law school starts and read more of masters of doom. Um, talking about chapter eight,
jon_raw:Yeah. Have you ever had a tracheotomy?
matt_ch8:I have luckily not had any tracheotomies of any sort, kind of emergency or otherwise.
jon_raw:Yeah, can you imagine being at the dentist and, and your dentist is like, Oh, got to do an emergency tracheotomy on you. Like I would be just absolutely freaking out.
matt_ch8:And this actually happened, apparently next door from the id guys in their, uh, new, uh, Dallas office there, they were across the street from the dentist or from the stent or not across the street, across the hall. From. The Dentist. Um, pretty, pretty brutal. Although, who knows, maybe they like, then went on to animate like a gruesome tracheotomy that they put in one of their, you know, in one of their games.
jon_raw:Yeah, it is funny because it made me think of, have you ever seen the movie Anaconda? This is definitely me dating myself because it's such a bad movie. I feel like the only reason you would have seen it is if you'd lived through it.
matt_ch8:You know, I missed that one.
jon_raw:Okay, good. Don't, yeah, don't feel any need to go back and catch it. But there's a tracheotomy scene that I feel is somewhat famous. Um, and, uh, yeah, there's also John Voight just really chewing scenery with his like made up accent. It's kind of amazing. Um, but yeah, they discussed their relationship with Apogee, which was sort of crumbling and they mentioned a couple of interesting things about Apogee. Uh, the thing I found most interesting was that an another title that Apogee had was Duke Nukem, which when I was a kid, Duke Nukem was a massive, massive franchise, you know, big Arnold Schwarzenegger looking cigar smoking. You know, just very similar to Doom, like almost like a ripoff, I would say, or, or to, uh, Wolfenstein, rather, but, um, you know, pretty, pretty amazing game, nonetheless.
matt_ch8:Now do we, we don't have any, they don't go into like who the, the kind of inspiration or not inspiration, but the, who the driving force behind Duke Nukem was, they kind of just say it was one of, uh, Apogee's kind of in house games. Right.
jon_raw:Right, right. And yeah, I actually don't know who developed Duke Nukem, uh, but it was a cool title. Very similar to Wolfenstein, you know, definitely like, it's the type of thing where a cool game comes out and then a bunch of other studios emulate the same thing. still pretty impressive, but then they also just talk about the, the crumbling relationship with Apogee. Apparently, they just weren't able to handle the level of orders that were coming in for Wolfenstein, basically for its games. They, they had these terrible systems that just didn't work at all.
matt_ch8:the while, like forfeiting 50 percent of their. the profit from the games to them. So,
jon_raw:Exactly. Yeah.
matt_ch8:you know, so in short order, they're pretty, they're pretty like unhappy with that relationship. So they basically jettison it, right? They're kind of like, all right, Scott, like, you know, even though they had the kind of like Scott helped them get their start, I think time was, up for, for that relationship basically.
jon_raw:Yeah. So, they, they cut ties, and they decided to kind of handle distribution themselves. And there was a very brief kind of interesting part where Carmack was the dissonant voice to doing this. And his reasoning was he just wanted it to be laser focused on the technology in the games. And he didn't want any, he didn't want them to be doing anything else because he thought it would sort of dilute their focus. And I just thought that was yet another like sort of character trait that Carmack has.
matt_ch8:and, and I kind of, I agree with this. Like, I feel like if I were a business owner, I would also be hesitant to like grow to, you know, grow too large too quickly. Cause I feel like there is this kind of loss of control, like. I don't know, it just feels like two totally different things. Where it's like one, you're like hands on, boots on the ground, like doing stuff. Even if that does limit your scale. Whereas the other one, you're kind of like, it's a completely different job. And it's like, it's logistics and you're managing, coordinating this like enormous machine. Which I feel like is just less, I don't know, less interesting to me at least. And I guess it sounds like Carmack too.
jon_raw:Yeah. And I, I feel like he has a point where, you know, companies sort of eventually become a reflection of what they're doing sort of like the culture eventually starts to reflect. The day to day tasks that they're performing, um, and I think he has a point that, like, this does sort of dilute the, the just intense focus that they'd historically had on just pumping out amazing, amazing games. I don't know, maybe we'll see this, come back. I have no idea if it will or not, but, uh, I just thought it was an interesting little point.
matt_ch8:Yeah. well, so similarly to jettisoning their relationship with Scott at Apogee, we also hear the sad, sad story of Carmack just abandoning his cat. I don't know if we've mentioned, you know, this, his cat Mitzi, uh, has been kind of this Repeated, uh, you know, has made repeated appearances throughout the book, and I'm not sure if we mentioned her, but, I guess she just started to get old, and they started to behave more erratically and urinate in other places, and so Carmack just decides to, to put her down, I guess.
jon_raw:this is yet another Carmack character trait that I used to think was cool where, you know, he's just so focused on making this awesome engine that he doesn't even care about loved ones. Um, and, but reading that again today, it was just like, Oh, like it's disgusting,
matt_ch8:It's just way too far down that like. nothing else matters, uh, mindset, I think.
jon_raw:exactly. Like you have to have some, diverse set of interests or like things that are, that are a part of your life. I feel like it's unhealthy to be like that so focused that you straight up put your cat down. Um,
matt_ch8:Exactly. No. And I, I mean, I found so many times there's in life, there's like these synergies that you like come from these outside experiences. I mean, if you'll allow me a call back to, uh, the art of game design, uh, he talks about, it's like the parable of the juggler, uh, where the best juggler. In the room, you know, there was a convention of jugglers and when they talked to this really great juggler after the fight, he was like, you got to derive inspiration from like a bunch of these diverse sources. Like, I'm not looking at other jugglers to learn how to juggle. I'm looking at dancers and I'm looking at swans and I'm looking at, you know, all these different things. So Carmack, I guess, didn't subscribe to that school of thought.
jon_raw:callback. And I feel like that mentality is getting even more true today. Where, you know, there's like with the advent of large language models, for instance, there's tooling that can sort of do a lot of different jobs. So having this point of view where you're, you're very diverse in your sensibilities. You can now sort of combine these tools in order to take all that diverse set of sensibilities and create something.
matt_ch8:It's so interesting because like, I feel like we're in a world, you know, have you heard at all about bun?
jon_raw:Yeah. Bun is the JavaScript or TypeScript like compilation thing.
matt_ch8:runtime. Yeah. Uh, it's, it's interesting because we're, I feel like we're at this inflection point where, because bun is like mostly one guy, or at least it's really started as one guy. We're at this point where we have these like incredibly powerful primitives where like you have something where like one person can, can make their own JavaScript or like, you know, so it's like the myth of the like hero programmer is almost becoming true because, because we do have these powerful primitives and you just, and, and like, you know, This is a little bit different than your point about AI, but like AI is like one of those powerful Utilities that if you can wield it correctly like you can bring about the like myth of the the hero programmer Yeah
jon_raw:just simply get, like, a back end and a front end working and, like, deployed somewhere. Like, I remember being ultra impressed if I was interviewing a candidate that was like, Oh yeah, I got my own, You know, my own web application, I'm like running my own server on whatever the hell technology existed at the time. And I have my own deployed front end in like a bucket or something that used to be super duper impressive. But now it's like, those are just so, uh, I don't know. It's so easy to do. Yeah. Commoditized that, you know, I think what you're saying is, is really true where now it's impressive if you like came up with a novel idea, or if you. You know, kind of combined existing tools in a way that, that's interesting.
matt_ch8:Yeah, and like I think and just at the risk of like really getting deep into the weeds I feel like in the limit Everyone has their own software. Everyone can just be like, Hey, can you make it so that I can track all of the time, times I, skip this song? you can just ask your music player to to do that. And be like, sure. Like, do you want it on that? Should I just have it on that same line? You know, and this is like the AI speaking and it's like, yeah, no, that's great. And then they can be like, oh, well, just, just a heads up. Like, I'll have to do this other thing or like, it can tell you about the potential downsides, but, what is it, what is, what does anything look like in that world? Um, when everyone is kind of design, they're designing their own interfaces.
jon_raw:Yeah, dude, I think you're a hundred percent hitting the nail on the head. I think that will be the future of web where it's like when you open your browser, it's almost like a blank slate where you're just kind of like creating your own browsing experience and there'll be a ton of like, you know, pre canned experiences or whatever, but you can take them and sort of morph them to your desire. Um, and it'll just be completely different from what we're doing today.
matt_ch8:it's funny because. I think data and like presentation and operations on data become like much more divorced
jon_raw:Mm hmm.
matt_ch8:and maybe that's, maybe that's the difference you'll have, like, you'll have like data providers, you know, it's like, cause, cause you'll still need someone like the New York times to like generate information. Or like generate facts. like you can ask them to compose it as if it's a poem, you know what I mean? It's like, you know, how it's presented to you, I think is going to be increasingly up to the person who is consuming it. So,
jon_raw:absolutely. Yeah.
matt_ch8:Um, alright, but anyway, tangent over. So, um, we are not at the last, we're not at the last sad, uh, departure, uh, of this
jon_raw:Oh my God. Uh, I was like, I was like a little tear rolled down my cheek at this point that we're going to talk about later. Maybe we don't spoil it immediately. But one thing I wanted to.
matt_ch8:yeah, yeah.
jon_raw:Oh, sorry. But one thing I wanted to mention, speaking of like movies from the late eighties and nineties, uh, they talk about touchstones or touch points for doom and they mentioned aliens and evil dead too. And I, I just feel like if I was in a room and people were like, okay, we're making a game and here's the two movies that we're going to use as like, you know, inspiration, I would be like, I'm in the right place. Like, Aliens and Evil Dead 2, like, those are the things that I want to be drawing from. I just thought that was a cool part. Like, I think these guys are, like, super similar to how I was when I was, you know, a kid in the 90s. Like, I just love the same things.
matt_ch8:Well, what about today? Like, what, what would be, would you still want to make a game about aliens and, uh, Evil Dead 2, or?
jon_raw:Certainly Evil Dead 2, I think I might actually go Alien today. You know, that, I, that whole Alien, Aliens Debate has been really interesting to me throughout my life because I was in the aliens camp a hundred percent when I was
matt_ch8:You're gonna have to elucidate me here. I don't know.
jon_raw:Oh
matt_ch8:what's Because, because Aliens is a sequel to Alien, right?
jon_raw:yeah, yeah, absolutely. Alien was one of an early Ridley Scott film and
matt_ch8:Sigourney Weaver, right?
jon_raw:oh yeah, they all, they all had Sigourney Weaver. Uh, and she's just brilliant, obviously, but so alien was. Psychological thriller horror, um, you know, made you kind of question reality, but also terrorized you about things bursting out of your chest. All that good stuff. Aliens was kind of more of a conventional, like, Oh, we're under attack. Let's kill a bunch of things, you know, These bad ass Marines like bursting into a base and like murdering things, but also getting murdered, like it was just very much more kind of action packed, but still had obviously still had like sci fi elements and amazing, amazing, you know, cinematography and imagery and things like that. But I think that the way that I distinguish the two films is that tone. Like, I just think Alien had such a dark, sort of tense, foreboding kind of tone. You know, it's almost like the type of thing where you, I mean, obviously you see a lot of bad stuff in Alien, but it's the type of feeling of like Cthulhu where you're never like seeing the worst possible thing, but you always know it's like threatening around the corner. Whereas Aliens was just like, Oh, there's a ton of aliens in your face at all times.
matt_ch8:Did Ridley Scott do Aliens too? Or it was a
jon_raw:Oh no, so Aliens is James Cameron. Which, which describes, that alone explains a lot of the differences between the two films, because they're just very different filmmakers. But they're both great movies. I mean, I, I love both of them. Um, and it's actually kind of interesting how different they are because they both obviously exist in the same, you know, trilogy, or I guess now it's a, it's like an octilogy.
matt_ch8:Oh, God. Yeah, I never got into I don't know that I've even watched Alien. I'm not sure that I've watched any of these.
jon_raw:Alien, Aliens, and Alien, Alien 3 are really interesting because I view that as a, as a trilogy. It's, it's Ridley Scott, James Cameron, and David Fincher. Three
matt_ch8:Oh, what?
jon_raw:yeah, exactly. Like it's three amazing filmmakers sort of like just trying something different, you know, like, cause Alien
matt_ch8:this happen? Like, is this what the plan was? Like, okay, let's just pick three talented, kind of up and coming directors and, like, get, like, let them do what they Yeah.
jon_raw:That's a great question.
matt_ch8:why wouldn't I guess my questions are, like, why wouldn't Ridley Scott come in for aliens? You know, aliens. Or, like
jon_raw:That's a, that's a fantastic question. I mean, I know that, um, you know, James Cameron is one of the masters of, like, franchising things and, making a lot of money off of, toys and stuff like that. Like with Terminator. And I think that's part of the reason he did Aliens. Because they had a ton of toys of Aliens and whatever around that time. Um, and he was really good at pumping out that sort of thing. But yeah, that's a, that's a great question. I, I want to know why it's like three separate filmmakers and all very different movies too. Like that's the other weird thing.
matt_ch8:yeah, like, cause, cause, you know, I don't really follow directors like that much, but those are obviously like three of the most famous directors of all time, you know? So it's like, that's why it feels maybe like surprising that, you know, that it's like three such heavy hitters,
jon_raw:Yeah, yeah. They need like a Martin Scorsese, a P. T. Anderson, P. T. Anderson should do like aliens and I, um, but yeah, no, that's very interesting. Uh, but speaking of story and, uh, you know, narratives, Carmack has a hilarious quote, and this is part of the tension between Tom and like the rest of the team that's sort of developing over the course of this chapter. Carmack has a funny line where he says, Story in a video game is like story in porn. Ha
matt_ch8:yeah, yeah. Which I completely disagree with. Uh, I want to get on the record. Um,
jon_raw:Totally.
matt_ch8:Like, I loved, I don't know, did you ever play, uh, Heavy Rain?
jon_raw:No.
matt_ch8:Oh, Heavy Rain? It was for the PS3, and I would argue that it kind of sits somewhere in the middle between a video game and a movie. Because it's so narrative. And it is, like, your choice is like Make a difference in a way actually that like compared to most video games. You have less control over the, the narrative. but the narrative is actually more important. Uh, if that makes sense, you know what I mean? It's like, whereas like normal video games, you don't have any control over the narrative, but it doesn't really matter that much. Whereas like. Movies, it's like, you don't have any control, and it matters a ton. And then this is kind of like, half and half. But like, you do actually control like, important parts of the, like what happens basically.
jon_raw:Yeah, yeah. Well, I'd even go so far as to say that Carmack has been basically proven wrong. I mean, like there's a, there's a lot of great, great games that don't have story, Doom being one of them. And you can obviously still make a great game that doesn't have story. But I'd say most titles that resonate with most people have brilliant storylines. Like, I mean, Last of Us being like a Example. That's like, they just came out with the last of us TV show that was ultra popular, you know? So it's so, so his whole mentality, um, I, I think is something that sort of fell by the wayside, at least in triple a titles, and now people are making games that are actually more like what Tom wanted to make. Like there's a point where they describe Tom's sort of conception of like the beginning of doom. And it's like you're playing a card game, and then suddenly a portal opens up and like your best friend gets murdered in front of you by a demon. And I was thinking like, dude, this would literally happen in a AAA title of today. Like that's how they would introduce Doom.
matt_ch8:I thought it sounded incredible. you know, I kind of wish that they had actually gone that route because in a way, like, obviously it is, was so innovative, but that would have been another, amazing innovation in video games.
jon_raw:I, yeah, absolutely. And I feel like Tom must feel vindicated today. Because even, even with the latest Doom title that was like, I don't know, it probably came out 10 years ago at this point, but like, it was much more sort of story driven. Like there was a whole intro scene where you're like entering into this Martian facility or whatever. Much more like what Tom would have wanted to build, I think.
matt_ch8:But this has actually kind of been shown again and again, where Carmack can't see the forest for the trees. Right. It's like, he's able to envision. a technical capability and implement it, and then can't really see what would be a good way to use that.
jon_raw:100%. Yeah. It's Romero. I mean, Romero is the guy that is like Elevating his technology and actually making a brilliant game out of it
matt_ch8:it's just frustrating because it's like, why was Carmack making that decision? You know what I mean? He's not the game designer. And I mean, I guess, I guess. He has the, the, like, veto of the, like, tech, technological veto, I guess, which is like, we can't do it. And if Carmack says he can't do it, like, you can't do it. But the way it was phrased, it sounded kind of like this cavalier, dismissal of, Oh, well, I just changed my mind and But, but I, like my technical, technological reading between the lines was actually, there was some, there was some roadblock with that approach and like, Carmack would have done it that way if he could, if he could have at the time, but
jon_raw:oh Interesting.
matt_ch8:that's how I read it, but like, or like, that's how I, that's kind of like the inference that I drew because like, it wasn't clear, like it wasn't opinionated at all, like at least as far as I could tell, like why Carmack was, Just reverting back to the level based.
jon_raw:yeah, you might be on to something like I that wasn't my reading like I just I definitely thought this was a testament to the to Romero and Carmack being super simpatico and just kind of both agreeing that they wanted like essentially like a gore fest, you know, a shoot them up gore fest, as opposed to a slightly slower paced story driven thing. And I think it's part partially because I just always assume Karmic can accomplish anything technologically. And, but, uh, but yeah, maybe what you're saying has, you know, it's true a little bit, certainly where the way Tom wanted to do things would have required a lot of technological, uh, A lot more investment in certain types of technology. And so that might've, um, been a big influence on the decision.
matt_ch8:right, right, right. Um, so we have this one little, um, one little point that I wanted to bring up. I don't know if this made its way into your notes. Um, there's this little scene where where Kevin, he's one of the kind of business guys, and then Jay are talking. And they want to buy. Key man insurance. I don't know. Have you ever heard of this key man insurance?
jon_raw:No.
matt_ch8:Um, on Carmack, um, because he's just like, I guess key man is, is like, we have a single person who is absolutely crucial to this endeavor. So we need to take out an insurance policy, like in case he dies, because it's going to be so detrimental to the business.
jon_raw:Bus factor insurance. Yeah.
matt_ch8:And so Kevin was saying like, Oh, like maybe we should buy that for everybody else too. And Jay, Jay says everyone else is expendable.
jon_raw:Yeah. Yeah, no, that part was amazing.
matt_ch8:Which is crazy because it's like. It does. It speaks to a mismatch between my understanding of the situation. And like, I guess Jay's understanding of the situation, like to consider Romero as. Expendable. I'm not sure if Jay was just wrong about that. It does seem like history has kind of like vindicated that interpretation just because Carmack has gone on to be the, the kind of more durable of these, of these people. But,
jon_raw:Yeah. Well, and I think it's, you know, Carmack was the one that was. Unlocking new capabilities, like Carmack was building capabilities. And Romero was a brilliant designer, uh, and act remained a brilliant designer for years and years in his career. Um, but I do think it's a testament to like, if you're able to unlock new capabilities. So sort of like, you know, Palmer lucky with the VR headset, the Oculus, um, or open AI with, with large language models and actually like sort of commoditizing them a little bit better than, than Google was doing, for instance, there's such high value to that. And Carmack was just doing it over and over and over again. Um, and he, and the next chapter too, it mentions a couple of things. That's just like, it's insane. It's, it's. Yeah, the scope of Carmack's talent is completely outrageous.
matt_ch8:It's just, it's just such, so intensely frustrating.
jon_raw:Yeah. Yeah. No. Totally. Um, but yeah, I could sort of see I mean, I disagreed with the whole key man thing and having it only be Carmack, but I could also sort of see Jay's point of view, and I do think there's some You know, there's an interpretation where he's right.
matt_ch8:Well, right. Exactly. Um, luckily it never, never had to come to pass that they need to worry about any of that anyway. But, um, all right. Is it time? There was obviously more things. Did you have anything else you wanted to, uh, touch on in this chapter? Yeah.
jon_raw:about how they used to just humiliate each other repeatedly. Like this whole group is so sophomoric. It like, I don't know. It may, it amuses me, but also like makes me angry. Like, I just feel like it would be annoying to work in this environment where people are like, you know, creating a little like phallic thing on your portrait or whatever. Um, and then the other tiny thing I wanted to mention was just the id had a mom. There was a woman, there was a woman named Donna who worked at id that was like the mom. She, she didn't have any, you know, she didn't really like or care about what they were doing, but she was sort of providing snacks for them and just kind of being nurturing and motherly. And I just thought that was amazing.
matt_ch8:Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I, I think both of those things, I don't know. It just speaks to, like, the absolutely, like, kind of puerile nature of the, like, that they needed a mom. You know what I mean? It's like, they were not. they're basically children. But it's crazy because it's like, uh, Romero's not his second wife. Like, they're not that young. I would argue they're too old to be doing the things that they're doing. Um, frankly.
jon_raw:Yeah. Agree.
matt_ch8:Um. The one other thing that I thought was hilarious was, uh, and this kind of dovetails with your, like, um, humiliation point, but, the story about Burger Bill, uh, Burger Bill was this guy who they had, I guess, subcontracted to port Wolfenstein to the Super Nintendo, and then it came to light that the, because of the contract that he, or because of his employer, he, all of the work that he had done was technically owned by them.
jon_raw:by Interplay, yeah,
matt_ch8:like, it was worthless to them. Like, they couldn't actually use it. So, um, but then they built, they drew this, like, cartoonish representation of this guy. And, uh, and then they, like, they just, like, stabbed it, I guess. They just started kind of, like, destroying this kind of, like, is it like an effigy or like a voodoo doll or what?
jon_raw:it's kind of terror, terror, or, um, scary. Yeah. And Bill came in, he like comes in the office and he sees this thing and he's like, uh, what is this? And then they fired him.
matt_ch8:Dude, I think that would make, you know, in a TV show, uh, I feel like that would make for a great, a great little scene.
jon_raw:But yeah, we can get to the
matt_ch8:right. I don't know. You, do you want to, uh, break the, break the bad news?
jon_raw:Well, so, you know, an undercurrent of this whole entire book has been. Id is willing to turn their back on friends, throw long term business partners under the bus in order to reach the next level. And at the end of this chapter, they do that yet again, but it's, it's almost like more than what they've previously done because it was a very long term partner, it was someone who was around. Um, you know, who built some of the early successful games with them, like Commander Keen and Wolfenstein, they fire Tom, they get rid of Tom and they get rid of
matt_ch8:cut Tom out.
jon_raw:they cut Tom out. And it's in kind of a horrible way. Like Romero has dinner with the guy the night before. And the whole purpose of the dinner is so that he can tell Tom, but he just can't bring himself to do it. Uh, cause I guess, you know, he's. He just doesn't want to, I guess, or he's, he's cowardly at the last second. So then they get rid of him at like a business meeting the next day. Like he basically walks into a board meeting and, and everyone's sort of staring at him and they fire him. And the, uh, one of the worst parts about it was it sounds like they completely cut out his equity stake. Like he just lost all ownership in it.
matt_ch8:Well, that's, that's what I, like, that's what's wild is like, I guess, I guess people can agree to whatever they want to agree to, but like, it's just wild that this would be something someone would agree to that if you end up in the, on the wrong side of this interaction, then you can just have all of the, all of the stake in this company just, it evaporate overnight without and it doesn't even seem because something that they'll have is like a like a forced buyout basically where at least the other people are required to like pay you for the value at that point in time but it's like nope that doesn't seem to be what happened uh and it just seems brutal
jon_raw:It seems so brutal. Yeah. Um, so yeah, it ended with a sad note, like, like many other chapters in this book.
matt_ch8:And, and the, like the other thing, like Tom really felt like he was kind of the spirit animal of, of id for a while. And I mean, I guess there was kind of a bit of a rift opening there because another undercurrent is, you know, running throughout this book, is this kind of increasing separation between the way Tom thinks about things and the, like, the way the rest of the company thinks about things. But, um, but I don't know. He just had so much spirit. It's just like. It's just sad,
jon_raw:it is sad. Yeah. And another thing I was thinking is I feel like previous relationships that they severed, it was always, there was always like a shortcoming on the other side of the relationship, but with Tom, I didn't really see it that way. I just saw it as like, Tom had different sensibilities. Like, it sounds like he was a very competent. Game designer, and if anything, he had ideas that were sort of ahead of their time, but it just sounds like the rest of the team just had differences of opinions. You know, no one was wrong or right, but so, so they essentially got rid of Tom, not because of some shortcoming, but because of a difference of opinion, which for some reason to me makes it even more sad.
matt_ch8:It did sound like Tom himself was also like, just unhappy in the environment. Like, he's putting all this work, he created this Doom Bible, which is all of the backstory. And it just feels It's so weird because there's so many ways in which I think that the rest of the id team are like prescient and like good at making decisions. And then like, you have a member of your team who's very invested, they make this compendium of like lore for this universe, and then you basically just completely throw it away. Um, but so, and so like, the point being that like, that was incredibly disheartening to Tom. So like, I guess it didn't occur to him that he would leave, but like, it still, it seemed, you know, it can, when all of a sudden done, he did say, I think this is, you know, this is the thing to do, so I think he kind of, uh, understood that like he was also not feeling great about the situation either
jon_raw:Yeah.
matt_ch8:it all sucks all the same. Yeah. What
jon_raw:It sucks. It totally sucks. And, and just to end on a slightly less sad note, I do think Tom landed. Okay. Um, and also as we were pointing out earlier, I think Tom probably can, can still feel good about his contributions because. He just had pretty good ideas. You know, they weren't bad ideas. They, they just weren't really what it wanted to build. Um, and so, you know, if anything, I think Tom could probably still carry himself high after this event.
matt_ch8:Oh yeah. Oh yeah. No, I mean, he shouldn't, he definitely shouldn't feel responsible for his, uh, his own firing. So, whereas like, yeah, like you're saying, like a lot of these other ones, like they're just basically just dropping the ball by kind of an objective from an objective perspective. But, um, so, so yeah, I agree. Tom should hold his head up high. Um,
jon_raw:Yeah.
matt_ch8:all right, let's, uh, let's wrap it there.
jon_raw:All right. See you, man.
matt_ch8:you next time.