Hello everyone And welcome to the switch statement podcast It's a podcast for investigations into miscellaneous tech topics Hey, John, how are you doing?
Jon:Hey, Matt, I'm doing well. How are you doing?
Matt:I am doing all right. Ready to get into some deathmatching.
Jon:Yeah, man.
Matt:do you play a lot of, online video games?
Jon:I used to be obsessed with Counter Strike. That was really my first, I played Quake actually. I remember playing Quake in Mr. Crimebring's class. It was my English teacher. He had like three
Matt:crime, crime bring?
Jon:Crimebring. Yeah, yeah. Great name. Great teacher. I really, really liked that guy, but he would let us use his computers during lunch. And I came with a couple of friends and we played Quake. It was amazing.
Matt:I feel like that name should be illegal. I, it, it like, it irritates me in a way that it's hard to quantify.
Jon:It's like, you bring in crime, what's going on?
Matt:like, what are you bringing, like, where are you going with that crime? Uh,
Jon:to be really mad. I'm talking about him. If he listens to this podcast, which he
Matt:friend, friend of the, friend of the pod, Mr. Mr. Crime Brain.
Jon:crime bring, if you're listening, you were great that you're a great teacher.
Matt:nice. Um, well, actually, you know, Counter Strike, that was from Valve, right? Yeah,
Jon:story. It started as a mod to half life. And I think it was. I might be wrong about this. I feel like I'm always making stuff up on this podcast. I got to check myself, but I think it was a community mod to Half Life. That's how it started.
Matt:no, I think, you're right about that. I'm not, I'm not super up on the, On Counter Strike. Counter Strike does kind of hold this unique place in online gaming. It seemed like The occult almost like that has been going on since it started
Jon:To me, like, and this, just to bring it back to the chapter, like they talk about how Quake was sort of the origin of real kind of e sport style death match where it was getting popular. There was, there was rockstar. I shouldn't use the term Rockstar, that confuses with Romero. But there was like these hero, uh, players, you know, who had their own name and their own crazy identity. They talk about Thresh a little bit. But for me, Counter Strike was the first game that like truly, truly like took that to the next level. Like, I remember following Counter Strike teams, seeing like where they would go. And I think actually some of these Quake people ended up Like playing counterstrike and being also very good at Counterstrike.
Matt:Yeah. Well actually speaking of which one thing I had in my notes was this Player they talk about called stevie case The rare, uh, female, uh, quake player. And this is one thing that's interesting is it's been, I think this, is this the first female character, you know, aside from like mothers, like, I think this might be the first female character in the, or it might even be like the only named female character thus far. Um,
Jon:Now this book is embarrassingly masculine, or actually I don't even know if masculine is the right word.'cause not everything they do strikes me as masculine
Matt:Right. so she is a very interesting person. And I just read a little bit into her backstory. Um, this is like a complete tangent. It didn't talk about this in the book at all, but she was actually involved in a lawsuit with, or she like participated in a lawsuit against her school district because they had, I guess they banned this book, Annie on my Mind.
Jon:Annie on my mind.
Matt:The name of it is not super, well, it doesn't really describe anything about the book at all, but it's this book about a lesbian couple. Uh, you know, two young lesbian couple. Women and their relationship and it's a happy ending and this was anathema to the You know the very conservative school district that she grew up in and so yeah, they they fought this like protracted legal uh legal argument over like the fact that The justification for banning the book was just because the school district like didn't really like the viewpoint espoused in it um
Jon:We have come a long way as a society. And I think it also goes to show that there's an element of gaming culture that has always been very progressive. Like there's obviously the, sorry, go ahead.
Matt:yeah, I don't know. I was thinking about this and I was like, no, no, nobody cared. It's like, she was good. So like, and you know, she probably faced sexism, but like at the end of the day, like the game's the game and you know, you can't argue with results and she sounded like she was a baller, uh, in terms of deathmatch. So.
Jon:Total baller. Yeah. Total baller. And she'll come up again. They, they mentioned her later. It might've been in the next chapter, but she actually worked with Romero. Just kind of cool.
Matt:Right. And then my last point is her father's name was Steve, which I feel like that's just wrong. Yeah.
Jon:Steve and Stevie.
Matt:Steve and Stevie. Um, all right, but yeah, that's all, that's all my aside about Stevie Case.
Jon:That's pretty sweet. Um, so yeah, Quake, Quake really hit the big time. You know that you've hit the big time when Robin Williams is praising your game on David Letterman. They mention, they mention this. I, I need to find the video because how does Robin Williams praise Quake? Like, I'm sure it was hilarious and awesome.
Matt:That is hilarious. Yeah, I, I feel like, you know, I, it's just one sentence. I, I just like skimmed over that, I guess. Uh, but,
Jon:Uh, that just stuck out to me. So they mentioned Quake sort of not, not being as big of a commercial success as Doom 2 partially because of some distribution issues we talked last time about GTI and how they were kind of like doing some shenanigans to GTI to try to like circumvent them to basically release the game shareware and then give like an unlock code, which would, you know, basically the idea is you're like avoiding a bunch of distribution fees. But it didn't work. It didn't
Matt:just went back to bite them right in the ass. Like, they tried to fuck, GTI over. And, and the other thing that's so funny is like, GTI is just like, sitting there like, What? What did we do? And then GTI is like, listen, Hmm. we have a bunch of other businesses. You guys have been like a major pain in our ass. So like, good
Jon:I mean, when you got Gloria Estefan in your, you know, in your like group, you're not going to care about a bunch of nerds like crying about distribution fees.
Matt:I mean, that's a really important thing for us to remember for THKP. Like, I wonder if we can get Gloria Estefan, uh, to come work for THKP. Um,
Jon:get someone like Gloria Estefan to even associate with us. That would be amazing.
Matt:well, and, and I, I actually, you know, at the risk of like, just, you Speculating the plan to screw over GTI. Wasn't that a, a Mike Wilson, uh, plan.
Jon:Uh, I don't, I do not remember, but that would make sense because he was the guy that was all big on distribution, right?
Matt:I should check this, but like he became this guy, Mike Wilson. I don't even think we talked about him, uh, in the last episode, but, uh, he becomes like a much bigger player in, you know, in this episode. And cause he's with, um, he goes with Romero. Uh, and actually we, this is what we see kind of at the beginning of this chapter. I mean, I think when we left it off, it was the acrimonious divorce of Carmack and, uh, Romero. And so we see kind of a bunch of the, like, heart and soul of id go with Romero. Uh, cause I guess, I don't know, Romero was, yeah, was kind of the soul of the company. And, it sounded like everything was very rigid and strict and puritanical.
Jon:Yeah.
Matt:puritanical, but like, just,
Jon:Yeah, like regimented, not, not as kind of freewheeling and fun. Um, which I, you know, I do think that they really complimented each other and it is one of the great tragedies in the gaming industry that they had this massive falling out because, and, and we'll talk about this, but, you know, they did continue to make games, but because they were lacking that sort of like other half. I think their games suffered, and you know, some of them were very successful, which we'll discuss, but at least from my point of view, even at the time, as a kid growing up, I could sort of, I just felt like their games were sort of missing something.
Matt:Yeah. Although that said, I mean, it did sound like Quake 2. So, Quake 2 is the first game that they came out with after Romero left, right? And, I mean, it sounds like they were able to pull off a story. You know what I mean? And, like, they were able to apply this very, like, common sense. Approach to adding a story, especially, I guess, if things aren't like this messy clusterfuck like the original Quake was, and you can just approach it, uh, head on from the beginning and stick with that plan. Like you don't need this like sprawling, like super creative narrative. And they were able to come out with a game that actually was better narratively than when they had these like, I guess, ostensibly more creative.
Jon:yeah, they, they mentioned how they based the game off of the guns of the Navarone, which I had never realized. Famous Gregory Peck film, also famous quote from Pulp Fiction, where have you ever seen Pulp Fiction?
Matt:I have, I have, yeah, but I, you know, I don't know that I would be able to recall random quotes, but yeah, I go for it.
Jon:I just, whenever I hear guns of the Navarone, I just think of when Samuel Jackson is like cleaning up brain matter from the, uh, car. And he's just, he's just really, really upset and he's going on this rant and he talks about how he's the, he's the guns of the Navarone. Anyway, I just found that hilarious, made me think of it. Um, but yeah, they, the one thing I would say about Quake 2, like, it's an amazing game. It was certainly a tremendous technical feat at the time. Like, like everything Carmack touched, you know, it He couldn't not, like, make a tremendous technical achievement. But the game did lack a certain kind of gritty character, you know, just weird, bizarre element that Quake 1 had. Um, and I don't know, maybe this is just me kind of knowing the story. And, and kind of applying my knowledge of the outside story to the game, but it just, it always struck me that, that Quake II was missing something, just that like weird kind of creative extra piece that I think Romare was bringing, you know, it's this brilliant polished experience, but it was missing something.
Matt:I did, I never played, I only had, I, I had the, I think I had the quick two demo, so I never really got the full so I just played through that like one LAMA level. Um, but uh, but yeah, and I, yeah, I think there is this tendency to like. Have it be this like, poetic story, where it's like, yeah, it's like,
Jon:Yeah.
Matt:you know, in order for the story to work, Quake 2 kind of has to be soulless, and then like, uh, Daikatana, which I guess we'll see more about, uh, what happens with Daikatana, Daikatana is fully fulfilling its half of this narrative split, um, I would, I would argue,
Jon:A couple of things I don't want to whiz by. I just found these hilarious. So they mention the Voodoo 3D card.
Matt:yeah,
Jon:So there's this era, and I guess we're kind of still in the era, where like, new graphics card releases are like these huge events. In sort of the, you know, the gaming world or like the young people world. And I remember the Voodoo 3d card releasing and like this whole 3d accelerated business, which Quake 2 makes full use of, uh, kind of famously. And so I just wanted to mention that. Another thing I wanted to throw out was Romero's terms in leaving id. Um, I thought this was interesting because he basically got fully bought out. Like, it sounds like ID, and this also happened with, um, that other guy, I want to say Tom, uh, where they did not want any of these people to retain any ownership stake in ID, which, um, you know, I think kind of makes sense just from a strategic standpoint. You don't want this rando equity stake, but it also is just brutal,
Matt:so, so Tom, so Tom got bought out for his stake, I guess, when
Jon:I don't
Matt:They didn't talk about that.
Jon:They did not talk about that. It almost, I mean, in fact, the way it was portrayed in the book, it almost seemed like he just didn't get anything. Um,
Matt:which I'm not sure that that would be legal. Like, if you own a portion of a company, can they just, take that away from you? I
Jon:and just, I hope it's illegal.
Matt:mean, I guess, I don't know. Like, this is the thing, all of, like, company ownership and shares, it's all, it's all fake. You know what I mean? So it's like, you can just kind of, I think you could just make up whatever system you want, basically, uh, in your, your organizing document or whatever it is for your, for your company. I'm not sure what the term is, but like
Jon:You're like, charter or whatever.
Matt:the charter, the company charter. Yeah. Uh,
Jon:I think he got bought out for 10 million. Which, ton of money, you know, nothing to shake a stick at, but I do think that it sort of went on to be worth a lot more than that. Um,
Matt:he would be, uh, many times, uh, over like, well, more wealthy than that. But, uh,
Jon:uh,
Matt:goes to, create his new like wonderland office. Uh, uh, it sounds, it sounds awesome. And it does sound like this incredible, he buys this or like starts renting this penthouse, this like enormous space with, uh, panoramic views. Um, and like Romero, they're basically like, yeah, it's really hard to air condition. Everything is in direct sunlight and it costs like a million dollars a month to rent. And Romero's like, Whatever, it's cool. So, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to, I'm going to make, you know, the decision that optimizes for maximum coolness, like that. It feels like that's kind of Romero's, way.
Jon:Yeah, it's him in a nutshell. Yeah, this chapter and the next one do a really good job of Um, yeah. And I don't know if they're caricature rising Romero and Carmack, but just like the extreme, diametrically opposedness of their two sort of ways of doing things like approach to software approach to like hiring and approach to running an organization because Carmack, after Romero leaves, he kind of like, simplify, simplify, simplifies, um, id. He, he runs the show with only, I think, I want to say nine employees,
Matt:Yeah.
Jon:only three of whom were programmers, I think. And here's Romero, just like you're saying, going off, teaming up with some, you know, huge publisher with this, this crazy deal. I think it, I think the deal was like 3 million per title, plus 40 percent of royalties, which is just this like. You know, that would be like, you're a rock star in the gaming industry. That's the only way you could make a deal like that. And he hires like a hundred people. Um, so anyway, it just, it just, uh, was interesting how the, the two guys just went in completely different directions.
Matt:And so they start working with, uh, this company called Eidos, which is interesting. Eidos is kind of depicted as this almost faceless company. That's just like siphoning money into them. they talk about, I guess Eidos produced Tomb Raider. Uh, I think they had said that.
Jon:that part was hilarious because the author, David Kushner, like described Tomb Raider,
Matt:I didn't know if that was like tongue in cheek.
Jon:I feel either that or this book was published at a time where Tomb Raider just wasn't, cause I feel like anyone knows what Tomb Raider is,
Matt:well, right. I mean, Tomb Raider is like, you know, it's on a level with, uh, Quake and Doom, you know what I mean? Like, so, Yeah, that's just funny.
Jon:but anyway, I completely interrupted your, your train of thought. So.
Matt:Oh, no, no, but anyway, um, But we just see them as these kind of faceless funders, Their origin story is never, like, really tapped into. Like, where do they have so much money to just, plum into this fledgling video game company that's never really, addressed? Uh, but,
Jon:And man, did they, did they, uh, put money into Ion Storm?
Matt:oh yeah, that's right. I guess we didn't even, we didn't even say that. That the, the Romero's company is called Ion Storm. Um,
Jon:about a couple new characters. Like this book does a very good job of having like just throwaway sentences, kind of like Robin Williams endorsing Quake on David Letterman, where it's like the author will just say something and then just not explain it at all. And they mentioned this guy, Brian Iserloh. And they talk about how he was famous for nude doom hacking parties. And they did not talk about what that meant. It's like, what is a nude doom hacking party? But yeah, I guess so. Yeah, it's, you know, they, I guess they were just, uh, working on some plauds.
Matt:it's funny because throughout this chapter, they really, they kind of build up this feud that's happening between the like scorned. Romero and Carmack's id, there's this escalating like tit for tat where they're, it's almost like there's like low key corporate espionage where the one time the people like, uh, people from id are, you know, visit Romero's office and then like this one, one of id's employees sees that like, One of the artists is using like an old program and then he writes this, this like, I guess, scathing dot plan file, you know, calling out the, uh, just their company for being like out of touch and like behind the, behind the times, I guess, and actually this is something, I don't know that we touched about touch on this, the dot plan file. So, sorry, I didn't know. Did I,
Jon:Yeah, I was just gonna say, I think that was Paul Steed, who was another character that was introduced in this chapter. I think he was a designer on id and the way they introduced Paul Steed is He was at this inflection point in his life where he realized he could either stay up all night working on programming, or he could stay up all night hanging out with girls. And he chose girls. So he wound up being just a paltry designer, I guess.
Matt:Right, right.
Jon:I just find it hilarious how David Kushner, like, introduces these characters.
Matt:Yeah, so there's this, growing feud between them, but then you see this, this interaction between Romero and Id, you know, when Romero first sees Quake 2, and he still retains this, like, admiration for what Carmack is doing. Yeah. he's working on his own stuff, and he's still like he wants to win, but like he almost can't fight the the appreciation that he has for the tech that Carmack is is churning out and as much as Kushner pitches them as being in this deathmatch literally The relationship is much more nuanced than that, I think. And we get senses for this when it's like, yeah, people from ID are visiting the Ion Storm offices and Romero is just like showing up randomly at the ID offices. I don't think Kushner is making a point of it because I think it kind of undercuts the larger narrative point that the they're feuding, but like, it speaks to that there was more cross pollination between the companies after they split then, you would imagine, I guess.
Jon:yeah, yeah. No, it is interesting, because their little plan wars is getting more and more acrimonious. But there are these brief moments, like, they talk about E3. Was that this chapter, or am I jumping the gun?
Matt:Where Romero sees it at E3.
Jon:Exactly, so, and just like what you're saying, I mean, they showed Quake 2 and Daikatana at E3, and Quake 2 just blew Daikatana out of the water. Like, it wasn't even There was just no contest. And, and Romero sort of publicly said, like, he thought the tech for Quake II was the coolest thing he'd ever seen. Quake II had this like colored lights, which it's very funny to think of that as like groundbreaking tech. But I guess at the time it was, and, um, you know, it was just a beautiful game. Yeah.
Matt:had this preternatural ability to kind of see a piece of tech and see it for what it could be used to do as a designer. And that's why like, yeah, you might just see like, Oh, that light's yellow, but he's like, wait, no, this would allow you to make these very atmospheric levels, you know, in a way that wasn't. possible before.
Jon:Yes. Yeah. Which is, I think why they work so well together. Um, there was another E3 moment that they mentioned where they had a deathmatch, I guess, like towards the very end of this chapter. And, of course, Romero just obliterated Carmack. I think it's no secret that Romero is just way better at games than Carmack was. But, you know, it was kind of a beautiful moment.
Matt:Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think, um, I don't think I had anything else. Is there anything, any other points that you wanted to bring up?
Jon:Yeah, there's just two more things. I feel like we can't let this chapter go without mentioning the horrible ad. Yeah. That Romero put out for Daikatana, which is just in such poor taste. It's not even funny. I almost don't even want to like You know what? People should just look it up. Suffice it to say, Romero and his team decided to put an ad out. They thought it was funny, and it's just terrible. Like, if you see it today, it's just like Disgusting. Uh, but moving on, another cool moment. So this chapter sort of opened up talking about Stephen Case, like you mentioned, and this other guy named Thresh, who were both these like semi famous eSporters. And at the E3 event, Carmack did this thing where he gave his first Ferrari to the winner of a Quake deathmatch tournament. And the winner of that tournament was Thresh. And he gave him the Ferrari and he was like, how are you going to get this Ferrari home? Cause I guess Thresh lived across the country or something. And Thresh was like, well, I guess I'll have to ship it. And so Carmack just pulled a wad of five grand out of his pocket and just gave it to Thresh, which I thought was, I thought was kind of cool.
Matt:Yeah. And this is, this goes back to like, uh, Carmack has like a really complex, character, where, you know, you could see, like, in that moment, the rationality of it is like, I am giving this person a gift. If they have to ship it home, like, this is going to be a financial burden to them, which directly contradicts, like, the point of the So it's like, yeah, I'm just going to give this person 5, 000 right now. And it's like, it didn't matter at all to him, you know, the money, I'm sure. So, um, So yeah, and like, that's why it feels so weird where it's like, okay, you have someone who's who both is like, could morally justify stealing a computer, but then also would just like give some rando 5, 000.
Jon:own system of honor and he always adheres to it.
Matt:that's what I want to be like.
Jon:Yeah, he's like Ned Stark from Game of Thrones.
Matt:And look what happened to Ned Stark.
Jon:Yep
Matt:Alright, no spoilers though.
Jon:Yeah,
Matt:so yeah, I think that, I think that about wraps it up for chapter 3 of Masters of Doom.
Jon:yes chapter 13.
Matt:What did I say? 3?
Jon:I think you said three, but yeah, I think same thing
Matt:Same thing.,
Jon:But yeah, as always it was a pleasure Matt.
Matt:it was a pleasure and I will see you next time for chapter 4.
Jon:See you next time