This was unacceptable, because Doom was supposed to be action-packed and frenetic. This is a loose gloss of the story (see below for the full details), but essentially, early in the development of Doom, Carmack realized that the 3D renderer he had written for the game slowed to a crawl when trying to render certain levels. I read Masters of Doom a few years ago and don’t remember much of it now, but there was one story in the book about lead programmer John Carmack that has stuck with me. The game is now considered one of the most influential games of all time.Ī decade after Doom’s release, in 2003, journalist David Kushner published a book about id Software called Masters of Doom, which has since become the canonical account of Doom’s creation. In 1993, id Software released the first-person shooter Doom, which quickly became a phenomenon.
