[PEN-L:7739] Re: Sado-imperialism

[Dennis R Redmond <dredmond@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 4 Jun 1999, Tom Walker wrote:

> >The Guardian, London 					Tuesday June 1, 1999
> >The penthouse office of Romero's Ion Storm is an astonishing place, like
> >something out of a Jetsons cartoon with walkways suspended above a maze of
> >stainless steel cubicles, wall lighting embedded in marble sconces, glass
> >cases filled with models of one-eyed monsters, the whole enterprise wrapped
> >in clouds and sky.

For those who don't know the skinny here, it's important to note that John
Romero, though one of the great designers of 3D games in the early
Nineties, has been kinda going off the deep end as of late. Ion Storm has
been just an unprecedented disaster, chewing up programmers, designers,
careers and funding at an unbelievable pace. "Daikatana" was supposed to
be done literally years ago (Quake 2 took 18 months, I think) and has
staggered from crisis to crisis like some mortally wounded brontosaurus:
too big to die, too dysfunctional to succeed, but too stupid to quit, as
one observer put it. There are websites literally devoted to chronicling
Ion Storm's latest management crisis, it's one of the longest-running and
most colorful soap operas in one of the most colorful industries around.
Great fun to watch, but just bear in mind that the software in question is
bubbleware, Romero is living off his Doom-rents, and the real action is in
Black Mesa Labs (Half-Life) and John Carmack's upcoming Quake 3, which
from all accounts will be mind-blowing.

-- Dennis