> Wasnt it pretty well documented Romero was fired from ID for playing Doom

> Afaik Carmack's forcing everyone into single room was a direct result of frustration over people playing multiplayer Doom instead of working on the next game.

It's been ages since I read "Masters of Doom" but the impression I got from its coverage of this era was that the rest of the team was "blocked" by Carmack's exacting vision that every release should feature an advancement in technology.

I mean, I don't intend to make excuses for one John or the other. There was definitely some hubris involved on both sides and, had I been in Romero's shoes, the decent thing to do would be to help out Carmack or de-scope Quake, scale back ambitions. I.e., that project needed better adult supervision. I just think that their organizational dynamics (considering their partnership's history) made Carmack the de-facto "engine developer" and Romero the de-facto "game designer/developer". When the going got tough, Carmack felt (rightly) slighted by the loose role definitions but Romero was too busy having fun.

Again, more maturity would've helped, either from a neutral third party or if they talked it out openly amongst themselves.

Also, FWIW, Romero is still credited as a programmer in Quake. So at least it's not like he left/was fired without putting anything of credit into Quake.

> Daikatana failed to make us Romero's bitches

Fair. And I'm still waiting for the big thing from Romero's Irish studio. That said, Romero has had an undeniably prolific career in games. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Romero#Games . This guy just loves making games.