On Sunday, January 24, 1999 at 3:00:00 AM UTC-5, Destroy wrote:
> Hell, I'd party with Romero anytime. He knows how to have fun. And I'm gonna buy
> Diakatana just to piss off all you Ion Storm bashers.
> Krud wrote:
> > Everyone use this thread to list the reasons why you hate John Romero
> > (please don't say that you're simply jealous because that's a given). This
> > way I don't have to read through 10 different threads to see how many total
> > mental cases there are in this newsgroup.
> >
> > One suggestion - wouldn't it make more sense to hate someone who will
> > respond on the newsgroup? Where's Derek Smart when we need him? (just
> > kidding Derbish :)
> >
> > -Krud
Lol cringe, im form the furture and ii think john is cool and has big cocc.

On Sunday, January 29, 2023 at 4:49:10 AM UTC-8, Awp lonert the human wrote:
> On Sunday, January 24, 1999 at 3:00:00 AM UTC-5, Destroy wrote:
> > Hell, I'd party with Romero anytime. He knows how to have fun. And I'm gonna buy
> > Diakatana just to piss off all you Ion Storm bashers.
> > Krud wrote:
> > > Everyone use this thread to list the reasons why you hate John Romero
> > > (please don't say that you're simply jealous because that's a given). This
> > > way I don't have to read through 10 different threads to see how many total
> > > mental cases there are in this newsgroup.
> > >
> > > One suggestion - wouldn't it make more sense to hate someone who will
> > > respond on the newsgroup? Where's Derek Smart when we need him? (just
> > > kidding Derbish :)
> > >
> > > -Krud
> Lol cringe, im form the furture and ii think john is cool and has big cocc.

Wow, 24 years of failure for Romero since this stuff was originally posted.
The only thing I even recognize out of the things he was possibly involved
with was Marvel Heroes. It's not clear if he even was involved in it though
other than as co-founder of the studio that developed it.

- Justisaur

On Sun, 29 Jan 2023 14:29:13 -0800 (PST), Justisaur
<justisaur@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sunday, January 29, 2023 at 4:49:10 AM UTC-8, Awp lonert the human wrote:
>> On Sunday, January 24, 1999 at 3:00:00 AM UTC-5, Destroy wrote:
>> > Hell, I'd party with Romero anytime. He knows how to have fun. And I'm gonna buy
>> > Diakatana just to piss off all you Ion Storm bashers.
>> > Krud wrote:
>> > > Everyone use this thread to list the reasons why you hate John Romero
>> > > (please don't say that you're simply jealous because that's a given). This
>> > > way I don't have to read through 10 different threads to see how many total
>> > > mental cases there are in this newsgroup.
>> > >
>> > > One suggestion - wouldn't it make more sense to hate someone who will
>> > > respond on the newsgroup? Where's Derek Smart when we need him? (just
>> > > kidding Derbish :)
>> > >
>> > > -Krud
>> Lol cringe, im form the furture and ii think john is cool and has big cocc.
>
>Wow, 24 years of failure for Romero since this stuff was originally posted.
>The only thing I even recognize out of the things he was possibly involved
>with was Marvel Heroes. It's not clear if he even was involved in it though
>other than as co-founder of the studio that developed it.
>
>- Justisaur

He is a pioneer of sorts, he helped usher in the notion of making a
career out of not having a career.

It's sort of like an anti-accomplishment, but there are those that
believe there's no such thing as bad publicity, so....

On Mon, 30 Jan 2023 10:46:10 -0500, Rin Stowleigh
<rstowleigh@x-nospam-x.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 29 Jan 2023 14:29:13 -0800 (PST), Justisaur
><justisaur@gmail.com> wrote:

>He is a pioneer of sorts, he helped usher in the notion of making a
>career out of not having a career.
>
>It's sort of like an anti-accomplishment, but there are those that
>believe there's no such thing as bad publicity, so....

Romero's biggest problem is that he's seen - either because of
fanboyism, marketing, or his own words - as an auteur genius almost
solely responsible for the great works with which he has been
involved. And I don't think it would be fair to diminish his
accomplishments - he's had a hand in the development of some really
great games. He's an imaginative artist with skill in programming and
game-development, some surprising talents for business development,
and an undeniable skill at self-promotion.

But a lot of his talents are rooted in the days of DOS games
development, when games could be created by individuals or small
teams, and are reliant on others to take his creative impulses and
massage them into working products. Without somebody to rein him in we
end up with stuff like Daikatana - big, messy project that have good
ideas at their heart but lack the polish to actually be interesting or
fun.

(There's also the problem that Romero projects tend to feel rooted in
the zeitgeist of the mid-90s, when teenage fads - Gore! Boobs!
Sophomoric rebellion! - were the rage. But whether this is because
Romeo's ideas haven't advanced since then, or because that is just
what the world expects from a "Romero game" and he's trying to deliver
what people want - I really couldn't say. But the allure of that
angsty age is rapidly losing its appeal to the audience at large)

TL;DR: Romeo is evidence of the Peter Principle in real life; a very
smart man promoted beyond his capabilities. Had he remained just part
of a team, he'd likely be seen as less of a joke.

>But a lot of his talents are rooted in the days of DOS games
>development, when games could be created by individuals or small
>teams, and are reliant on others to take his creative impulses and
>massage them into working products. Without somebody to rein him in we
>end up with stuff like Daikatana

This is a fair take. I still recall his shenanigans with some busty
gamerchick back in the '90s, but come on: That was a long time ago, and
he's still rocking along doing his thing in Ireland, and I hope having a
grand ole time. He quite frankly is a damn cool guy, with no shade of
vindictiveness or bad intent that I've ever seen mention of, that many
people are still jealous and envious of.

rms

On 30/01/2023 23:45, rms wrote:
>> But a lot of his talents are rooted in the days of DOS games
>> development, when games could be created by individuals or small
>> teams, and are reliant on others to take his creative impulses and
>> massage them into working products. Without somebody to rein him in we
>> end up with stuff like Daikatana
>
>   This is a fair take.  I still recall his shenanigans with some busty
> gamerchick back in the '90s, but come on:  That was a long time ago, and
> he's still rocking along doing his thing in Ireland, and I hope having a
> grand ole time.  He quite frankly is a damn cool guy, with no shade of
> vindictiveness or bad intent that I've ever seen mention of, that many
> people are still jealous and envious of.
>

I kinda miss the good old days of the rockstar designer even if it was a
mixture of truth with brand promotion. A really good example of this is
Imagine who were a Speccky 48k developer in the early 80's. They lived
the high life including flash cars so much so that the BBC even made a
documentary about them. That turned into somewhat of a goldmine as it
coincided with Imagine going bankrupt in a somewhat dramatic way*. Some
of the key players later did admit that although they enjoyed the
lifestyle it was also done to give a certain allure to the company.

Remero, I have heard of him but I'm not sure quite what he did that
annoyed so many people**. The positive is at least he's not trying to
flog NFT's unlike certain developers from that era!

*There's even an episode of Blackmirror that plays of the game that was
there downfall, Bandersnatch.

**Or indeed why someone dug this thread up.

On Tuesday, January 31, 2023 at 2:25:57 AM UTC-8, JAB wrote:
> On 30/01/2023 23:45, rms wrote:
> >> But a lot of his talents are rooted in the days of DOS games
> >> development, when games could be created by individuals or small
> >> teams, and are reliant on others to take his creative impulses and
> >> massage them into working products. Without somebody to rein him in we
> >> end up with stuff like Daikatana
> >
> > This is a fair take. I still recall his shenanigans with some busty
> > gamerchick back in the '90s, but come on: That was a long time ago, and
> > he's still rocking along doing his thing in Ireland, and I hope having a
> > grand ole time. He quite frankly is a damn cool guy, with no shade of
> > vindictiveness or bad intent that I've ever seen mention of, that many
> > people are still jealous and envious of.
> >
> I kinda miss the good old days of the rockstar designer even if it was a
> mixture of truth with brand promotion. A really good example of this is
> Imagine who were a Speccky 48k developer in the early 80's. They lived
> the high life including flash cars so much so that the BBC even made a
> documentary about them. That turned into somewhat of a goldmine as it
> coincided with Imagine going bankrupt in a somewhat dramatic way*. Some
> of the key players later did admit that although they enjoyed the
> lifestyle it was also done to give a certain allure to the company.
>
> Remero, I have heard of him but I'm not sure quite what he did that
> annoyed so many people**. The positive is at least he's not trying to
> flog NFT's unlike certain developers from that era!

I don't know, I can't really find much. Apparently some of the advertising
for Daikatana used a catchphrase that it would make you his bitch - which
is crap the marketing team did and he didn't want according to him. I
guess it was so bad, it did if you bought it? I don't know, I never had any
interest in it even before it came out and proved the hype was just that,
and never played it.

Even this thread in 1999 there's no one hating on him particularly, but the
consensus seems to be he was just dead weight, which his following
ventures proved.

> *There's even an episode of Blackmirror that plays of the game that was
> there downfall, Bandersnatch.
>
> **Or indeed why someone dug this thread up.

The usual google refugee who doesn't realize they're looking at
24 year old posts somehow. I personally find it interesting to have someone
comment on something that old that I never saw or participated in.
This does seem an odd one to pick though.

- Justisaur

On Tue, 31 Jan 2023 10:25:55 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

>Remero, I have heard of him but I'm not sure quite what he did that
>annoyed so many people**. The positive is at least he's not trying to
>flog NFT's unlike certain developers from that era!

I think there were several factors:

1) He left Id to form his own company, with the suggestion that Id's
products (Wolf3D, Doom, Quake) were only as good as they were because
of his contributions (he granted that Carmack might have helped with
the programming ;-).

2) A very unfortunate ad campaign for "Daikatana" claimed "John Romero
is going to make you his bitch". The campaign itself was not Romero's
idea and - reputedly - was allowed only with some misgivings by
Romero, who trusted his marketing team knew what they were doing.
Unfortunately, the ad rubbed people the wrong way.

3) John Romero's brash, loud personality didn't help. He reveled in
his new success (famously buying a Ferrari) and his braggadocio was
offensive to some (I know it did to me. I'm sure he's a great guy, but
he's never seemed the sort of person I'd want to hang around with)

4) The Molyneux-levels of promotion for his games, even though reports
during development indicated otherwise. Best graphics, best AI, best
story, super-optimized programming, all made by the best and happiest
free-range programmers, he claimed. Nothing was ever going to top
"Daikatana" and Ion Storm was going to rule the gaming world. It was
non-stop, often felt disconnected from reality and sometimes felt
obnoxiously over-the-top.

5) And worst, after all that... he didn't deliver. "Daikatana" was an
infamous flop. Ion Storm - Romero's company - crumbled shortly after,
despite being the publisher of cult-classic games like "Deus Ex",
"Thief: Deadly Shadows", and "Anachronox". Stories of delays, employee
dissatisfaction, internal conflicts were common in the industry press
of the time. Romero's later efforts - both in business and game
development - all proved futile and none of his games have reached any
real success (or even notability) since Quake.

6) A seeming lack of any growth or evolution. Today's Romero doesn't
seem much different from the Romero of the late 90s (perhaps a bit
more subdued and aware that his presence can be offensive to some).
His tastes in games seems rooted in the mid-90s and even to this day
he keeps pushing Quake-style games despite the industry as a whole
having moved in other directions.

TL;DR: He has an extremely brash personality that doesn't match up
with his portfolio, and some people find this offensive.

I don't dislike Romero, but I can't say I like him either. I find his
story fascinating though. It's sort of the story of PC gaming writ
small; fascinating, boastful, a tale of talent and luck and missteps,
and full of unrealized potential. In some way, Romero represents
everything awesome and awful about our hobby.