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Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture

Name: Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture
Rating: 5 (11 reviews)
Author: David Kushner
ISBN: 9780812972153

David Kushner · 2004 · 368 pages

Masters of Doom is the amazing true story of the Lennon and McCartney of video games: John Carmack and John Romero. Together, they ruled big business. They transformed popular culture. And they provoked a national controversy. More than anything, they lived a unique and rollicking American Dream, escaping the broken homes of their youth to co-create the most notoriously successful game franchises in history—Doom and Quake—until the games they made tore them apart.

Americans spend more money on video games than on movie tickets. Masters of Doom is the first book to chronicle this industry’s greatest story, written by one of the medium’s leading observers. David Kushner takes readers inside the rags-to-riches adventure of two rebellious entrepreneurs who came of age to shape a generation. The vivid portrait reveals why their games are so violent and why their immersion in their brilliantly designed fantasy worlds offered them solace. And it shows how they channeled their fury and imagination into products that are a formative influence on our culture, from MTV to the Internet to Columbine. This is a story of friendship and betrayal, commerce and artistry—a powerful and compassionate account of what it’s like to be young, driven, and wildly creative.

“To my taste, the greatest American myth of cosmogenesis features the maladjusted, antisocial, genius teenage boy who, in the insular laboratory of his own bedroom, invents the universe from scratch. Masters of Doom is a particularly inspired rendition. Dave Kushner chronicles the saga of video game virtuosi Carmack and Romero with terrific brio. This is a page-turning, mythopoeic cyber-soap opera about two glamorous geek geniuses—and it should be read while scarfing down pepperoni pizza and swilling Diet Coke, with Queens of the Stone Age cranked up all the way.”—Mark Leyner, author of I Smell Esther Williams

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recommended by 11 people

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Elon Musk
“Some audiobook recommendations: The Story of Civilization by Durant Iliad (Penguin Edition) The Road to Serfdom by Hayek American Caesar by Manchester Masters of Doom by Kushner The Wages of Destruction by Tooze The Storm of Steel by Junger The Guns of August by Tuchman The Gallic Wars by Caesar Twelve Against the Gods by Bolitho Genghis Khan by Weatherford The first one on the list will take a while to get through, but is very much worthwhile. Admittedly, this is a list that appeals to those who think about Rome every day. I hope someone makes an audiobook of The Encyclopedia of Military History by Dupuy and The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World by Creasy.”↗
Andrew Chen
“Masters of doom This book tells the story of Id Software, one of the most influential gaming studios of all time. They made Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake - my childhood favorites - and really defined the shooter genre”↗
Linda Xie
“Some of my favorite books are on unique times in history when a group of incredibly talented people came together to build: - American Prometheus (Manhattan Project) - Dealers of Lightning (Xerox PARC) - The Idea Factory (Bell Labs) - Masters of Doom (id Software) - Skunk Works”↗
Duncan Jones
“@dannyodwyer I cant wait to see this. The book is fascinating, and I remember watching with bulging fan-boy eyes during those halcyon days!”↗
Patrick Collison
Alexis Ohanian
Austen Allred
Tobi Lütke
Trung Phan
Jeff Atwood
Alexis Ohanian Sr.