nicknicknicknick reviewed Masters of Doom by David Kushner
Review of 'Masters of Doom' on Goodreads
3 stars
1) ''Romero's eyes widened. The Daikatana was a mighty sword, one of the most powerful weapons in the game. Despite the pleas of the others, he told Carmack he wanted to give the demon the book. It didn't take long to find out the consequences. As the rules of the game dictated, Carmack rolled the die to randomly determine the strength of the demon's response. The demon was using the book to conjure more demons, he told the group. A battle of epic proportions ensued until Carmack declared the outcome. 'The material plane is overrun with demons,' he said, flatly. 'Everyone is dead. That's it. We're done. Mmm.'
No one spoke. The guys couldn't believe it. After all those games, all the late nights around the table in Shreveport, the adventures here that cured all the cold nights of Madison, it was over. A sadness filled the room. Romero finally …
1) ''Romero's eyes widened. The Daikatana was a mighty sword, one of the most powerful weapons in the game. Despite the pleas of the others, he told Carmack he wanted to give the demon the book. It didn't take long to find out the consequences. As the rules of the game dictated, Carmack rolled the die to randomly determine the strength of the demon's response. The demon was using the book to conjure more demons, he told the group. A battle of epic proportions ensued until Carmack declared the outcome. 'The material plane is overrun with demons,' he said, flatly. 'Everyone is dead. That's it. We're done. Mmm.'
No one spoke. The guys couldn't believe it. After all those games, all the late nights around the table in Shreveport, the adventures here that cured all the cold nights of Madison, it was over. A sadness filled the room. Romero finally said to Carmack, 'Shit, that's fun playing that game. Now it's ruined? Is there any way to get that back?' But he knew the answer. Carmack was always true to himself and to his game. 'No,' he said, 'it's over.' There was a lesson to be learned: Romero had gone too far.''
2) ''Romero wandered back through the maze of cubicles and sat down at his desk, where he would remain long after the sun came down on the glass tower. Everything is bullshit! he thought. Why did I hire these people? It shouldn't have been this big. This was too many people, too much money. It should have been just me and Tom and a small team of people with a common goal. It should have been like the way it was when we weren't biz guys. We were just gamers.''
3) '''In the information age, the barriers just aren't there,' [Carmack] said. 'The barriers are self-imposed. If you want to set off and go develop some grand new thing, you don't need millions of dollars of capitalization. You need enough pizza and Diet Coke to stick in your refrigerator, a cheap PC to work on, and the dedication to go through with it. We slept on floors. We waded across rivers.'''
