Doom 1 press release

[Marek]

Below is a press release for DOOM, that is... the original game. Reading this through and seeing the fetish-like obsession with "texture mapping" might be both humorous and sobering.

(This press release isn't exactly the same as the one that was actually sent out at the time. It was an earlier draft, based on an earlier version of the game.)

Id Software to Unleash DOOM on the PC

Revolutionary Programming and Advanced Design Make For Great Gameplay

DALLAS, Texas, December 1, 1992 -- Heralding another technical revolution in PC programming, Id Software's DOOM promises to push back the boundaries of what was thought possible on a 386sx or better computer. The company plans to release DOOM in the third quarter of 1993, with versions for the PC in DOS, Windows, Windows NT, and a version for the NeXT.

In DOOM, you play one of four off-duty soldiers suddenly thrown into the middle of an interdimensional war! Stationed at a scientific research facility, your days are filled with tedium and paperwork. Today is a bit different. Wave after wave of demonic creatures are spreading through the base, killing or possessing everyone in sight. As you stand knee-deep in the dead, your duty seems clear-you must eradicate the enemy and find out where they're coming from. When you find out the truth, your sense of reality may be shattered! The first episode of DOOM will be shareware. When you register, you'll receive the next two episodes, which feature a journey into another dimension, filled to its hellish horizon with fire and flesh. Wage war against the infernal onslaught with machine guns, missile launchers, and mysterious supernatural weapons. Decide the fate of two universes as you battle to survive! Succeed andyou will be humanity's heroes; fail and you will spell its doom.

The game takes up to four players through a futuristic world, where they may cooperate or compete to beat the invading creatures. It boasts a much more active environment than Id's previous effort, Wolfenstein 3-D, while retaining the pulse-pounding action and excitement. DOOM features a fantastic fully texturemapped environment, a host of technical tour de forces to surprise the eyes, multiple player option, and smooth gameplay on any 386 or better.

John Carmack, Id's Technical Director, is very excited about DOOM: “Wolfenstein is primitive compared to DOOM. We're doing DOOM the right way this time. I've had some very good insights and optimizations that will make the DOOM engine perform at a great frame rate. The game runs fine on a 386sx, and on a 486/33, we're talking 35 frames per second, fully texture-mapped at normal detail, for a large area of the screen. That's the fastest texture-mapping around – period.”

Texture mapping, for those not following the game magazines, is a technique that allows the program to place fully-drawn art on the walls of a 3-D maze. Combined with other techniques, texture mapping looked realistic enough in Wolfenstein 3-D that people wrote Id complaining of motion sickness. In DOOM, the environment is going to look even more realistic. Please make the necessary preparations.

I love that last line. More on the game's revolutionary features can be read here, with entire paragraphs dedicated to texture mapping, variable height floors and ceilings and non-orthogonal walls.

[Marek]

At E3 2005, we should really pick a clueless victim at the nVIDIA or ATI booths and ask repeatedly about texture mapping and non-orthogonal walls.

[MrHoatzin]

Shareware... that's interesting.... Why did shareware games die?

[Marek]

I wonder that too. Especially now that the distribution channel isn't just a bunch of obscure BBSes, but the whole freakin' internet.

Getting 1/3 of a game for free would actually encourage people to not warez the other 2/3 if it's a good game. Especially if circumventing the whole publisher->distributor->smaller distributor->game store chain makes the game like 20-30 bucks.

I guess back in ye olde days, shareware games could match or even surpass the production values of retail games, which is so much more difficult these days.

[OftenK]

I remember getting "Shareware of the Month" CD-Roms in the mail. They weren't always games, but I remember the blue CD had Commander Keen 4 on it. And God Of Thunder. In fact, I think I might still have a few of the CDs kicking around here.

[Chris]

Since a shareware game contains the full the game, I suspect they're a LOT easier to crack.

[Marek]

Some, yes. But a lot of shareware games worked on the principle of "get this part free, then get the rest by mail if you pay for it". That's how Apogee did business.

[SiN]

Shareware... that's interesting.... Why did shareware games die?

shareware died because development studios could no longer work independantly. unfortunatly, 90% of developers NEED publishers for their money. most developers would be far more independent & creative with their work if they could self-fund their projects.

interestingly enough the kings of shareware, id software, actually fund all their games independently. technically, they could still do shareware if they wanted to, but the retail channels are far more effective than the internet. can't u notice the big difference between id and other developers ... i mean, i always have this massive grin on my face when i read something like this in the news :

when [insert name of high-up activision exec] was asked about the status of doom 3 he said, "we have no idea whats going on ... id software have stated it'll be done when its done. so we're just going to wait until they tell us its done before we say anything about it."

THAT is independence!

SiN

[Chris]

Id is one of those companies I damn well just can't help but like, regardless of anything that should suggest I feel otherwise. I'm not even much of an FPS fan or anything. I guess it's stuff like that Activision statement that does it for me.

[AGA]

It's id damnit, not Id, not ID, id id id! Whoever wrote that press release needs to be poked repeatedly in the eye.

[Chris]

Unless it's at the start of a sentence, of course, as in my post.

[b0b]

I always thought it was iD? ¬ ¬

[Redwall]

http://www.idsoftware.com/

"id Software"

[RLacey]

Unless it's at the start of a sentence, of course, as in my post.

Incorrect, my friend - it is ALWAYS 'id Software'.

As for the death of shareware, I put it down to increasing file sizes. Modern demos are so huge that releasing a third of the game would be impracticle. Of course, with the limit to the demo length, calling it shareware is probable seen as a betrayal of principles, leading to the use of 'demo' instead. Also, when you ordered shareware games you got them through the post, rather than buying them in a shop. As the way we buy games has changed, so too has the way in which trial versions are distributed and named.

[Jake]

Um. For the record, I don't think "id" settled on that punctuation for a LONG TIME. They were seen as "ID" "Id" "I.D." and "iD" in various places for a while. I think there is in fact an interview with one of them talking about that. I might be wrong, but I suspect the freudian "id" reading of their name didn't show up until the doom games or possibly even Quake era. They definitely weren't "Always id" for a long time.

[Marek]

Tom Hall suggested the Freudian connection right after the name was settled on. "ID" comes from Ideas from the Deep, a working name for a company Carmack and Romero used at some point. So I guess that's where the different capitalizations come from.

[Farbror]

I think demos are important. You'd be surprised to see how many reviews out there that says a lot about the graphics and replay value, and then lefts you there wondering "Yeah, but what's the GAME like?". Demos allow you too check that out. Reviews tells you if a game tastes good, but a demo let's you taste small crumbs yourself.

God, I Hate those kinds of demos that allows you to play a full game for a limited time period. I remember downloading a 200 MB demo, I thought, and then discovering that it wasn't a demo, it was the entire freaking game, but I could only play it for a half hour, then I had to register.

What's the point in that? Do they actually expect me to try out all features in only thirty minutes, to get a feel for the game, to check if I like it? If not, then why include the whole game? I would have been much happier if they had made a demo containg only a third of the features or a super tiny map or something and allowed me to play forever, so I could have gotten an impression of how the game was like instead of feeling frutration and stress over having to try out the game in only 30 tiny minutes.

[SiN]

i had a similar "time-limit" experience with gta2 ... with some interesting side effects. the demo had the full first map with a limited amount of missions and a 6 minute timer. i played the demo over & over again, until around 2 weeks later (after my exams) i bought the game.

when i did, i played the game in a very hurried manner all the time. i had got so used to the rushed feeling of the demo, that even though i had unlimited time with the full game, i couldnt shake the way i played the demo off me ... eventually i got used to it, but it was interesting anyway ...

SiN

[Swordmaster]

Incorrect, my friend - it is ALWAYS 'id Software'.

OT: a finance newspaper in Finland got fed up with the capitalizations and punctuations of so many company names a while ago and created an editorial guideline to write all company names according to grammar rules, ie. PriceWaterhouseCoopers would be written as Pricewaterhousecoopers. I thought this was cool.

[Huz]

i had a similar "time-limit" experience with gta2 ... with some interesting side effects. the demo had the full first map with a limited amount of missions and a 6 minute timer. i played the demo over & over again, until around 2 weeks later (after my exams) i bought the game.

Hoho - the GTA1 demo had a similar time limit. The sad thing was, I actually got to the stage where I could complete the first level in under this time... I still got thrown out of the game though!