The 1993 first-person shooter Doom is legendary. Its place in history is both untouchable and inarguable. The details of that history, though, are currently being debated on social media. Not by fans, mind you, but instead by two of the very people that created it. Doom co-creator John Romero and Doom level- and game-designer Sandy Petersen took to X (formerly Twitter) to dispute each other’s recollection of the origin of Doom’s groundbreaking DeathMatch PvP multiplayer mode.
It started with Petersen posting a thread titled, “How Doom changed the world.” He discussed his history in the video game industry prior to getting hired at id Software to work on Doom – specifically on a real-time strategy game released in 1990 called Command HQ, and how designer Danielle Bunten Berry “thought that since 65% of gamers had modems it would mostly be played head-to-head. It bombed. I think it had about 40,000 sales.” That set up a memory he shared next about working on Doom, about which he said, “We all agreed at id that it was unlikely anyone would ever play Deathmatch, except in very small numbers. After all, zero games had a robust head-to-head experience, and my personal time with Command HQ just hammered home the point. However, everyone at id loved Deathmatch, so we kept it in the game. We figured, even if no one else played it, WE could keep doing it.”
Romero responded to politely take issue with Petersen’s recollection of the team’s sentiment around DeathMatch prior to release. He posted, “Hi Sandy. Are you well? This is wrong. On January 1, 1993, we sent a press release saying that multiplayer would be in DOOM, a full 8 months before you joined the company. We knew deathmatch would be huge. In that press release, in January 1993, we said multiplayer would be ‘the number one cause of decreased productivity in businesses around the world.’ We were sure of it, and we needed no convincing. I understand you are proud of your work on DOOM, and you should be, but please also respect the accuracy of your statements, particularly around game history. My concern is that these false statements are designed to trigger replies (like this one), reposts, and outrage discussion, all with the view of increasing your followers and subscriptions, particularly since this false deathmatch story (among others) is so easily disproved. I’ve even welcomed you to reach out to me ahead of time. You seem to appreciate game history as much as I do. Could you not also make yours accurate?”
Petersen continued the discussion with Romero, responding with, “John. First, 8 months before release is before I joined the company. So I have no knowledge of what you did then. Second, AFTER I joined we had a discussion in which I talked about my experience with Command HQ and YOU YOURSELF agreed that Deathmatch wouldn’t be that big a deal. Do you not remember? Third yes we all wanted Deathmatch anyway. And I’m glad my predictions were wrong. Perhaps check your own memory before gaslighting mine. Hope you’re well.”
Romero came back with, “I am well, thanks, and so is my memory. I do not believe your recollection is accurate and neither do other members of the team. We KNEW deathmatch would be huge from the beginning. We said so. Once it was in, those aspirations were confirmed.” As of the publication of this story, that’s the last post in their online discussion.
Regardless of who is correct about DeathMatch’s pre-release history, it certainly blew up once Doom shipped in December of 1993, and every multiplayer first-person shooter released since can trace some part of its lineage back to Doom. For my part, Doom is one of my favorite games of all time, and I was fortunate to get to check off a personal and career Bucket List item by playing through the entire legendary first episode of Doom (called “Knee-Deep in the Dead”) in co-op with Romero to celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2013. Today, Doom of course lives on with the new-generation team currently at id Software, with the studio having shipped the amazing Revelations DLC for Doom: The Dark Ages earlier this summer.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, and a co-host of Next-Gen Console Watch. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
