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John RomeroComputer game developer, programmer and designer, one of the founders of the company 'Id Software'
Date of Birth: 28.10.1967
Country:  USA |
Content:
Biography of John Romero
John Romero, a computer game developer, programmer, and designer, is best known as one of the co-founders of the company 'Id Software'. He is renowned for his work as a designer on many of the company's released games for personal computers, including 'Wolfenstein 3D', 'Dangerous Dave', 'Doom', and 'Quake'. Romero's design and development tools, along with the new programming methods developed and implemented by the leading programmer at 'Id Software', John Carmack, led to the immense popularity of first-person shooter games in the 90s.
Early Life
Alfonso John Romero was born on October 28, 1967, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. His first published game was released in June 1984 as a text-based adventure in the popular 'inCider' magazine, dedicated to Apple II enthusiasts. He founded his first company, 'Capitol Ideas Software', which is credited with developing at least twelve early published games by Romero. He appeared on the covers of the December issues of 'Nibble' magazine for three consecutive years, starting in 1987, and won a programming contest held by 'A+' magazine when he released his game 'Cavern Crusader'.
Early Career
Romero's first job in the gaming industry was in 1987 at 'Origin Systems'. He had already been programming games for eight years by this time. He worked on porting the role-playing game '2400 A.D.' from Apple II to Commodore 64, but the project was canceled due to low sales of the Apple II version. Shortly after, Romero became one of the founders of 'Inside Out Software' and worked on the port of 'Might & Magic II' to Commodore 64, once again from Apple II. He was almost finished with the next project, the port of the game 'Tower Toppler', when their client, 'Epyx Corporation', unexpectedly canceled all work on game ports to focus on the upcoming Atari Lynx.
Feeling out of work, Romero did some artwork for the game 'Dark Castle' and, together with his friend Lane Roathe, founded the next company, 'Ideas from the Deep', which worked on the game 'Zappa Roids' for Apple II, PC, and Apple IIGS platforms. In March 1989, Romero moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, and became a programmer at 'Softdisk'. After a few months, he switched to the computer games division, where he hired John Carmack and Tom Hall. In February 1991, the trio, along with several other developers, left 'Softdisk' and founded the famous game company 'id Software', which revolutionized the gaming world with the release of legendary shooters over the past fifteen years.
Later Career
Romero worked at 'id Software' from 1991 to 1996 and contributed to the creation of 'Commander Keen', 'Wolfenstein 3D', 'Doom', 'Doom II', 'Quake', 'Heretic', and 'Hexen'. He then became one of the founders of 'Ion Storm Inc.' in Dallas, Texas, where he worked on the highly anticipated game 'Daikatana', which unfortunately turned out to be a complete failure. Since then, he has moved between several companies, and currently, it is rumored that he is working on a top-secret grand project.
Personal Life
From 1999 to 2003, Romero had a relationship with Stevie Case, a well-known personality in the gaming industry. Stevie, also known as KillCreek, gained fame as one of the first successful female players in first-person shooters and even defeated Romero in a 'Quake' deathmatch. After their breakup in early 2003, Case became the CEO of 'Monkeystone Games'. In January 2004, Romero married Raluca Alexandra Pleșca, a native of Bucharest, Romania. He has two children, Michael and Steven Patrick Romero, from his first ex-wife, Kelly Mitchell, and a daughter named Lillia Antoinette Romero from his second ex-wife, Elizabeth McCall. He met his first wife while working at a 'Burger King' restaurant in Rocklin, California, and his second wife was his colleague at 'Softdisk'. Currently, John is in a relationship with Brenda Brathwaite, a renowned game designer and developer.
