Scan barcode
Reviews
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner
stvmln's review against another edition
funny
informative
fast-paced
3.0
You already know the story, but Kushner still tells it very well.
dalefu's review against another edition
5.0
A great insight into how the iconic games of my youth came to be. I remember when I was young, my uncle was living with us, renting a room in the basement. I was getting into computers, playing the free Shareware copy of Commander Keen on the family pc, and making levels in a game called Jetpack. My uncle was also into computers, and one day he told my brother and I check out the new game he just got. It was Doom. We all huddled around his CRT monitor with the lights off and his speakers turned up high. The growls of the demons was scary but exhilarating for me at 12 years old. When I was double that age I got into the games industry myself, which I've been in ever since.
Listening to tales of the industry in the early days is a mixed bag. It sounds like it was a the wild west, for better or worse. You could be an outsider, a rebel, but if you had the talent and commitment, the sky was the limit. But forget work/life balance, forget any kind of industry protections. Crunch and office politics were the norm. Overall, I'm certainly glad the industry has legitimized since then.
A great read, especially for anyone with fond memories of the early days of PC gaming.
Listening to tales of the industry in the early days is a mixed bag. It sounds like it was a the wild west, for better or worse. You could be an outsider, a rebel, but if you had the talent and commitment, the sky was the limit. But forget work/life balance, forget any kind of industry protections. Crunch and office politics were the norm. Overall, I'm certainly glad the industry has legitimized since then.
A great read, especially for anyone with fond memories of the early days of PC gaming.
ccollard58's review against another edition
3.0
I both love and hate this book. Not the author's fault, it's extremely well written with great details.
I guess any really well documented history is this way. both the wonderful and the grungy ugliness are on full display.
Masters of Doom made me nostalgic about discovering computers and games in the early 80s as well as the wonderful wild-west environment and camaraderie of working at start-up companies in the 90s. The combination of the two: after-work LAN parties playing doom, quake, MOHAA with the guys from our little freelance software development company are some of my favorite memories.
The later chapters though reminded me of the ugliness of those companies: the brutal work schedule, the petty personal feuds that ended in shouting matches, firings, quittings and breakups of entire companies.
so i guess i would give the first half of the book 6 stars and the last half one star, not because it's bad, but because it made me depressed :(
I guess any really well documented history is this way. both the wonderful and the grungy ugliness are on full display.
Masters of Doom made me nostalgic about discovering computers and games in the early 80s as well as the wonderful wild-west environment and camaraderie of working at start-up companies in the 90s. The combination of the two: after-work LAN parties playing doom, quake, MOHAA with the guys from our little freelance software development company are some of my favorite memories.
The later chapters though reminded me of the ugliness of those companies: the brutal work schedule, the petty personal feuds that ended in shouting matches, firings, quittings and breakups of entire companies.
so i guess i would give the first half of the book 6 stars and the last half one star, not because it's bad, but because it made me depressed :(
drguildo's review against another edition
4.0
Interesting and inspiring. Anyone into video games and their development should enjoy this, especially if they were around during the 90s.