You may not know his name, but you’ve played his games. Jerry O’Flaherty made his name as Gears of War‘s Art Director. He also co-founded Ion Storm and worked on Daikatana. Next up, a movie! More »
Game designer John Romero and John Romero’s hair ruled the roost during the 1990s. With titles like Doom and Quake, he not only helped popularise the first-person shooter, he defined it. Then the unthinkable happened. He made Daikatana. More »
Been a while since a game really worth playing (beyond Super Baseball 2020) turned up on Gametap’s free-to-play service, so it’s nice to be able to report on one. Deus Ex. Starting next week, anyone who downloads Gametap’s launcher program can enjoy the game without paying a cent. There’s worse ways to get hold of one of the best PC games of all time. Like, you know. Paying for it.
Deus Ex Coming to GameTap’s Free Game Roster Next Week [Shacknews]
It would seem that the ghost of Ion Storm hasn’t quite faded into the night, as two of its more prominent employees, John “Suck It Down” Romero, also formerly of id, and Mike Wilson, now at Gamecock, are engaged in a nasty war of words. Romero posted on his personal blog this week that Wilson was up to his usual “jackass stunts” and recalled his former co-worker’s time at Gathering of Developers/GodGames “where he pretty much just partied all the time and after the whole thing got reined in by Take 2 he went underground for a while, waiting for his next victim/investor so he could go hogwild all over again.”
In the same post, Romero also placed part of the blame on Wilson for the laughable “John Romero’s About To Make You His Bitch” print ads that ran prior to the release of the ill-fated shooter Daikatana.
Wilson responds in an open letter to Romero, sent to Kotaku, that he will “not allow you to rewrite the history of it all, more to your liking and to my public detriment, and I will in no way take the rap for what you did (or didn’t do) with your dream company”, going on to defend his character and refute certain claims.
It gets particularly nasty near the end of the letter, when Wilson says to Romero “your unparalleled work ethic and strong character has [...]left only a bloody trail of ex-wives, fatherless kids, and ill advised breast implants strewn across this fair nation.” Insert stunned silence here, then continue for the full “Dear John” letter.
Doom co-creator John Romero and Gamecock’s Mike Wilson go way back. Before he founded Gamecock, Mike Wilson was the CEO of Ion Storm, a company Romero founded. In less than a year, he was pushed out. (The company churned out the acclaimed Deus Ex and the not-so acclaimed Daikatana.) But Wilson’s gone on to set up Gamecock, which he describes as an “independent film company for small developers.” After reading the Gamecock’s release schedule right here on Kotaku, Romero blogged this about his former colleague:
I got a chuckle out of reading the reader’s comments on the article. People are now starting to get a clue about how Mr. Wilson operates. Hey everyone, he hasn’t changed in over 10 years — these are the kinds of jackass stunts he pulled at Ion Storm with Daikatana. Remember the bitch ad? Yeah. He also ran ads (“image ads”) that just had pictures of Ion Storm founders, himself and our COO. That was just the beginning of his madness.
It got much worse at Godgames where he pretty much just partied all the time and after the whole thing got reined in by Take 2 he went underground for a while, waiting for his next victim/investor so he could go hogwild all over again. And thus was born Gamecock.
Bitter, John? Perhaps you have every right to be… Gamecock Release Schedule [planet rome.ro Thanks, Witz!]
