ION Storm History

Well here it is yet another article about Ion Romero Daikatana etc etc. Kinda missed them when all the shouting died down =).

Isn't anyone going to post about robotic frogs?? Please??

Quite sad to read - but not as informative as the piece by John Romero himself a year or so ago which had a lot more detail about what went wrong (including the weird story about the arrow texture).

The guy also forgets to mention that the final game wasn't very good.

Still bashing romero eh? when will it end - poor guy.

here's another article worth reading
http://www.gamespot.com/features/btg-daikatana/index.html
actually, that was published quite a while ago. while still casting romero in a sympathetic light, it is much more accurate and insight-ful.
while you're at it u also might wanna check out:
http://www.gamespot.com/features/btg-tri/index.html
can anyone see the similarities here?
the second article also explains why virgin were the only publisher not interested in funding ion storm.

Unfortunately Romero will always be in the gunsights of some hardcore PC gamers, so I don't find it surprising that some people are still spewing their negativity on the subject. If one stands back and looks at what Romero is doing now and why he is doing it, it sort of all makes sense, and I wish him luck in serving a different audience.

Well just to repeat what I posted on Slashdot:

A few corrections to the article:

"But the Romero-Carmack collaboration didn't last -- after the release of Quake 2, John Romero left id."

Romero was let go from id, it wasn't voluntary.

"Todd Porter also came onboard with his strategy game Dominion"

Ion bought dominion from another company, got it semi working and sold it to burn up one of their game commitments they had to Eidos, even they knew it was shit. This is all very clear in the leaked emails.

"Daikatana and Deus Ex were finally released in 2000. Both made money for Eidos"

JohnC already mentioned this but Daikatana brought in far less then what was spent on making it.

I still like the parts I've played of it. It's interesting to see the bandwagoners still thrive on this. Then again, maybe I shouldn't be suprised.

PCXL makes endless fun of Daikatana, John Romero and the entire company of Ion Storm without having ever met or had any contact with any of them [besides killcreek] from issue #1.

PCXL goes out of business.

Karma?

AAARG Article is too long! I don't care enough to get through the boring introduction!

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TEH SUCK!

"There were still good lessons to be learned. The assault on Ion was somewhat understandable given its unfulfilled promise, yet unreasonable because it was still a noble experiment. Amid the cyber-cackles from little boys who only wish they had the chance to work there, it's important for me to acknowledge what was actually great about being in that dimly lit tower."

Umm.. yeah, I wouldn't mind working there, but it wasn't because they made kickass games. It was because they had a sweet office, loads of junkfood, a THX certified theatre, and judging by the development time for that turd this guy helped write, called Daikatana, no real agenda to get anything done. I understand the salarys were nice too.

This guy is obviously not an unbiased writer, he worked there. John Romero didn't get beat like a red headed step child because of his ideals. He got flamed like a blunt at a rastafarian concert because of what he said and did to make his ego more public than the games he was working on. (Paid advertising that actually said "John Romero is going to make you his bitch." a year and a half before a game ships, and with no screenshots in the ad. Nice.) He was under the impression that he held real celebrity. In a trivial manner of speaking, he did. His Shitbagkatana pretty much struck Deus Ex and Anachronox with a stigma that no doubt wounded sales one way or another, despite Deus Ex's impressive-enough sales.

Keep in mind, that to most of us id fanboys, John Romero was the equivalent to Todd McFarlane to Spawn fans. He had to work REALLY hard to screw that up. A faked death, endless excess and bad planning, endless boasting, (even after his crappy game landed on shelves with a "kerplop" normally reserved for poop hitting the water in the toilet) blatantly admitting to buying a compnay (7th Level) and it's game (Dominion) to burn an option with Eidos on their contract when he knew the game was a turd, saying he'd get mobbed by women in Japan, hiring a real jackass of a CEO for the first couple of years, lots of boasting, and stealing money chasing girlfriends away from other guys in the business who didn't have the mad stupid advance cash, and then bragging that sleeping with her is like having sex with a supermodel is more ammo than the gaming rags and messageboards need to lambaste him for the rest of his career. Oh yeah, and now he's making games for PDAs and bragging about a game that's a cross between Rollercoaster Tycoon, Sin, and Age of Empires.

There is your Ion Storm Post Mortem.

For those feeling sorry for John Romero, I'm sorry, but he earned it.

ION who?

Interesting article. Rather objective ... I guess I feel a little sorry for all the people involved in the Ion Dallas mess.

Self created mess or not, their intentions were noble.

Summary: We came, we saw, we sucked.

(and in the middle somewhere we pissed away a few million on unnecessary building renovations and hair care products)

Les ZEEEEEERRRRROOOOOOOO