John Romero on Daikatana "Bitch" Advertisement

Some of you may remember this:

http://www.jaylittle.com/jaylittle/downloads/daikatana.mp3

There's an underlying reason why Romero's advertisement was mocked: The world had simply moved on. Nerd reasoning follows.

Look, most of you could probably flesh this out by pointing out your own examples, but in the 90's, there was a whole grungy, look-at-the-maggots-of-life kind of movement going on. Grim and gritty, they called it. Suddenly, Image Comics, with all the laughable artwork and ultra-violent storylines, was the norm. It wasn't a Supreme story unless someone's intestines were on the floor, with their eyes poked out as they screamed in agony, by page 18. I believe someone more succinct called it the "GRUNT! RAGE! FUCK!" era of comics.

Follow me now, because it's about to tie in. As a culture, we all just... got sick of this stuff. There were signs everywhere that we'd reached our limit. In nerdlore, one of the seminal signs was the DC comic book series Kingdom Come. I am sure there are other cultural events, but basically, Kingdom Come restored the heroic nature of the genre, got rid of all the god damned bandoliers and other horse shit, did away with the retardedly big guns, and stopped with the erupting digestive tracts. It was a repudiation of the "Grim, Gritty" period of comics.

Around the same time, the rest of the nerd world lightened up, too. Suddenly, EXTREME!!! intonations of making someone your bitch, seemed dated. Daikatana probably would have done well 5 years earlier.

It was just too late for something like this to be cool. 5 years earlier and the same people (5 years younger, of course) would say "HOLY SHIT THE DOOM GUY'S GOING TO MAKE PEOPLE HIS BITCHES". Instead, he got mockery.

Look. I didn't say this would be a brilliant post, but someone help me out here. There are plenty of other examples that by 2002 we were just done with something as trite as Daikatana's storyline, attitude, and feel. That doesn't mean it didn't have its charms. It just felt... 90's.

To this day I never understood why so many folks got so up in arms over this. It's absolutely obvious in which context the ad was meant to be taken in. Yes, Romero could be an egotistical dick etc but, christ, people really need to get ahold of themselves.

Wow, slow news day or what? Digging up the dead are we? Get a haircut John! hehe

"Up until that ad, I felt I had a great relationship with the gamer and game development community, and that ad changed everything. That stupid ad. I regret it, and I apologize for it."

No, John. The ad didn't change anything. Daikatana itself did.

I still respect john but he didn't make anybody his bitch, Daikatana made him it's bitch instead. ION wasn't all bad though, at least we got Dues Ex and Anachronox

His ego got in the way of his Fail Meter.

Talk all the shit you want, you all know if the John's got back together to do a game the universe would explode with awesomeness. id's games have lacked soul breathed into them since he left and you can't fucking deny it.

Not even a month ago I looked a bunch of this stuff up (Romero/Ion/Daikatana/This ad) for a little blast from the past. Probably because all of this led to the best Penny Arcade strip ever...

Honestly, I remember seeing this ad and thinking it was cool.

Hmmm... Around the same time frame. Boy participates in shoot'em up contest, Girl Beats boy, Boy has to have girl who beat boy, Boy hires to girl to design levels, Girl designs levels slowly, Girl gets photo spread in playboy magazine. Sound familiar?

I guess that at the time the world was as full of Romero as he was with himself. The rest of the crew that formed their gaming company took lots of peoples money with their self-proclaimed rockstar status and blew it. Living larger than life lifestyles as computer game "artists".

He thought that just because he was a part of the whole id software thing that he was a god. "No man is an island."

Ii remember is that there was a few websites that were REALLY into bringing him down. I'm pretty sure there was some sort of personal vendettas going on at the time against him.

Daikatana MP was fun.

Having heard and read other interviews with Romero, he comes across as a very cool, very likable industry professional. I always hated that Advert too, but figured it wasn't directly from him as much as from some dumbass marketing type. Not a big deal as far as I'm concerned.

if the game was good, i doubt anyone would have given a shit about this ad imo.

Guys!!! Daykatana sucked hard. Who cares about that advertising. He is talking about it because the game was a shit and it would be great to have an excuse. I do believe the guys from id don't need him at all. I loved Quake II, Doom3 and Quake IV. They didn't need Romero there.
The bitches laways come with:
-Without Romero id guys would not do anything. He was the guy with the brillhant ideas.
I really don't think so....
Today we also have great games like Call of Duty Modern Warfare I and II. Incredible pace, story, graphics and fun. It looks you are inside a movie, part of the story.
Romero is always talking about Doom and how it was amazing. This is the past, it is gone already. What have you done to qualify you actually? Games for smartphones. Come on!!!!!
Please, talking about that shit after so many years.
What a waste of time.

He has commented on this ad so many times over the past 10 years its not news. Also I remember seeing the ad and thinking it was fucking awesome and totally looking forward to the game. It is looked back upon negatively because of all the failures prior to the game's release and then the game itself. If everything had worked out the ad would of been fine. With all of the things that went wrong at Ion Storm Dallas this is hardly even worth apologizing for.

I've finished it now. What an awesome interview. Thanks for the tip, Brian.

Well it comes of as arrogant and condescending, more than aggressive or offensive. Like this guy John Romero thinks he is so great yet he still hasn't released his game that doesn't even look good and has been delayed over and over but keeps hyping the shit out of it.

You don't want to come off so cocky when you have not proven yourself on your own at your new company.

Had the game come out and been great all would have been forgiven I am sure.

I remember buying and playing daikatana... the frogs kept attacking me, but I couldn't see them, I could hear them though. And when I finished the first level, the game consistently crashed!
I then went to their website, and they had released a patch for the US version, but an international patch took them a whole month to finish!
I never touched the game after that.. :(

i think more people were offended by the game than the ad

the game sucked -- no one would give a crap about the ads if it the game was fun

Guys!!! Daykatana sucked hard. Who cares about that advertising. He is talking about it because the game was a shit and it would be great to have an excuse. I do believe the guys from id don't need him at all. I loved Quake II, Doom3 and Quake IV. They didn't need Romero there.
The bitches laways come with:
-Without Romero id guys would not do anything. He was the guy with the brillhant ideas.
I really don't think so....
Today we also have great games like Call of Duty Modern Warfare I and II. Incredible pace, story, graphics and fun. It looks you are inside a movie, part of the story.
Romero is always talking about Doom and how it was amazing. This is the past, it is gone already. What have you done to qualify you actually? Games for smartphones. Come on!!!!!
Please, talking about that shit after so many years.
What a waste of time.

how about an apology for running ION Storm so far into the ground that Anachronox was denied a sequel after one of the best cliffhanging twists ever. the tacked on ending might be entertaining but not at all fulfilling.

I thought the ad was fine when it came out, kind of funny and different in a way. Then I played the Daikataina demo and realized that the guy who created a game with robotic, killer mosquitoes and frogs wants to make me his bitch was a little overboard. I mean .... robotic insects? I just couldn't get past that. I probably should've, based on how I hear the MP was pretty good.

I've always thought Romero was a good guy - handles himself well in interviews... comes across as a very likable designer with a lot of respect for other developers.

i love that he loves chrono trigger as much as i do.

mountains out of molehills... who cares

Memory Lane: http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/3315/

the next article is better
"Viewing narrative as something that can just be slotted
in is one of the fundamental reasons why story in games
has often garnered a reputation akin to being the weird
kid in the playground who collects gravel and smells of
ham."

ugh john romero shouldn't have had to explain himself. offended people aren't the demographic

Romero should take over for DNF.

Wasn't this news on Destructoid yesterday? Why is shack playing catch-up?

Had forgotten about it till you mentioned it... soo whats the point in this?

The issue is not that the ad was offensive.

In fact there's not an issue at all.

It's that John Romero, through the ad, was talking shit. Yes I know the ad wasn't his idea but he had the power to stop it and he didn't, so it speaks for him.

The reason he catches so much shit over the ad was because he couldn't deliver. The game did not make anyone its bitch.

So it's not that a bunch of gamers are getting their panties in a wad over this. It's that a bunch of gamers are having a good laugh at John Romero's expense because, like it or not, he went all in and lost.

In Romero's defense, the game was conceived, coded and delivered in less time than a single reboot of DNF.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy8YThhaAxg

It's fun looking back lol

I thought the ad was kinda cute, but the game just wasn't there to back it up.

Right. Let us not forget this though...

http://kotaku.com/346816/gamecock-head-tears-into-john-romero-its-getting-ugly

Oh, so THAT is what all that shit was about?

*facepalm*.