Launched 1993. By April 1999 ID has sold 5.5m copies of Doom and Quake

Marketing model:

The Drug dealer model – the first hit is free.

By releasing chunks of games as shareware ID marketing strategy turned every player into a potential distributor.

Development model –

ID – independently owned – i.e. not constrained by the demands of larger conglomerate – permitted a large degree of flexibility.

Skunkworks –

Focus of the software lay in the graphics engines – for a 3-D game the ideal engine is one that allows players to speed through solidly built virtual worlds,

Doom entirely about motion

Quake less of a trade-off between speed and graphic quality – so much so that Quake was mooted for a period as the practical realisation of cyberspace.

Development not be limited to ID itself – sharing code is a fundamental element of Doom’s success.

Unexpected outcomes - Feb 1996 id released three levels of Quake on the Internet to allow gamers to check for bugs in networked play. Two days later, hackers had discovered not only the bugs but also provided patches to fix them.

US Marine Corps Modelling and Simulation Management Office (McMismo)

Doom thoughts:

First person perspective – stress on subjectivity but also on seeing as the key to mastery. Doom is ultimately not about destroying everything that moves but about seeing everything.

Doom is a simulation

Doom is about not mastery but the simulation of mastery

Doom is about rapid movement/speed

Doom is about control

Doom is about interaction

Doom is about simplicity