Mr. dchase will no longer be joining us.
Thank you sir
Honing in on Carmack of all people was singularly weird.
Not only weird, but unfortunate (for him) with me "in the room".
I was heavily into the whole early FPS scene. As a top player (trophies!) and unofficial content developer. Most of that time was many years *before* 1996. Hell, I was modding Wolfenstein levels and distributing even before Doom came out.
I've got more to say.
I never got a red cent for any of my development work - it was like that, I never expected anything - but you could buy CDs with *my* content down at the local computer shop! Was distributed with a "free to use, no sell" licence, so WTF??
Better get a lawyer son. You're gunna need a good one, to get you outta this one! Maybe not.
I get that Carmack's work makes him like a gaming god to some younger noobs. That idolation ignores the facts that he had a big team around him (lot bigger than he had with Doom, more $$ too), made up of some very talented and creative people. I'm happy for his success and sports cars. Truly.
However, there was also an unpaid community that contributed to almost everything, raising the bars, doing new things, making it possible for Quake. And games to come.
You can read all the books you want, is not the same as lived experience.
I ended up leaving that whole scene. possible career, in about 1997 (got bored, no real rewards, broke up with fiancee (too much gaming), she got the computer (too slow anyway), I got the washing machine
).
Life was lived pay-to-pay back then.
Ironically that FPS background (and a few other things) eventually helped me step into a nice me-sized government IT innovation and industry development policy job, which I always really wanted anyway. I'm an economist (and other things) as well as a geek. I became a spanner inside the machine. Never mentioned it to you lovely people (Govt work, secrets, don't talk, hurr).
Many years later, enough years have passed. Feel free and happy to say that I've leveraged my experiences to do a lot of great early work on promoting/developing online collaborative communities. In small and big ways, some of them countable, many people have benefited. I have BYOAC to thank for much inspiration. Oh, and I got some meagre retirement benefits after many years. So thanks guys.
Guess it all worked out somehow then. Even so, no Ferrari
I could go on, but better stop here