In 1996, John Romero, the co-founder of id Software and designer of hyperfast death metal shooters Doom and Quake, leveraged his success to start a company. At Ion Storm, he and Tom Hall, a friend and fellow id alum, could make whatever games they wanted, with complete creative freedom, and the resources to match their ambition. Romero, already a games celebrity from his time at id, played the swaggering frontman to the hilt and to a fault. Ion Storm's
most infamous advertisement was a one-pager that read: "John Romero's about to make you his bitch. Suck it down." The result was the notorious, humbling disaster of Daikatana. Romero has mellowed out in the years since, and this has a lot to do with why. Ion Storm is the story of Romero's unmaking.