Insightful, exciting and a cautionary tale

I clearly remember the first time I had laid my fingers on the keyboard of a computer — the year was 1989 and I had accompanied my father to his office in a military base in Kochi. As an eight-year-old, I had only read about these superfast computing devices in magazines and seen their prototypes in films. So, I was exhilarated by the notion of finally getting to see these machines up close in action.

Of course, the first thing I did was sample the video games, namely Space-Invaders and Breakout , in their blocky, 256-colour, pixilated glory. My idea of a computer had been defined then and there… these were devices you could play on, and on, and on.

Spectacular 90s

Decades before Rovio’s phenomenal Angry Birds became the sole reason for iPads being sold in the millions; eons before Facebookers found themselves being flooded with requests for Candy Crush ; and a long time before “apps” as we know them today occupied the collective subconscious of the youth, there was the golden age of video games — the spectacular 1990s.

Installed on PCs, boasting a millionth of the processing power available on an ordinary smartphone, these were virtual entertainment programmes that defined the evolution of modern computing today.

Fantastic duo

And the two names that are most synonymous with that decadent decade of anarchist, ballsy programming, or more specifically, computer-game programming, are John Carmack and John Romero, the founding fathers of ID software, a company based out of Mesquite, Texas, the Mecca of supercharged computer games.

The Two Johns, as they are known in the video game industry, were part of a company responsible for churning out some of the biggest selling 3D FPSs or first person shooters in the history of gaming — Wolfenstein 3d, Hexen, Doom 1, 2 and 3, Quake 1, 2 and Quake 3 Arena .

And it’s their brilliant story that finds its well-deserved place in Masters of Doom . It’s a swashbuckling expose of the kind of entrepreneurship favoured in America. Two nerds at the top of their class in high school, finding themselves drawn to the then-mysterious world of side-scrolling video games, a la Pacman , Pong , Nintendo’s Super Mario and Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog .

Socially awkward and at times, plain notorious, the Two Johns, who are referred to as the Lennon and McCartney of the video gaming industry, were among the first to realise the potential of 3D in rendering virtual entertainment worlds.

The story

The story of their beginnings, their ascent and their subsequent rivalry forms the lifeblood of Masters of Doom . What makes the book such a delightful read is author David Kushner’s painstakingly researched chronicling of these two misfits, delivered in crisp, nail-biting prose. Kushner manages to humanise the minds behind the technology, lending the trials and tribulations of the protagonists, a universal appeal.

For those of you who have never played a computer game, this book might come as a business primer, and a whodunit of sorts into the psyches of what drives this multi-billion dollar industry and the kind of people and the determination it takes to make a product fly in the faces of its critics.

It might also offer an insight into the primal appeal and addictive nature of the games themselves and how they have gone on to transform the way youngsters consume entertainments of all kinds.

For fans of computer games, the book reads like a fevered dream, setting into motion spasms of excitement as you witness the programming leaps that turns 2D into 3D, static imagery into fully immersive three-dimensional spaces and of course, the rock fandom that comes in its wake.

It’s also a cautionary tale on some level, warning us that even unfettered imagination comes at its own price. So go ahead, grab a copy and make a happy meal of it this weekend.