John Carmack on John Romero | Lex Fridman Podcast Clips

Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:

GUEST BIO:
John Carmack is a legendary programmer, co-founder of id Software, and lead programmer of many revolutionary video games including Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and the Commander Keen series. He is also the founder of Armadillo Aerospace, and for many years the CTO of Oculus VR.

PODCAST INFO:

SOCIAL:

[bjorntrollowsky]

Carmack and Romero were like yin and yang for the games iD created, once they went on separate ways Carmack's games became little more than advanced tech demos for his new engines while Romero's games failed because of the missing technical innovations and quality. After the separation iD games lacked that magic that was the product of their collaboration. On a positive note: that separation resulted indirectly the creation of one of the greatest games of all times: Deus Ex

[GrkaMrka]

The pairing of Carmack and Romero has always struck me as a great example of left brain and right brain coming together to complement each others strengths. One gives form and function, the other gives color and creativity.

[juanlin]

Carmack has said he’s not one to look into the past, but during this interview and especially this segment, the feelings of nostalgia were palpable. He’s also much less harsh with words. I like how much he’s grown.

[synthguy]

John Carmack might have been the genius who worked tirelessly to meticulously create and code revolutionary game engines. The engines he created were so advanced, especially when compared to anything else during the '90s, that some of the Quake Engine's DNA still resides in modern engines even after 25 years. However, it was the team around him, the likes of Sandy Peterson, American McGee, and especially John Romero that gave John Carmack a purpose.

[thenothing]

I love to see Lex pull the positives out of people. I never thought I’d hear Carmack singing Romero’s praises.
So fantastic.

[mrscruffles]

One person who really doesn't get enough credit is Tom Hall. He proposed for things like teleporters and secrets, which defined classic fps framework

[papytromblon]

When you see Carmack, you see the perfection in code and the perfect optimisation.
But if you play "knee deep in the dead", you know you need romero's Work for the Work of Carmack to shine

[Retrofun]

You can see he has had so much growth thanks to these experiences with Romero. Sometimes people need space and time to heal.

[mcgibs]

I was listening to Romero's autobiography and while he tries to stay as gracious as possible, you can still hear the frustration in his voice when he talks about their falling out. The very same frustration you can hear in Carmack's voice as well. They really are like old exes trying to stay on good terms. The current status quo the two have going on is friendly enough, but I'd be willing to bet if you somehow got them on the same project again, all the old disagreements are going to come right back like it was yesterday.

[MegaTerryNutkins]

Carmack always seems to overlook the creative workload involved in level and art design. There's a reason the first two Doom games and Quake 1 still hold up so well long after the technical prowess behind the engine has been surpassed, there's a tremendous amount of work put into making those games fun to play and that's something Carmack could never capture himself despite his coding brilliance.

the first 2 IdTech engines were groundbreaking in terms of technical acheivements but the Id games that showcased them also wrote the book on FPS design.

[cohibadad]

Carmack is a legendary programmer. I remember when he came out with the 3DFX driver for Quake like overnight. It’s great to see how he owns his mistakes and has grown as a human being. Much love always John! We all still benefit from your genius.

[spanky]

Both of those gentlemen are hero’s of my childhood!
To hear Carmack sitting down with Lex is a treat.
Your podcast keeps getting better and better Lex!

Cheers!

[MegatronYES]

This happens to a lot of us men, but holy shit what a powerful example Carmack is of someone “growing into their looks”

[roguestargun]

Eidos produced one of the best PC games ever made. Unfortunately for John Romero, it most definitely was not Daikatana, lol

[HillcrestGames]

A little after 7:00 he mentions that John Romero asked him to collaborate.
That would be such an unbelievably huge headline if he agreed. That would be like Paul McCartney and Ringo announcing a new album.

[jonathanr]

ID Software felt somewhat soulless to me after Romero left. Technically they were still great, but they lost a lot of the feel and atmosphere that made ID games so good, something Romero contributed to immensely.

On the other side, Romero with Daikatana was too ambitious with game design and didn't have the structure and restraint to release a functional game based on those ambitions.

Both are legends for what they've done for PC gaming overall and together, they were pretty much unstoppable.

[Colspex]

3:57 Thank you for this question!! So important to ask it and to bring up the positiveness of their collaboration. Carmack and Romero are just a wonderful duo that made magic. The Softdisk days are legendary!

[jamesaitchison]

The FPS Genre would be in a different place if Carmack and Romero never worked their magic together.
Their FPS Games not only built the Genre as we know it, but they clearly defined the rules and built it from the ground up.

Personally i don't know any Gamer my age (40's) that hasn't played DOOM.

[jokkerBANG]

One man engineering a solution and the other creating inspiration and art. Unfortunately neither knew anything about managing people. If only we could all learn from this wisdom in our careers and in family at a young age. There’s always some compromise to be made.

[powdercowboy]

Jon Carmack might be the brains behind games like doom....but Jon Romero is the heart and soul of those games