John Romero
Alfonso John Romero (born October 28, 1967) is a famous figure in the computer gaming industry. He worked for id Software from its founding in 1991 until 1996 and was involved in the creation of several milestone games including Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, DOOM II (in which Romero also appeared as the end game boss) and Quake, as well as serving as an executive producer on Heretic and Hexen.
Romero later co-founded Ion Storm Inc. in Dallas, Texas with id co-worker Tom Hall, where he designed and produced Daikatana. The game's critical panning damaged Romero's reputation, who received popular blame for questionable development decisions worsened by his name being hyped in the game's early marketing. In particular, an infamous 1997 ad (by Ion's then-CEO Mike Wilson) with the slogan "John Romero's About To Make You His Bitch" upset many people. Romero left with Tom Hall immediately after the release of Hall's Anachronox game and the subsequent closing of the Dallas Ion office. They then co-founded Monkeystone Games in July of 2001.
Between 1999 and 2003, Romero was involved with Stevie Case, a prominent female gaming industry figure who beat him in a Quake deathmatch. Until their breakup in early 2003, Case was the COO of Monkeystone Games. In mid October of 2003, Romero joined the team at Midway Games as Project Lead on the next game in the Gauntlet series. While he continues to maintain his working relationship with Monkeystone, Lucas Davis now runs the office.
In January 2004 he married Raluca Alexandra of Romania in her home country and hometown of Bucharest.
