Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

gmmeyer

It's a bit hagiographic, but it's overall a very good book.

View on HN

I had to look that one up.

hagiography (webster):

1 : biography of saints or venerated persons

2 : idealizing or idolizing biography

Yep, he's right

It is? I thought Romero sounded like a nutcase!

If him blasting music and destroying things with various weapons while devs were trying to code and running ads telling customers he was "about to make you his bitch" was a hagiographic gloss, then reality must have been truly dark.

I think the "bitch" part was later, when his own company was developing "Daikatana", which was a famous disaster. Maybe he was more reasonable earlier on.

That advertising campaign wasn't Romero's idea; it was the idea of someone else at Ion Storm. Romero was initially a bit hesitant on the slogan but caved to pressure.

At least that was how it was presented in (iirc) Masters of Doom, who knows what the actual truth is.

Ah, good to know. It's been a couple of years since I read the book and I may also have misremembered something about the ad. I definitely had the impression that the guy would have been a very difficult coworker, boss or roommate, and he was all three for parts of the team at various times!

Romero hated that ad. Some weasley manager pressured him into running it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com