/vr/ - Retro Games

It wasn’t a popular way to rule. With the exception of Romero, the only other hacker-minded programmer at id, Carmack’s generosity caused much consternation at the company–especially among the more conservative minded businessmen, like Jay and Kevin. “This is a crazy idea,” Kevin said. “No one’s ever given away their tools to make new content. And we have to worry about legal questions. What if someone takes our content and combines it with their product and releases it? What if someone takes all the content that’s developed on the Internet and sells it on the shelf and suddenly we’re competing with our own product?”

Carmack rolled his eyes. They didn’t get this at all, he thought, because they weren’t programmers so they didn’t get the hacker joy of it. They weren’t really gamers either. They weren’t part of the gaming community that was growing up there. To Carmack’s appreciation, Romero came loudly to his defense. “Dudes,” Romero told the others, “we’re not going to lose that much money. We’re making a ton of money right now. Big deal. Who cares?”

Masters of Doom pages 134-135