From his early days coding games on the Apple IIe to the global phenomena of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake, Romero has made a massive contribution to the games industry - many consider him to be the father of the deathmatch. He formed id Software in 1991, along with John and Adrian Carmack, and by May 1992 they shook the PC gaming world to its very foundations with the release of Wolfenstein 3D. The game's real-time 3D environment and violent content captured the public's imagination and helped shape the direction of the computer games industry. Over the next five years, id Software continued to up the ante with Doom, Doom II and Quake, each time pushing minimum hardware specifications up. In fact, if it weren't for id we'd probably still be using the humble 486!

Romero quit id Software in 1996 to form his own company, Ion Storm, citing a change from first-person shooters as his reason for such a bold step. Ironically, we're still waiting for Ion Storm's first game, Daikatana, a multiplayer first-person shooter. It'll be interesting to see how this shapes up alongside Carmack's Quake 3 Arena.

Contrary to web-based rumours circa 1998, John Romero is alive and well. It was believed that he had died from a gunshot wound to the head, although it turned out to be a different John Romero. Chances are that it was just a twisted publicity stunt.