Pray you never have to hear John Romero wish you well. The legendary Doom designer has been politely – but brutally – correcting the record on video game history for years, and this time he's here to tell us all about the reality of computer game piracy. The short version? He'd prefer that you paid developers for their games, but piracy didn't kill the beloved studios of the '90s.
Earlier this week, Sandy Petersen – another id Software veteran who worked on the original Doom – asserted on Twitter that "70-90% of Doom's players pirated it," arguing that, without the resulting lost sales, "We would literally have had so much more for our workspace and upcoming projects." If those pirates had instead purchased the game, "Quake may not have gutted id Software." He concludes that "Damn pirates are the guys who killed game companies. like Atari, Amiga, Cinemaware, 3D Realms (Duke Nukem!)"
