id Goofs The Rockstar Years
id Goofs – The Rockstar Years collects some of the funniest, most memorable, and downright legendary moments from id Software’s rise during the 1990s.
While the team behind DOOM and Quake were reshaping the gaming industry, they were also living the wild creative life that came with sudden fame, money, and freedom.
The DOOM Mansion
After the massive success of DOOM, the core team upgraded their workspace to a building that fans nicknamed The DOOM Mansion.
Inside were loud metal albums, glowing monitors, and a fridge full of caffeinated drinks.
John Romero decorated his office with posters, guitars, and arcade machines.
John Carmack filled his with stacks of hardware and code printouts.
It was a mix of chaos and genius under one roof.
The Ferrari Outside
Right outside the building, parked under the Texas sun, sat John Carmack’s Ferrari.
It became an instant symbol of id’s success.
It was like a trophy, proof that coding could make you a millionaire, one visitor recalled.
Carmack often used the car for quick drives after long coding sessions, treating it as both an engineering marvel and a mechanical curiosity.
The License Plate
John Romero’s car famously had the license plate “LEVELORD”, a nod to his level-design fame and sense of humor.
Another id employee jokingly tried to order “GODMODE”, but it was already taken.
Romero later admitted he enjoyed the myth that the id team lived like rockstars—“We kind of did, at least for a while.”
LAN Nights
Evenings often turned into full-blown DOOM or Quake deathmatches inside the office.
Cables ran across desks, shouts echoed through hallways, and the developers tested each other’s maps in real time.
It was part work, part war, as one tester described it.
Pranks and Late Nights
The team was infamous for pranks.
A developer once replaced someone’s game textures with cartoon faces, and another filled Romero’s office with empty soda cans.
It was creative energy turned chaotic fun.
Tom Hall later joked that id’s creativity came from “equal parts caffeine and madness.”
Fame and Fortune
As DOOM spread worldwide, id Software found themselves in the spotlight.
Magazines compared them to rock bands, and fans treated Carmack and Romero like celebrities.
Romero leaned into the fame, doing interviews with long hair and sunglasses, while Carmack remained calm and focused on code.
Their dynamic became gaming’s version of Lennon and McCartney.
Reflections
Looking back, the team has mixed feelings about the era.
Carmack described it as “fun, but unsustainable.”
Romero said those years were “the best time of my life, the birth of something incredible.”
The rockstar years of id Software captured a rare moment when raw creativity, new technology, and youth collided to change gaming forever.