So you're talking about the heady days of being at id. You made a transition -- perhaps for better or for worse -- going on to Ion Storm. You had some interesting experiences there.

MW: I mean it was only a year for me. I wasn't in as long as the rest of those guys! But I mean, yeah, I left id, I think I was the first person ever -- and maybe the last ever -- to leave id of my own choice. Because why would you? We shipped Quake 1, got it out the door, did a better deal for retail distribution, all that stuff... But now what are we looking at? Quake 2.

That's going to take a couple years. It wasn't hard to see what would come after that. It wasn't my company; I wasn't going to own any part of it, and I was basically going to be sitting there waiting for a couple of years, to hype a very similar game to the one I just spent the year hyping.

I left when John left. You know, he was -- John Romero is a very passionate guy, and all the wacky things that I wanted to do at id, he was always behind. And he just had a lot more open mind, and a risky nature to his personality. So we were a good match together. And, you know, it was like: "OK, stay here and do the same thing, and draw a fat check, and learn nothing. Or, let's go where I'm actually going to be one of the founders and principals of this business -- and it's far from a slam dunk, but it's bold and experimental, and we're going to have fun." And I gotta tell you, that first six months of that year were some of the most fun times I've ever had in the business.

We believed in what we were doing, and my job was to make sure that, you know: with John leaving id, everybody was waiting for John's next game. They believed in John, like I did. We were the "it" story for that year; which was fun. Even though John had left id, you know, that everybody still realized that he was one of the main guys behind Doom, and all that stuff.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of other complications to that deal, which included partners that I did not know. At all. Some of which turned out to be not such good guys to be partnered with. The second six months was when the rat started to stink, and we had brought all these young people in, from all over the country -- and internationally, as well. Really talented people, that could not wait to work with John Romero. And, you know, the whole, what we were building; the sort-of "Developer Utopia," "Design is Law."

You know, it was the same thing: we controlled our IP, we were going to be branded. It was all the right ideas, but maybe not so much with the right partners. But, you know, I learned more in that year than -- like, I will never forget a single month of 1997. And how many years of your life can you really say that about, you know? I remember all of it. And even the really horrible parts, like when I was fighting to try to save the company, and for all those people that had come to work there, and I ended up losing that fight. And Ion Storm, in a larger sense, ended up losing that fight when I did, because it was like, once there was no one there left to fight, the sort of bad side of the company took control, and it was an inevitable downward spiral that everybody there felt, but felt powerless to stop.

Anyway, I learned a lot about human nature that year. I think everybody that was there did, you know? And unfortunately a lot of people were stuck there for a couple of years -- sort of bad morale situation. But they all learned valuable stuff, and they all landed in good places, and did great work in a great work environment -- if you take the press side out of it -- for as long as it lasted. And, you know, there, one of the last things that we did before I left was bring Warren Spector into the fold, right from Looking Glass. And he was in danger of losing his team, because we brung him in -- we BRUNG 'IM. 'Cuz we brung 'im in t'Eye-On Sto'erm, he wuz able t'keep'is team'gether, an' make a li'l game call Deus Ex.

Deus Ex. That all worked out pretty well. So. No regrets, and you know, and if things didn't suck so bad there, I probably would've hung out a little too long, and not started GodGames when I did. It was always in the plan when we went to Ion Storm. That was what I went for: was to start up our own publishing company. But it was clear that that was not the place to do it. So, I'm glad it sucked! Because it was really good timing, in the industry, to start a first sorta independent-minded publisher.