John Romero, the co-creator of DOOM, has shared his thoughts on piracy in the games industry, saying that the history of DOOM's distribution is more complicated than it might seem. The statement came after Sandy Petersen, a game designer who also worked on DOOM, wrote that 70-90% of DOOM's players pirated the game, also arguing that piracy contributed to the downfall of companies like Atari, 3D Realms, and Cinemaware.

Romero said that DOOM is not a straightforward example, since its first episode was intentionally free to distribute. "DOOM's first episode was designed to be freely copied, passed around, uploaded, installed, and played," he wrote, noting that the game's 20 million shareware installs were not the same as piracy but part of how the game reached the world.

He also disputed claims that piracy "gutted" id Software, pointing out that the studio is still around and still making games. At the same time, Romero was clear: "Pay developers. Buy the games you love. Support the people who make them." Romero also made an interesting point about letting people access a game for free: "Sometimes the same free distribution that looked like lost sales was also the thing that made the game impossible to ignore."

This is not the first time the two designers have found themselves on opposite sides of a debate. Sandy Petersen once called Doom II "a quickie cash grab," claiming it was made "to use some assets from the first game and give the designers something to do while Quake was being built." Romero disagreed, saying that Doom II followed a long pattern of id Software's development and was a retail sequel, adding that the studio didn’t start working on Quake until after the release of Doom II.

The debate around piracy in the games industry is far from new, and studios choose different ways of addressing it. For instance, Noodlecake Studios added an unbeatable Daft Punk-inspired boss to their game specifically for pirates, after discovering that 89% of their previous game's installs were pirated, while others have turned to DRM software like Denuvo. Interestingly, the release of Hollow Knight: Silksong showed a different side of the story – even pirates chose to buy the game, probably because of the accessible price, the developer's favorable attitude, and the availability of a DRM-free version, which aligns with Romero's broader point about distribution strategies sometimes working in a game's favor.

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