With the game nearing completion, there was one major issue left unresolved: the push
walls. Romero and Tom figured it was worth one last try and asked Carmack to put them
in. To their surprise, he spun around in his chair and said it was already done. Carmack,
in the end, agreed that it was, as he was fond of saying, the Right Thing to Do. Secrets
were
fun. Tom and Romero were right. It was striking, they thought, and worth remembering.
Carmack was stubborn but, if someone argued a point strongly and convincingly, he
was willing to give in.
Tom and Romero went to town putting in all the secrets. A player would run up to a
section of a wall, say, a banner of Hitler, and push, by hitting the space bar on
the keyboard. Then—
blam!
—the wall would creak back. They filled rooms with treasures and health items, turkey
dinners and ammo. They even made a completely secret level, based on a first-person
3-D version of Pac-Man, ghosts and all.
There was a psychology and a philosophy to video game secrets. Secrets rewarded the
player for thinking outside the box, pushing a wall that should be solid to see if
it would open. This principle also applied to cheating. Many games included what were
known as cheat codes, little commands the player could type in that would give him
added health items or weapons. But there was a price to pay. If a player cheated,
he was disabled from posting a high score. Behavior in games, as in life, had consequences
and rewards.
At 4:00 a.m. on May 5, 1992, the shareware episode of Wolfenstein 3-D was complete.
Id had wrapped up all the little finishing touches. Tom typed the back story: “You’re
William J. ‘B.J.’ Blazkowicz, the Allies’ bad boy of espionage and terminal action
seeker. . . . Your mission . . . to infiltrate the Nazi fortress.” In most games,
players could choose from difficulty levels, such as easy, medium, and hard. In Wolfenstein,
a player would boot up the game and see the question “How Tough Are You?” Below were
four responses; each had an accompanying image of the player’s imagined face, ranging
from the hardest (“I Am Death Incarnate”), with the face of a snarling, red-eyed B.J.,
to the easiest (“Can I Play Daddy?”), which showed B.J. with a baby’s bonnet and pacifier.
In that spirit, they added taunts that would appear on the screen when the player
tried to quit. “Press N for more carnage; Press Y to be a weenie” or “For guns and
glory, press N; For work and worry, press Y.”
Details done, errors or bugs checked, the game was ready to be uploaded to Software
Creations, id’s adopted home BBS online community in Massachusetts. Gamers, already
hooked on Keen, waited anxiously for the newest title to arrive. “Who knows?” Tom
said. “If gamers like this, Wolfenstein might do twice as well as Keen.” Keen was
currently number one on the shareware market.
Carmack, Adrian, Romero, Jay, Kevin, and Scott gathered around the computer that was
connected, by modem, to the Software Creations BBS. Crickets chirped outside. The
Pac-Man machine blinked in the corner. With the hit of a button, the data file labeled
Wolf 3-D split into abstract bits and streamed through the telephone line out of Mesquite,
out of Dallas, up through Texas, heading for New England.
Okay, the guys all agreed, it was time to go to bed. They’d see what happened tomorrow.
“Pizza money!”
Jay hollered, opening up the first royalty check for Wolfenstein 3-D. They really
had no idea what they would make. Keen was bringing in about $30,000 per month; they
expected, at best, to double that. Wolf, after all, was still being distributed through
the relative underworld of shareware catalogs and BBSs, without advertising. The closest
thing to marketing were the BBS techies who wrote little teasers of text about the
game on their computers. But the guys certainly expected, at least, to break even
rather soon. The game had cost, if one considered id’s only overhead—the rent of the
apartments and their $750 per month salaries—roughly $25,000 to make.
The check was for $100,000. And this reflected only the first month. Together with
the continued sales of the Keen games, id was heading for annual sales in the millions.
By releasing the first episode as shareware, they’d instantly hooked the gamers, leaving
them craving more. It defied logic—the thought of giving something away for free.
But Scott’s plan had worked.
Wolfenstein evolved into an underground sensation. Before the press picked up on it,
the gamers online were abuzz about the game’s immersive blend of high technology and
gruesome game play—the synthesis of Carmack’s and Romero’s personal passions. Forums
on the various BBSs and on the emerging commercial online services—Prodigy, CompuServe,
and America Online—brimmed with discussion about the game. The Internet’s discussion
forum, Usenet, was on fire. E-mails poured in to the office.
“There’s no surprise
that this game is the hottest download on many BBS systems and the talk of Usenet,”
wrote one fan. “I
love
this game. The feeling as you round a corner at full speed and blow away three guards
and an SS who are firing at you, then quickly pivot to take out the guy coming up
from behind is indescribable. The anticipation as you open each door and wonder what’s
waiting behind it is intense.” One employee at Microsoft raved about
“how popular Wolf 3-D is
here at Microsoft. It seems like I can’t walk down a hall without hearing ‘Mein Leben’
from someone’s office.” He also mentioned how he hoped id would port a version of
the game for Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows.
By summer, the press was echoing the praise. One shareware magazine gushed that the
game was
“more like an interactive movie
than an arcade game.” Another said it was
“single-handedly justifying the existence of shareware.”
Even
Computer Gaming World,
the industry’s veteran publication, picked up on the craze, saying that this was
“the first game technologically capable of . . . immersing the player in a threatening
environment . . . a peek at part of interactive entertainment’s potential for a sensory
immersed virtual future.”
Virtual reality,
now a buzzword in the mainstream press, was a term being applied to Wolfenstein.
Shareware magazines were dubbing it a virtual reality game.
A Kentucky entrepreneur hooked up a version
of Wolfenstein to virtual reality goggles and brought in five hundred dollars a day
at the Kentucky State Fair.
But players didn’t need virtual reality goggles to feel immersed. In fact, the sense
of immersion was so real that many began complaining of motion sickness. Calls were
coming in even at the Apogee office saying that people were throwing up while playing
the game. Wolfenstein vomit stories became items of fascination online. Theories abounded.
Some players thought
the game’s animation was so smooth that it tricked the brain into thinking it was
moving in a real space. Other gamers thought it had something to do with the “jerkiness”
of the graphics, which induced the feeling of seasickness. Some felt it was simply
disorienting because there was no acceleration involved; it was like going from zero
to sixty at light speed. Gamers even exchanged tips for how to play without losing
one’s Doritos.
The motion sickness wasn’t the only source of controversy. The violence was another.
“This game certainly goes heavy
on the ketchup,” wrote one reviewer. “Enemies spurt great gobs of blood as you mow
them down. If you’re sensitive to violence in video games, this is a game to avoid
at all costs.” Most people weren’t protesting much about shooting human beings; they
were upset that players could shoot dogs. Nevertheless, it was gore they delighted
in.
“Wolfenstein 3-D may have no socially redeeming value
,” one magazine wrote, “but we couldn’t stop playing it.”
If the violence could be stomached, for some, the enemies couldn’t. Jay received a
letter from the Anti-Defamation League protesting the game’s inclusion of swastikas
and Nazis. An even bigger problem was Germany itself. Wolfenstein had made its way
there online, as it had to other countries, through CompuServe, which had an international
presence. It didn’t take long for the game to come to the attention of the German
government. Germany, after World War II, had forbidden the inclusion of Nazis in popular
entertainment. So Wolfenstein was banned. Apogee began receiving unopened packages
containing the game. Soon Scott started fulfilling orders by sending the games in
nondescript packages.
When CompuServe learned of the German ban, it pulled Wolfenstein from its service
until it heard from German counsel. The move gained attention from pundits and lawyers
because it was one of the first examples of the emerging legalities of cyberspace:
what happens when a game, or any item—image, book, film—is uploaded in one country
but breaks the law of another? The Wolfenstein case prompted one lawyer to publish
an article,
“Nazis in Cyberspace!”
He found it “intuitively wrong” for the game to be taken down. Cyberspace, he argued,
should be treated as its own “independent nation.” The article was illustrated by
a flag with a coiled, snakelike mouse cord and the dictum: “Don’t Tread on Our BBS.”
Wolfenstein began empowering gamers in creative ways as well: they started making
modifications, or mods. People, including Carmack and Romero, had been hacking into
games for years. There had even been some computer games, such as the 1983 game Lode
Runner, which had special programs, level editors, to allow users to create their
own versions of the game. That same year three fans of Silas Warner’s original Castle
Wolfenstein programmed a parody called Castle Smurfenstein—with Smurfs substituted
for the Nazis.
A game as sophisticated as id’s Wolfenstein 3-D was considerably more difficult to
hack—requiring someone to effectively
write over
the original content. But not long after Wolfenstein came out, the guys at id booted
up a modified version. It seemed the same except for one notable difference. The music
had been replaced by the “I Love You, You Love Me” theme song from the children’s
show
Barney.
And instead of killing the SS boss at the end of the episode, players had to destroy
the smiling purple dinosaur.
Carmack and Romero couldn’t have been more pleased. Others didn’t feel that way. Kevin,
always business minded, was concerned over copyright issues, over the thought of people
messing with their content. Scott agreed. What if people started making their own
versions of the game and tried to sell them? It would cut into everyone’s profits.
But, with Carmack and Romero wholeheartedly behind the idea of open, free, fun hacking,
the issue was temporarily pushed aside.
Despite their success,
id didn’t rest on their laurels. The work ethic, if anything, got more intense. Immediately
after the Wolfenstein shareware was uploaded, the guys buckled down to complete the
remaining five episodes. The pressure was palpable. Thousands of gamers were sending
in their checks; id had to deliver the goods. When they did take a break, it was several
weeks later and the occasion was significant. Kansas City was hosting a big Apple
II festival. For the id guys, weaned on Apple II, it seemed like the perfect respite.
An Applefest, after all, was kind of where Romero had met Jay. Now they could return
to show off how far they’d come. So they piled into Tom’s Toyota and drove thirteen
hours, a brand-new seven-thousand-dollar laptop with Wolfenstein in the trunk.
The festival was being held at a community college. All the out-of-town guests were
staying in a school dormitory. Upon checking in, the id guys noticed a sign telling
of a special guest speaker: Silas Warner. They looked at each and gasped. “No way!”
Silas was the creator of the original Castle Wolfenstein. As far as they knew, he
had no idea that they had remade his game. Nervously, they filed into the lecture
hall, computer in tow, and waited for him to arrive.
Silas sauntered onstage like King Kong. He was a massive man: 320 pounds of gamer
meat with fingers that could crush a computer mouse with a pinch. But he was funny
and articulate, telling the story of his own start-up, Muse Software, the rollicking
ride of its rise and fall. Silas was flocked by fans when it was over. The id guys
stood in the back, holding their laptop, and waited their turn. “Hey, Silas,” Romero
finally said breathlessly, “we’re id Software, and we just did a remake of Castle
Wolfenstein and put it on the market and we brought it here so you can check it out
and look at it and sign our manual!”
Silas looked at this motley group of programmers with the fancy PC laptop and raised
his brow. “Oh yes,” he said slowly. “I remember that someone called me about it.”
Eagerly, they fired up the laptop and showed him the game. To their relief, he complimented
them on their work and signed autographs. Later that night they returned to the dorm.
It was a memorable night. Everyone hung out in the hallways, talking about games,
checking out Wolfenstein. There were even celebrities in the Apple II community, like
Burger Bill, a programmer who was known to keep a hamburger in his desk and nibble
on it occasionally for days on end. But with the crowd gathering around id’s laptop,
it was clear that Burger Bill wasn’t the only game in town.
Id’s first taste of fame came the next month, during their first real company vacation.
They had just completed all the remaining episodes of Wolfenstein and decided to celebrate
by spending $5,000 each on a weeklong stay at Disney World. They spent the days riding
Space Mountain over and over again, checking out the action. One night they regrouped
in a hot tub at the Grand Floridian Hotel, right off the theme park. Life was good.
So good, they decided, that they were going to give themselves raises when they got
back: up to what, at the time, felt like a substantial amount of money, $45,000 per
year. Wolfenstein, they cheered, had done them well.