This is for people who are genuinely interested in games. Even if you are not you are still most welcome aboard to be inspired by the tale of 13 men and 1 with visionary; the one who when speaks makes the game industry sit back and listen. This is the tale of John Carmack and his id software.

If some of you are still wondering who this guy is; John Carmack is the first guy to program a fully functional real-time 3D game, namely Wolfenstein3D back in the early 90’s. He is also the originator of the game genre FPS (First Person Shooter). All the engine technologies of Quake and Doom Series were sculptured with this hands. Right now he’s fine tuning another masterpiece namely idTech5 Rage. He was the guy who almost single handedly moved the game industry towards glory; and is still moving the industry with newer frontiers (for example unique texturing , or MegaTexture technology). And guess what this computer guru is also doing besides making games: he has established a freelance space-station called Armadillo!

The purpose of this blog entry is bidirectional. Firstly to convey some of the great words from the guru himself: secondly to narrate the story of the last few hours of Quake-III Arena.

Following are the few quotes of John C. which inspire me everyday.

“Focus is a matter of deciding what things you’re not going to do.” – John Carmack

“Focused, hard work is the real key to success. Keep your eyes on the goal, and just keep taking the next step towards completing it. If you aren’t sure which way to do something, do it both ways and see which works better.” – John Carmack“

“An interesting question: is it easier to motivate a learned individual that never does anything, or educate an ignorant individual that actually produces things?” – John Carmack

“Putting creativity on a pedestal can also be an excuse for laziness. There is a lot of cultural belief that creativity comes from inspiration, and can’t be rushed. Not true. Inspiration is just your subconscious putting things together, and that can be made into an active process with a little introspection.” – John Carmack

“Programming is not a zero-sum game. Teaching something to a fellow programmer doesn’t take it away from you. I’m happy to share what I can, because I’m in it for the love of programming.” – John Carmack

If you have time then go ahead and read this story of the Last Few Hours of Quake-III Arena. Read and get inspired by how only 13/14 people moved a whole industry and what game companies were like back in those days. Infact, id-Software is probably run by the same spirit still today!