Doom creator id Software used Taiwanese pirates to help distribute the game, John Romero reveals

Doom creator id Software used Taiwanese pirates to help distribute the game, John Romero reveals Amassing avast audience. John Romero, the legendarily long-haired co-founder of id Software and father of game series Quake and Doom, has recounted a tale about when id Software worked with Taiwanese pirates to spread Doom. The tale belongs to the 80s and early 90s, when games used a Shareware business model. "You would go to the store and you would see 10 different boxes that all had the same shareware Doom in it," Romero recounted in a QuakeCon 2026 panel at around the 20-minute mark (picked up by PC Gamer).