Doom

Tom A. Hall is a game designer born in Wisconsin. He attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he received a B.S. in Computer Science. In 1987, he worked at Softdisk Inc., where he was both a programmer and the editor of Softdisk, a software bundle delivered monthly. Along with some of his co-workers, John Carmack, John Romero and Adrian Carmack, he founded id Software. He served as creative director and designer there, working... on games such as the Commander Keen series, Wolfenstein 3D, Spear of Destiny, and Doom. After some disputes with John Carmack about the design for Doom and the amount of gore and violence, he left to join Apogee/3D Realms. He was the game designer for Rise of the Triad, produced Terminal Velocity, and helped in varying degrees on Duke Nukem II and Duke Nukem 3D as well. He also worked on the Prey engine until August 12, 1996, when he left Apogee. Next Hall co-founded Ion Storm with John Romero, where he produced Anachronox. The company also produced the 2000 Game of the Year, Deus Ex, in which Hall voiced one of the characters.
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Carl Sanford Joslyn Petersen is a game designer. Petersen was born in St. Louis, Missouri and attended University of California, Berkeley, majoring in zoology. He is a well-known fan of H. P. Lovecraft, whose work he first encountered in a World War II Armed Services edition of The Dunwich Horror and other Weird Tales found in his father's library. In 1974, Dungeons & Dragons brought his interest to role-playing games. His interest for... role-playing games and H. P. Lovecraft were fused when he became principal author of Chaosium's game Call of Cthulhu, published 1981, and many scenarios and background pieces thereafter. While working for Chaosium he co-authored the second edition of RuneQuest, for which he also co-wrote the critically acclaimed Trollpak and a number of other Gloranthan supplements. He still plays and runs role-playing games, and is a frequent guest at conventions where he usually runs a freeform game of his own devising, and/or helps to run someone else's game.
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Shawn C. Green is a video game developer who is best known for his work in the Doom and Hexen series for id Software and for 3D Realms. He also worked on Daikatana as a programmer for Ion Storm in Dallas, Texas, United States. He has also worked for Gearbox Software making Halo: Combat Evolved.

Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in... arcade games, home video game consoles, and home computers. The company's products, such as Pong and the Atari 2600, helped define the computer entertainment industry from the 1970s to the mid 1980s. In 1984, the original Atari Inc. was split, and the arcade division was turned into Atari Games Inc. Atari Games received the rights to use the logo and brand name with appended text "Games" on arcade games, as well as rights to the original 1972 - 1984 arcade hardware properties. The Atari Consumer Electronics Division properties were in turn sold to Jack Tramiel's Tramel Technology Ltd., which then renamed itself to Atari Corporation. In 1996, Atari Corporation reverse merged with disk drive manufacturer JT Storage , becoming a division within the company.
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Activision is an American video game publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Eric Hirshberg. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles. Its first products were... cartridges for the Atari 2600 video console system published from July 1980 for the US market and from August 1981 for the international market . Activision is now one of the largest third party video game publishers in the world and was also the top publisher for 2007 in the United States. On January 18, 2008, Activision announced they were the top US publisher in 2007, according to the NPD Group. On December 2, 2007, it was announced that Activision would be acquired by Vivendi, with Vivendi contributing its gaming division plus cash, in exchange for a majority stake in the new group. The merger between Activision and Vivendi Games took place on July 9, 2008, with the newly formed company known as Activision Blizzard.
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id Software LLC is an American video game development company with its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack . Business manager... Jay Wilbur was also involved. On June 24, 2009, ZeniMax Media acquired the company. The founders of id Software met in the offices of Softdisk developing multiple games for Softdisk's monthly publishing. These included Dangerous Dave and other titles. In September 1990, John Carmack developed an efficient way to perform rapid side-scrolling graphics on the PC. Upon making this breakthrough, Carmack and Hall stayed up late into the night making a replica of the first level of the popular 1988 NES game Super Mario Bros. 3, inserting stock graphics of Romero's Dangerous Dave character in lieu of Mario.
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GT Interactive Software Corporation was an American video game publisher and distributor, which later developed both video games and PC games. GT Interactive ceased to exist in December 1999 when Infogrames Entertainment SA took a controlling stake and renamed the company Infogrames, Inc. In... 2003, Infogrames Inc. changed its name to Atari Inc. GT Interactive was founded in 1993 as a division of Good Times Home Video, a video-tape distributor owned by the Cayre family. In that same year, Doom was released, eventually selling 2.9 million copies, through its various publishers, including GT Interactive. In its first year, revenue reached $10.3 million. GT Interactive revenue soared 880% and reached $101 million on its second year of existence and profits reached $18 million. GT Interactive's partnership with id Software scored another hit with Doom II: Hell on Earth, which was released in October and sold over 2 million copies. In February, GTIS obtained the publishing rights to games based on Mercer Mayer property, which included Little Critter and Little Monster. GT Interactive began to set up displays at K-Mart and Wal-Mart for low cost software.
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