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Over the past few years, Doom designer John Romero has been disputing details shared by fellow id veteran Sandy Petersen on the development of the original two games. I have no idea how this social media feud got started, but Romero's polite-yet-brutal responses to Petersen's claims – usually starting with a "Hi Sandy, hope you’re doing well" – are quickly becoming a meme among gaming history enthusiasts.
Last week, Petersen responded to a joke on Twitter about the difference between old and new Doom lore by saying "I WROTE the original Doom backstory." Romero soon responded with "Hi Sandy. I hope you're doing well. However, you are incorrect. @ThatTomHall wrote the story for DOOM long before you joined id in September 1993, nine months into production. Summarizing Tom's story in two sentences does not equal writing the DOOM story. Not by a long shot."
Hi Sandy. I hope you're doing well. However, you are incorrect. @ThatTomHall wrote the story for DOOM long before you joined id in September 1993, nine months into production. Summarizing Tom's story in two sentences does not equal writing the DOOM story. Not by a long shot. https://t.co/CkHptktse4February 28, 2025
In a follow-up tweet – posted before Romero's response – Petersen acknowledges that Tom Hall did, indeed, craft the original Doom backstory. "And then I did not have access to it when I wrote the manual for the original Doom, so the two-sentence backstory you got is what I wrote," Petersen said.
Petersen expands his version of the story in a later follow-up, and here, again, Romero disputes that version of events, claiming that Petersen didn't even write the story summary for the Doom 1 manual.
Hello again, Sandy. This post isn't accurate. Kevin Cloud wrote the DOOM manual on NeXTSTEP. @ThatTomHall wrote the original story which Kevin summarized on the entirety of page 1 of the DOOM manual. https://t.co/wunyqHRgynFebruary 28, 2025
Regardless of who deserves credit for the Doom story, this kind of social media feuding has been going on since at least 2021, when Petersen claimed that the original Doom sold around 100,000 copies. "Hi Sandy, hope you’re doing well," Romero quickly responded. "The sales of registered Doom in 1994 were significantly more than 100,000. Just wanted you to know."
This pattern, where Petersen makes some claim about the development of Doom and Romero publicly disputes it in brutally courteous terms has repeated numerous times over the years, as evidenced by all the tweets you'll find embedded below.
Hi Sandy, hope you’re doing well. This is inaccurate. Tom Hall had the idea for the rocket jump and put that in his E3M6 before he left the project in August 1993. @ThatTomHall https://t.co/K75zsGkksHMarch 28, 2021
This is not accurate. Your job was only E2 and E3. You were new to level design. I owned the first episode. JC never said that – he had skies (not a skybox) working before you joined. E1M1 went thru several revisions over months before I called it done. Same with E1M2.March 29, 2021
Hi Sandy, to clarify, this is incorrect. We gave the license to Reaper Miniatures and they produced an entire collection for sale in 1997. We loved their prototypes. And the cacodemon included. https://t.co/uyU0KqnQ3gJuly 25, 2021
DOOM II followed a long pattern of id development. It was a retail sequel to our previous game, just like Spear of Destiny was a retail release for Wolf 3D. Same with our Keen games. It wasn't a cash grab or something to keep us busy.October 10, 2022
Hi Sandy, hope you're doing well. I am not sure where your information is coming from. The shotgun and all other weapons were created before you joined the company, and we loved the shotgun. Still do. Evil Dead II inspired the shotgun and chainsaw.May 25, 2024
I don't love seeing two of the fathers of Doom fighting, however politely, on social media, but, well... In a post-Not Like Us world it's easy to see why so many observers are enjoying the mental image of the words "Hi Sandy, hope you're doing well" accompanied by a Kendrick Lamar Super Bowl smile.
Without Doom, we might never have gotten many of the best FPS games ever made.
