Doom legend John Romero says the FPS game's 20 million shareware players "were not 'pirates' by default" and "history is messier than 'pirates killed the companies'"

Legendary Doom designer John Romero disputes the notion that video game piracy destroyed companies in the 1990s. He argues that Doom's shareware model, where the first episode was freely distributed, means many of its 20 million players were not 'pirates' by default. Romero suggests that while piracy did cost money, it wasn't the sole reason for the decline of certain studios, and that the messy history of game distribution is more complex than a simple 'pirates killed companies' narrative.

• COMPANY id Software
• GAME DOOM
• GAME Quake