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ION's ultimate goal, says Wilson, is to make computer gaming a mass medium "in the same league as film, TV and music." But like those media--perhaps even more so--entertainment software is a risky, hit-driven business. "There will be 3,700 titles published this year," says Wilson, "and maybe five will be best sellers." What's worse, id's onetime monopoly is gone. Last year's independent hit Duke Nukem was just the beginning; this fall will bring a veritable 3-D deluge, including not only Quake II and Daikatana but also Raven's Hexen II, LucasArts' Jedi Knight, Core Design's Tomb Raider II, Valve's Half Life, and other children of Doom.
ION may be the richest of the new kids. A $13 million advance from publisher Eidos Interactive paid for 50-plus employees (three times as many as id has) and space in Dallas' third highest skyscraper, the Texas Commerce Tower, whose button-down bankers and lawyers, says Wilson, at first looked askance "at all us pony-tailed, combat boot-wearing, tattooed freaks." In fact, ION's lease requires company employees to dress in "business casual" in deference to those aforementioned bankers and lawyers, who are now stopping them in the lobby to ask when the new game will be ready.
The answer is sometime this fall. And by November, if construction goes smoothly, ION, now crammed into temporary digs on the 30th floor, will become the first tenants of the building's spectacular 54th-floor penthouse, a 22,000-sq.-ft. atrium overlooking 360[degrees] of Dallas skyline. Somewhere down below, the company's rivals at id are cranking out Quake II. Is Romero still close with his old mates? He shakes his head. "Not really," he says quietly. "No."
Across the office, Wilson grins, folds his hands and hoists his combat boots onto a desk. "It's an interesting soap opera we're creating here in Dallas," he says.
Business casual indeed.