Lane Roathe was a programmer for Uptime Disk Monthly in mid 1980s. In 1989 he was hired by Softdisk to work in programming and design in their Gamer's Edge department which produced one game a month for their monthly disk subscription service. Roathe had lived with, and at Softdisk now worked with, John Romero. The two got along great, and in 1990 along with John Carmack, Tom Hall, and a few others, they began work on Commander Keen, which would be the first game developed by id Software.
The name for id Software can also be partially credited to Lane Roathe. John Romero's first games were developed under the name Capitol Ideas, and Roathe's under the name Blue Mountain Micro. In the early days of their friendship (before working for Softdisk) they decided to merge their names into one: Ideas from the Deep. Romero and his cohorts later took this and shortened it to id Software as the name for their company.
While Roathe's stint with id Software didn't even last into the publishing of their first game, he has continued developing, programming, and consulting for various companies since then. He is currently the sole owner of Ideas From the Deep, which has produced several games over the last two decades.
Log in to comment