Doom (1993 video game)
Because id planned to self-publish the game, as the game neared completion they had to set up the systems to sell the game. Jay Wilbur, who had been brought on as CEO and sole member of the business team, planned the marketing and distribution of "Doom". He felt that the mainstream press was uninterested in the game, and as id would make the most money off of copies they sold directly to customers—up to 85 percent of the planned US$40 price—he decided to leverage the shareware market as much as possible, buying only a single ad in any gaming magazine. Instead, he reached out directly to software retailers, offering them copies of the first "Doom" episode for free, allowing them to charge any price for it, in order to spur customer interest in buying the full game directly from id.
Development of Doom
The initial concept for the game was proposed in the fall of 1992, after the release of "Wolfenstein 3D" and its sequel "Spear of Destiny". Lead programmer John Carmack was working on creating an improved 3D game engine from those games, and the company wanted to have its next game take advantage of his designs. Several ideas were proposed, including a new game in their "Commander Keen" series, but John Carmack successfully proposed a game about using technology to fight demons, inspired by the "Dungeons & Dragons" campaigns the team played, to be titled "Doom". The initial months of development were spent on prototypes, while Hall created several iterations of the "Doom Bible", a design document for his vision of the game and its story; after id released a grandiose press release touting features that the team had not yet begun working on, the "Doom Bible" was rejected in favor of a plot-less game with no design document at all.