Development of Doom
"Doom"s original release date was the third quarter of 1993, which the team did not meet. By December 1993, the team was working non-stop on the game, with several employees sleeping at the office; programmer Dave Taylor claimed that working on the game gave him such a rush that he would pass out from the intensity. Id began receiving calls from people interested in the game or angry that it had missed its planned release date, as hype for the game had been building online. At midnight on December 10, 1993, after working for 30 straight hours, the development team at id uploaded the first episode of the game to the internet, letting interested players distribute it for them. So many users were connected to the first network that they planned to upload the game to—the University of Wisconsin–Parkside FTP network—that even after the network administrator increased the number of connections while on the phone with Wilbur, id was unable to connect, forcing them to kick all other users off to allow id to upload the game. When the upload finished thirty minutes later, 10,000 people attempted to download the game at once, crashing the university's network. Within hours, other university networks were banning "Doom" multiplayer games, as a rush of players overwhelmed their systems.
Doom (1993 video game)
Within hours of "Doom"s release, university networks were banning "Doom" multiplayer games, as a rush of players overwhelmed their systems. After being alerted by network administrators the morning after release that the game's deathmatch network connection setup was crippling some computer networks, John Carmack quickly released a patch to change it, though many administrators had to implement "Doom"-specific rules to keep their networks from crashing due to the overwhelming traffic. The game became a major problem at workplaces, both occupying the time of employees and clogging computer networks. Intel, Lotus Development, and Carnegie Mellon University were among many organizations reported to form policies specifically disallowing "Doom"-playing during work hours. At the Microsoft campus, "Doom" was by one account equal to a "religious phenomenon". Doom was #1 on "Computer Gaming World"s "Playing Lately?" survey for February 1994. One reader said that "No other game even compares to the addictiveness of NetDoom with four devious players! ... The only game I've stayed up 72+ straight hours to play", while another reported that "Linking four people together for a game of Doom is the quickest way to destroy a productive, boring evening of work".
In late 1995, "Doom" was estimated to be installed on more computers worldwide than Microsoft's new operating system Windows 95, despite million-dollar advertising campaigns for Windows 95. The game's popularity caused Microsoft to hire id Software to port Doom to Windows with the WinG API, and Bill Gates briefly consider buying the company. Microsoft developed a Windows 95 port of "Doom" to promote the operating system as a gaming platform. The development team in this effort was led by then-employee Gabe Newell. One Windows 95 promotional video had Bill Gates digitally superimposed into the game.