Ion Storm was founded by
John Romero,
Todd Porter and
Tom Hall in late
1997, and secured a publishing deal with
Eidos soon after their inception. Their aim was to allow talented developers to work in an environment without the pressure of developing new technology and kowtowing to publishers (yes,
Daikatana was 3 years late, but almost anywhere else it would have been canned or forced into an early release - it was the mass exodus of staff, the 3 or 4 lead programmers and the over-ambitious plan that led to the end product being shoddy). Ion Storm is an umbrella organisation that consists of several development teams working on large-scale PC games.
With a lavish office and a blaze of publicity feeding their egos, the three founders immediately began drafting elaborate design documents. Some of the mistakes that Ion Storm made in the early days were : hiring 40 people at a time; hiring undisciplined mod-scene hobbyists; hiring artists with no games experience; no disputation of any of the senior staff's ideas; poor communication; overspending; and a bad working environment.
Warren Spector brought his team to the company to facilitate the development of Deus Ex. Ion's next release is likely to be Anachronox, a Quake 2 engined RPG. After that, their plans are so far un-announced, but will hopefully use a newer engine than the ones used in any of their games so far...