John Romero, the co-founder of id Software and co-creator of Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein 3D, has been confirmed as the headline keynote speaker for this year’s Gamescom Asia x Thailand Game Show, to be held in Bangkok this October. The industry veteran’s planned keynote, to be titled “Why We Still Make Games”, promises to “reflect on a lifetime of building games, overcoming setbacks, and navigating decades of industry change.” And presumably, unsuccessful attempts at making people his bitch.
While Romero left the Doom development studio some three decades ago, he recently took to social media to express his support for all id Software staff affected by the layoffs earlier this month that came off the back of Xbox’s significant restructuring process.
“I’m so sorry for everyone at id Software affected by these layoffs,” Romero tweeted.
“I know what it feels like to leave id while id goes on. It’s a strange and painful thing to step away from a place that holds so much of your work, friendships and history.”
Romero’s current studio, Romero Games, has suffered its own setbacks as part of Xbox’s ongoing cuts, with the studio’s unannounced shooter cancelled in 2025 reportedly due to Microsoft pulling its funding. So he should certainly have a few things to chat about at Gamescom Asia x Thailand Game Show.
Romero is the latest speaker confirmed for this year’s event. He joins co-founders Nick Herman and Dennis Lenart from AdHoc Studio, the team behind 2025’s critically acclaimed hit Dispatch, as well as Zhen Fang, VP and Head of International at Roblox, and Yoan Fanise, creative director and founder of indie developer DigixArt. More speakers are expected to be confirmed in the lead up to the show.
Last year’s event featured keynotes from Ubisoft and Naughty Dog developers, as well as a particularly impassioned and memorable address from Dead Space co-creator Glen Schofield who declared that the games industry was “broken, beaten, and battered.” Schofield officially retired from games development less than 12 months later.
This year’s Gamescom Asia x Thailand Game Show will apparently be its biggest to date, with the public area expanding to four halls, bringing the total event space to 35,000 square metres (in case you’re counting). Major publishers including Nintendo, Bandai Namco, Capcom, and Sega will all be present on the show floor, and there will once again be a sizeable space for indies to showcase the best of local development talent from Southeast Asia and beyond.
Gamescom Asia x Thailand Game Show 2026 is set to run from October 29 to November 1, 2026, at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center in Bangkok.
Tristan Ogilvie is a senior video producer at IGN’s Sydney office.
