What Carmack had was the ability to read
research papers and translate them into
working code. I can do that too, but it
does seem to be a less common skill in
the software world.
Well, that's the argument for Carmack being merely very very very good and not a "genius."
Here's the argument for him:
There were a lot of exceptionally talented people working in the games industry, and for four+ generations of PC hardware (the Keen, Wolf3D, Doom, and Quake eras) Carmack's engines were years ahead of everybody else's and had an absolutely massive impact on the industry.
Of course, the term "genius" is nebulous and it can mean whatever we want it to mean.
However, describing him as merely a guy who implemented other peoples' algorithms may be true in a literal sense but really misses the big picture IMO.
Here's the argument for him:
There were a lot of exceptionally talented people working in the games industry, and for four+ generations of PC hardware (the Keen, Wolf3D, Doom, and Quake eras) Carmack's engines were years ahead of everybody else's and had an absolutely massive impact on the industry.
Of course, the term "genius" is nebulous and it can mean whatever we want it to mean.
However, describing him as merely a guy who implemented other peoples' algorithms may be true in a literal sense but really misses the big picture IMO.