Lane Roathe

Lane Roathe is a programmer who worked along with John Carmack and John Romero at Softdisk, where they started the games division Gamer's Edge, creating games for the PC and Apple II, distributed through monthly subscriptions. Prior to working for Softdisk, Roathe and Romero developed games independently and for other companies (e.g. Inside Out Software), and they later used the name Ideas From the Deep (IFD) for their collaborations. The abbreviation was the inspiration for the later id Software, when the "F" was dropped.

Carmack was the main engine programmer, and Romero the main designer of the tools, while Roathe did miscellaneous coding. As Carmack and Romero formed an outstanding duo, and Roathe didn't share their enthusiasm for the PC over Apple II, the relationship deteriorated. The team members created the first Commander Keen trilogy for Apogee. Later, when the team members broke away from Softdisk to form id Software, Roathe decided to move to California and contacted Three-Sixty Pacific, Inc. about job opportunities, as he was working on the Apple IIgs port of Dark Castle for them.

He was hired, and later ended up at the MacOS publisher Logicware. Following, he was involved with the companies Contraband Entertainment and genX Software, which ultimately became the Mac developer Monkey Byte where he was CEO. From 2003-2004, Mr. Roathe became Chief Technology Officer with MacPlay / MumboJumbo, and served as CTO of Method Solutions from 2005-2009.

Ideas From the Deep, the company he formed with John Romero, has been active in game development continuously since its creation up to the current time, currently developing and publishing games for Mac OS X and Windows on the ifd.com website as well as developing and publishing games for the iPhone OS via the Apple iTunes App Store.