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Despite their work, Nintendo turned them down, saying they had no interest in expanding to the PC market, and that Mario games were to remain exclusive to Nintendo consoles.

Around this time, Scott Miller of Apogee Software learned of the group and their exceptional talent, having played one of John Romero's Softdisk games, Dangerous Dave, and contacted Romero under the guise of multiple fan letters that Romero came to realize all originated from the same address.

When he confronted Miller, Miller explained that the deception was necessary since companies at that time were very protective of their talent and it was the only way he could get Romero to initiate contact with him.

Miller suggested that they develop shareware games that he would distribute.

As a result, the Id Software team began the development of Commander Keen, a Mario-style side-scrolling game for the PC, once again " borrowing " company computers to work on it at odd hours at the lake house at which they lived in Shreveport, Louisiana.

On December 14, 1990, the first episode was released as shareware by Miller's company, Apogee, and orders began rolling in.

Shortly after this, Softdisk management learned of the team's deception and suggested that they form a new company together, but the administrative staff at Softdisk threatened to resign if such an arrangement were made.

In a legal settlement, the team was required to provide a game to Softdisk every two months for a certain period of time, but they would do so on their own.

On February 1, 1991, Id Software was founded.