Maes
I like big butts!
Posts: 7955
Registered: 07-06 |
To a certain extent, Doom is a fashion victim, like most other media products. Think about it, how many youngsters bother with older movies/music etc. or even a classic book unless they are introduced to it by a third party (usually their parents or school, if they have a culture/literature anthology class) ?
And we're talking about "shared cultural heritage" here. Not having played Doom is not exactly considered akin to not having read e.g. Oliver Twist, without going as far as Homer or Dante.
The different in that the latter are all promoted by educational systems shaped in decades or even centuries ("classical" education) and by society as a whole in one way or the other. They are -by now- part of what someone "must" know, unless he was schooled in an Islamic monastery or something. Movies and music have the advantage of being broadcast regularly by TV and radio, so the very least even the most dumb of emo goth trailer trash will get a hint now and then. Also, parents play a role in that respect, often offering a point of contact.
I am aware that kids today tend to be more and more uneducated fucktards that don't even know where milk comes from, let alone having read "20000 leagues under the sea", but that's not the point.
But video games are still seen as a niche, ephemeral, consumerist and trivial product. Why would they ever get that same degree of attention? OK, now they have outgrown what they were in the late 1970s or even 1980s, but they are still seen as something trivial, akin to plastic chinese novelty products. You don't really bother with those unless you are a collector and/or you don't have a life :-p
Unless someone is curious by nature, actively seeking or given a hint, it's quite possible that the average modern Halo-consumer will never even know that DOom existed. The "specialized press" have their share of responsability on the matter, depending on how they present Doom, when they mention it.
FPS games are no longer called "Doom clones", so off goes that association. Occasional references may pop up here and there, but it takes very little to present it as either a glorious classic you must see, and as just a "step in the past of video games none really cares about". And often the latter happens.
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01-24-10 07:42 
