Doom? Controversial?

Why is it that hentai games never seem to make it onto these lists? I guess they're just too obscure, or not enough of them brought to the USA. There are definately some that could earn the placement, though.

I found this list to be more interesting (Yes I know it's old, and you've probably seen it before.)
GameSpy's Top 10 Offensive Games

Ed said:

I think there should be a ban on electronic music, due to it's direct cause of drug use amongst teenagers and uhh.. rap music cause it turns our kids into gun toting pinkos with ideas of their own.

In which case, lets ban pop music: it encourages kids to become mindless sex-mad teenagers lovesick for these 'stars', and it causes young people to be turned into rich, arrogant, undeserving stars by record company bosses with £ signs in their eyes.

Schneelocke said:

*nods* It's just like people condemning Wolfenstein 3D as a nazi game...

That's exactly what people did do at the time :P

The SNES version was changed to get rid of Nazi reference. As I remember the nazi dogs were meant to be some sort of mutated rat instead.

sargebaldy said:

heh i never thought of grand theft auto as controversial at all after everything else =P and anyway this is for PC GAMER not CONSOLE GAMER.

Of course, you do realize that all four of the Grand Theft Auto games come in the PC flavor, right?

Draconio said:

Why is it that hentai games never seem to make it onto these lists? I guess they're just too obscure, or not enough of them brought to the USA. There are definately some that could earn the placement, though.

I found this list to be more interesting (Yes I know it's old, and you've probably seen it before.)
GameSpy's Top 10 Offensive Games

That's interesting. Does anyone know if there's a copy of #5 (Psychotic, for the Mac) to be found online?

The Flange Peddler said:

That's exactly what people did do at the time :P

The SNES version was changed to get rid of Nazi reference. As I remember the nazi dogs were meant to be some sort of mutated rat instead.

Yup. All nazi references were removed, the dogs became giant rats, and the blood was replaced by sweat.

I'm personally quite relieved that Doom64 (for the N64) didn't suffer from a similar fate. Well... it didn't, did it? I actually am not sure now.

Doom 64 was changed quite a bit from the PC versions, but it was not censored. So you still get blood and if I recall correctly, the pentagrams were in there too.

Edit: I found this in relation to downloading Psychotic: http://www.classicgaming.com/mailbag/mail077.shtml
Check the last message. I wasn't able to download it though since it was asking me for my GameSpy ID... >.<

I finally have proof that PC Gamer is run by the South Park Catholicism.

sargebaldy said:

well they got that one right =P after doom it's hard to get much more controversial. until murder / child rape / terrorism simulators start coming out. and yes, they will.

Postal...2...(which is retarded)

NiGHTMARE said:

There already is a hitman game, it's called - suprise! - Hitman. There's a Hitman 2 as well.

And it is teh danish!. Hooray for Denmark!. :P

The most rediculous thing about the reaction to Columbine was that the fact that those guys played Doom got more press time than the fact that they were NAZIS!!!!!!!!!! And the best thing of all is that they even managed to tie Doom in with hate groups by mentioning a mod in which the Imps legs were colored in purple, to VAGUELY resemble black people. The frenzy over Columbine is why Doom made number one on the list. Doom would be considered mild mannered by now if that didn't happen.

Whoever wrote that article needs to pull their head out their ass and take fucking look at the real world.

EDIT: Heh, I just stopped and thought about it, and I realized that the author was right. While Doom is not nearly the worst game to come out, it IS the most controversial. (At least in the public's eyes.)

Grimm said:

EDIT: Heh, I just stopped and thought about it, and I realized that the author was right. While Doom is not nearly the worst game to come out, it IS the most controversial. (At least in the public's eyes.)

Yeah, I think you're right there. But then, the author fails it on that count too. Mortal Kombat was controversial in the publics eyes for example, but didnt get a mention.

Agree with them, it's the most realistic first person mass murder game. It has satanic symbols, shocking the Christians. That other cross shocks most people when there's no historical or any other excuse for using it.
It's brutal all the way. From game settings with skulls and difficulty settings as hurt me plenty, ultraviolence, blood, death frames with accordingly howls, the face in the status bar, always there, always bleeding, the killing of 'former' humans, the claustrophobic environments and the sheer fun of that non stop pumping shotgun. All games will look cartoony after a while and so does doom but they didn't copy, they created a game . Of course no one knows what the profile of a doomer is. But some people knows that somenone did cross the line between fiction and reality and he did made doomwads.

Doom = 10 year old with now cartoonish violence, and a bit of Satanic imagery to get you involved in your on-going quest to kill more demons

I'm definitely suprised that SOFII isn't on that list. If anything, it takes the gore of the original Soldier of Fortune and runs with it several miles.

Oh, and I need a shave and a haircut, that's all Doom's fault.

I never got the doom == teh evil! thing at all. If I had a kid, I'd rather show him a game like Doom, with a lone hero battling the forces of pure evil to save the world, than...hell, even Unreal Tournament or another DM game. But even then I'd show him UT because my kid won't be fucking moron so out of touch with reality and so lacking in morals he thinks harming innocent people will somehow magically fix his problems.

Ask anyone with a clue about the criminal mind; anyone who's actually done honest to God research like FBI profiler John Douglas and his former colleagues, and psychiatrists like Stanton Samenow and Park Dietz, and they'll tell you there is absolutely no proof of the media being directly responsible for crimes. They can provide influence and ideas (like the famous Doomsday Flight extortions), but unless someone's already leaning that way, then it will accomplish nothing. There's no such thing as a motiveless crime. People don't "snap". If it looks like they have, then you just don't understand that person.

This victimisation of Doom reminds me of the recent crap in New Zealand about dogs. There was about four attacks in a short space of time. A statistical anomaly, nothing more, but the media really ran with it, past the touchline and right through the stadium wall. Headlines like "Is your dog a killing machine?" started to appear. Reading that one I felt a sudden urge to hunt down the writer and beat him on behalf of all the great, loyal dogs I've had over the last two decades. I fucking hate the media.

JoelMurdoch said:

I never got the doom == teh evil! thing at all. If I had a kid, I'd rather show him a game like Doom, with a lone hero battling the forces of pure evil to save the world, than...hell, even Unreal Tournament or another DM game. But even then I'd show him UT because my kid won't be fucking moron so out of touch with reality and so lacking in morals he thinks harming innocent people will somehow magically fix his problems.

Ask anyone with a clue about the criminal mind; anyone who's actually done honest to God research like FBI profiler John Douglas and his former colleagues, and psychiatrists like Stanton Samenow and Park Dietz, and they'll tell you there is absolutely no proof of the media being directly responsible for crimes. They can provide influence and ideas (like the famous Doomsday Flight extortions), but unless someone's already leaning that way, then it will accomplish nothing. There's no such thing as a motiveless crime. People don't "snap". If it looks like they have, then you just don't understand that person.

This victimisation of Doom reminds me of the recent crap in New Zealand about dogs. There was about four attacks in a short space of time. A statistical anomaly, nothing more, but the media really ran with it, past the touchline and right through the stadium wall. Headlines like "Is your dog a killing machine?" started to appear. Reading that one I felt a sudden urge to hunt down the writer and beat him on behalf of all the great, loyal dogs I've had over the last two decades. I fucking hate the media.

A similar craze, fueled by the tabloid media, occured in germany a few years ago and even ended up in some highly controversial laws about "killer dogs" being passed.

The problem, in reality, is not so much Doom, dogs or anything else but rather the fact that people in general fear or at least are suspicious of what they don't know, coupled with the fact that it's much easier to blame tragic incidents like the Columbine massacre on violent video games (or whatever else is handy at that time) instead of actually bothering to check *why* it happened, what led to it and how it can be prevented from happening again.

As long as the media gets money, they won't care about the truth.

Ninja_of_DooM said:

As long as the media gets money, they won't care about the truth.

*nods* Indeed, or at least a good part of the media does. On a totally unrelated topic, though - the link to the "Ninja of Doom" wadpack in your sig isn't working, and fiddling around with it a bit didn't help, either - I wasn't able to find the file. Where can I get it? :)

Ninja_of_DooM said:

As long as the media gets money, they won't care about the truth.

You see, that's the irony.

id Software, Gamespy, your local tv station, etc. are companies. Companies exist to make money. Comepanies make money by selling products that consumers want. If people didnt want violent games, then there wouldnt be any, because they wouldnt sell. On the same note, sensationalistic media coverage exists because people want that too. Think back to when you were a little kid and someone told you some completely outlandish story. Deep down, you knew it was false. But you'd go along with it anyway. You wanted to believe it. So dont blame the media for doing what it does. Blame well... everyone I guess.

Oh, and Doom has caused me to forget to clip my fingernails, and also kill babies.

Edit: Night Trap should be on that list, since it brought attention to the need for game ratings.

Assmaster said:

You see, that's the irony.

id Software, Gamespy, your local tv station, etc. are companies. Companies exist to make money. Comepanies make money by selling products that consumers want. If people didnt want violent games, then there wouldnt be any, because they wouldnt sell. On the same note, sensationalistic media coverage exists because people want that too. Think back to when you were a little kid and someone told you some completely outlandish story. Deep down, you knew it was false. But you'd go along with it anyway. You wanted to believe it. So dont blame the media for doing what it does. Blame well... everyone I guess.

Oh, and Doom has caused me to forget to clip my fingernails, and also kill babies.

Edit: Night Trap should be on that list, since it brought attention to the need for game ratings.

I agree, it's ultimately the people that are to blame for the existance of sensationalist tabloid media; however, I don't think this justifies saying that the media shouldn't be blamed. Even corporate ethics consist (or should consist) of more than "make as much money as possible, no matter what the cost".

People that blame video games for other people's actions are stupid.

AgentSpork said:

People that blame video games for other people's actions are stupid.

Amen to that. Unfortunately, even stupid people have influence, especially if encountered in large quantities...

Did they forget GTA:Vice City, or go crazy? That is way more violent than Doom. You kill innocents! And there was no Doom controversy. There was Columbine controversy which involved Doom.

DURRRR IT"S OK TO KILL ZOMBIES CUZ THEY"RE ALREADY DEAD DURRRRR

Epyo said:

DURRRR IT"S OK TO KILL ZOMBIES CUZ THEY"RE ALREADY DEAD DURRRRR

That's like saying that robbing someone is ok if he's been robbed already. :)

Not necessarily, as zombies will try to kill you (so it's either you or them) whereas someone who's just been robbed, won't. (unless he's faking it and wants to pull out a gun and kill you when you get near)

The Ultimate DooMer said:

Not necessarily, as zombies will try to kill you (so it's either you or them) whereas someone who's just been robbed, won't. (unless he's faking it and wants to pull out a gun and kill you when you get near)

I don't think a zombie will necessary try to kill you, either, but as far as Doom is concerned, you're right. Of course, then, Doom is just a computer game, so we probably wouldn't have a problem with killing those enemies even if they were not zombies or did not necessarily mean to kill us.

there are so many of you i would like to quote, but the plain and simple about the "controversy"(in my opinion) is this: if you don't like the game or its supossed 'message', then don't by it and/or don't let your kid play it! take resposibilty for yourself, you fucking lazy, selfish, bastard. instead of letting corperate masters force their spoon full of products down your throat and then bitch about it and its content, how about you live your life and keep it to yourself, ass wipe, rather than blame the problems of you and the world on something you disagree with!!!... now, why don't you go home and recieve another sodamizing from the news@6-o-clock.

btw, i fancy myself as a great offender, so i'm thrilled my fav game made numero uno!

[edit] i shouldn't have to specify who "you" is, but its everybody, even myself. because we are all guilty of being somebodies puppet [edit]

I blame Doom for turning me into an imp. With a muzzle and ears and a tail and a red coat and...

Where was "Mortal Kombat"? Or Night Trap?? Custer's Revenge?

Those games alone got a bad rep back in the day, or was this supposed to be "most controversial PC GAMES of all time"?


I think some people are forgetting that this was the list of most CONTROVERSIAL games (as in, the ones that got noticed, not the ones that were the most violent).

Soldier of Fortune is pretty danged violent. When MK and Doom came out, there were far more violent games out that got ignored (like Chiller in the arcades for example, which was out before Operation Wolf, another controversial game). Sword of Sodan on the genesis was pretty graphic, but it got glossed over because it was a first generation game (in fact, a lot of the early Genesis games were pretty brutal/gory... Death Duel, TechnoCop, Fist of the North Star, etc).

They were right to point out that Doom's "controversy" came up long after it had achieved success (further hurting the argument that Doom causes school shootings... why would modern kids play such an old outdated game, when there are newer, more violent games to choose from..? and why would so many Doom players grow up as non-murderous members of society?). When it came out, there are lots of violent games out (Wolfenstein3D just to name one) and hundreds of ripoffs and imitations with similar levels of violence. Nobody pointed the finger then... not until Columbine. The rest of the games mentioned were controversial when they came out. Perhaps because PC games were still thought of as a kind of non-serious "niche market" mostly for adults even back then (in 1993 with the whole shareware scene still being viable)?

Anyway, I should amend my earlier statement about Mortal Kombat because all of the MK games (except for the recent Deadly Alliance and the two console only games MK Mythologies Sub-Zero and MK Special Forces) were ported to the PC.

Heck, the Genesis version of MK1 was super controversial because it had blood (even though it required a secret code to turn it on), but the graphics absolutely sucked. The PC version was 99% identical to the arcade version (and as a result, just as bloody). Nintendo got a lot of flak over toning down their snes port of MK, so when MK2 came around, they left it uncensored (ha!).

The real "controversy" is this:

A new bit of entertainment comes out that has something that a parent doesn't want their kid to see until they're older (if at all). No problem. Adults can decide for themselves what they want to buy or not, it's the kids that are different.

But then the kid has to put up with the media hype telling them to buy the game and that all their friends have it, etc, it's marketed at them. So the parents have to put up with them begging for it and sneaking off to their friend's house or the local arcade to play it, etc. Of course, they can just say no. The "controversy" just gives certain visible games a bad reputation (which may increase sales because people want to see "is is really that bad?" because they're curious). It's only stupid because it is arbitrary and ultimately doesn't change the fact that the parents are responsible for their kids.

Good point also about the hentai games. Those are at least as offensive if not moreso than the ones listed, for reasons better left to the imagination. ; p