Doom 3 pentagram: nerfed because of satanism censorship concerns?

I've been marveling a lot at the Doom 3 pentagram appearing all over the place within and without the game. It looks fairly elaborate, and has that Doomguy face stuffed in it just in case. If you don't know what I'm talking about, do a Google image search. Or look at POTGIESSER's current avatar, God forbid him change it now.

However, within it I can see vague features of the mouth (teeth), horns, ears and eyes of the "baphomet" goat. However, it's heavily superimposed by other, nondescript features. Unfortunately, an outside non-Doomer viewer, on glimpsing the pentagram, might also expect the goat head. But that's really a detail that won't become apparent until after examination, and won't stand out very much.

So I'm asking: were the id artists concerned of demonic exposition in Doom 3, to the media, so they decided to make it look more alien, cryptic and less "satanic"? They started with a classic Goatface-on-pentagram picture, then nerfed it to look like that? That would lower the value of the drawing in my eyes, whose only saving grace being that it's a staple to a great game, Doom 3 as it is.

Also, disregard my sig. I'm really atheistic, but I give a damn about free speech of harmless expression.

Doom3 lost the "spirit" of the original games somewhere along the lines. The deal with old fashioned, almost-cheesy-but-still-disturbing goats head Satanism stuff is but one example of the spiritual jettison the game underwent during it's production.

I don't think that the goat head on the symbol was a result of toning down the old-fashioned satanic imagery, just that id had gone with a different art direction in general. If they had made the hell knight more like the baphomet/goat, then the symbol and/or the baph icon would probably fit in more. Looks like they took less of the animal inspirations from the classics and more alien-like for the modernization.

A mod including the baphomet would be cool though.

I am fairly certain they weren't concerned about the goats at all. I really don't understand your question, since the thing people generally got issues with is the pentagram itself. Not the depiction of Baphometh. Also, the pentagram is itself a representation of Baphometh so it is in effect always there.

Doom3 did have goats in it. Although in a cheesy way with he goatburgers boxes and pamphlets.

Considering all the gore featured in Doom3 with disemboweled humans screaming. Monsters eating the entrails of other monsters. Flesh covering walls. Pools of "boiling" blood. Demonic hieroglyphs flashing and the constant chanting of Betruger talking about burning in hell forever. I doubt id was concerned even for a second about Baphometh's face in the pentagram. But considering the artistic direction of Doom3 the depiction of Baphometh would have been extremely out of place.

Essentially, what DeumReaper said.

I think it's more to fit the theme of Doom 3 monsters that either had many eyes, or no eyes.

I don't think they really cared about it looking satanic. I believe they wanted it to look cool and throw in some silly easter eggs like Doomguy's face.

I don't think it's really that bad to the world, there wasn't a whole lot of scandal. Doom3 itself wasn't pulled off the market anywhere. You can, however, see the pentagram on the floor when monsters are teleporting in.

Why should a pentagram be considered a satanic symbol per se? It is often used like that in popular culture, but you actually find it in christian art as well.

Point for example: in Hannover (Germany) there is a medieval church with a giant pentagram on the church tower, pointing downwards: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hannover_Marktkirche.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marktkirche

Iirc it was during the 1700's it got associated with Satan as the hedonistic religion featuring Baphometh was particularly strong in europe then. But I can't really recall, and I am too tired to check. :p