Playing Doom makes you a better person in real life

I've noticed after playing a lot of Doom, particularly on -fast or with nightmare on, when I go driving shortly later I have a much more heightened awareness of hazards and whatever else is in my surroundings. I may notice a squirrel run out into the street long before it actually is in my way, or a traffic light changing, or see backed up traffic in time before it's too late to take an alternate route.

I've also noticed while being concious of my times in UV-Maxing maps or UV-Speeding, that over the course of a few years, I've gotten much better at time management. Often giving correct estimates of how long it takes me to do certain tasks, as opposed to simply telling someone "I'll be there in 10 minutes," I can actually pretty accurately tell them "I'll be there in 14 minutes" or "in 6 minutes."

Post examples of how playing Doom improves or has improved your life.

Package this up in a self-improvement course/seminar for highly competitive pointy-haired managers, and you'll find yourself a millionaire with 7 hot babes in no time.

It really doesn't. :D

Hear it from our testimonials!

Joe Random Ass said:

I used to play a lot of samey AAA games like COD (eww) in which all I did was sit passively through cutscenes and drooling, while I was getting fast and pimpley and couldn't get any. But when I tried the power of Doom, I soon became a twitchy fast mothafuckah, and now I'm a playah who has to use his new DOOM skillz to evade them bitches when I'm walking down de street. Word. Thank you DooM, you be da shit, dawg!

Donald McFuckett said:

I used to be a junior level manager in a highly competitive Fortune 500 company. It was so competitive that we even learned to pee hands-free in order not to waste time, water, soap and hand tissues. To relieve the stress, I used to play shitty AAA games with no gameplay and linear plots (or worse yet, sports games), just to dull the pain of being alive and grind through another day. My job performance also started suffering, and I was about to get the boot. Seeing that this was a dead end, I tried DooM following the advice of a friend. And what a difference! A truly competitive, no-nonsense game, where EVERYTHING counts if you want to stay alive. This soon reflected on my job performance, where I outperformed all other junior managers and was offered a direct promotion to senior manager, but I turned it down and now I have my own Fortune 500 company, where playing Doom is a compulsory part of our corporate team-building culture and manager training policies. Thank you, DooM. You changed my life.

What are you waiting for? Order your copy of DooM today!

If you're speedrunning and playing on Nightmare (both of which require intensive situation scanning and time management) I can certainly see how it would tone those skills and additionally improve them in the real world. Mapping also requires a great deal of creativity/imagination and may even improve spatial awareness. For someone who plays casually like me however, the game probably does fuck all.

After I've taken up speed running as a hobby, I've noticed that, for example, I handle light switches quicker, often turning around and reaching for the door or doing something else as I'm still doing the switching. There's no standing still baby. I also noticed that I'm not actually turning around but actually MOVING backwards as I turn around, like a real speed running pro! Thanks to DooM I can now get out of the house (or to bed) quicker!

It really doesn't,most of my friends start laughing just after seeing me playing it ,They start saying things like (Haha what a child,this is a great game ? ,Grow up .... etc) so i'm playing DOOM Secretly ..

Kotzugi said:

I also noticed that I'm not actually turning around but actually MOVING backwards as I turn around, like a real speed running pro! Thanks to DooM I can now get out of the house (or to bed) quicker!

Now if Dooming could teach me to wallrun with minimal effort....

Maes said:

Now if Dooming could teach me to wallrun with minimal effort....

Like this ... Lol reminds me of Matrix
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs51/i/2009/301/d/b/WallRun_With_Airsoft_by_Soulkreig.jpg

So far, there's only one aspect of Doom I've adopted in real life:

Thanks to Doom, I can run diagonally along walls and reach speeds of 80mph.

40oz said:

I've noticed after playing a lot of Doom, particularly on -fast or with nightmare on, when I go driving shortly later I have a much more heightened awareness of hazards and whatever else is in my surroundings. I may notice a squirrel run out into the street long before it actually is in my way, or a traffic light changing, or see backed up traffic in time before it's too late to take an alternate route.

I imagine that I've got a Fire button on my steering wheel, and I Rocket Launch cars ahead of me.

DMGUYDZ64 said:

It really doesn't,most of my friends start laughing just after seeing me playing it ,They start saying things like (Haha what a child,this is a great game ? ,Grow up .... etc) so i'm playing DOOM Secretly ..

If I had "friends" like that, it wouldn't be long, cause I'd send them DtR.

Playing Doom feeds my procrastinating habits and makes me an addict. At its best, it helps me relax and have a good fun which I wouldn't have otherwise, and possibly learn about good level design / game design. My reflexes still suck and my time management abilities suck even more. No, playing Doom doesn't make me a better person in real life.

Re: OP
This could explain why my driving skills haven't been quite as sharp as they used to be. I haven't been playing nearly enough Doom! (edit: yes I'm still driving. Yes I'm still alive). (erm, signed in on my friend's account; this is hellbent).

PROTIP: simply posting on a internet forum about DooM does not grant you the same skills you'd get by, you know, actually playing DooM.

Thanks to Doom, I hump walls constantly!

Memfis said:

It really doesn't. :D

Good to see I'm not the one. Perhaps 40oz "is built in a different manner". :D

even chicks dig doom

Maes said:

PROTIP: simply posting on a internet forum about DooM does not grant you the same skills you'd get by, you know, actually playing DooM.

I dodge flamewars much like imp fireballs

I believe that using the grabber in Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil helps at tennis!

I don't quite remember anything else from Doom helping me in life, probably because it being so ingrained in me already. I suppose that Doom challenges and activities which aren't relaxing - i.e. speedrunning, Nightmare games, mod creation (at a steady pace) or programming - surely help one in life. The thing is that they're also tiring and can't go for too long.

My grunting and oomphing sounds more assertive thanks to Doom. It also helps me cope with pain better, if I simply grunt or oomph like Doomguy.

Don't know if it's made me a better person, but thanks to Doom I've mastered the art of walking backwards through doorways.

scifista42 said:

Playing Doom feeds my procrastinating habits and makes me an addict.

mostly this.

improving reflexes? perhaps a bit in-game.

Pirx said:

mostly this.

improving reflexes? perhaps a bit in-game.

So that's where all the newfound nervous tics and scratching attacks came from...

All it does is to make me a better doomer the more I play it.

Doom gave me gonorrhea.

My car can't strafe. Doom is fucking useless.

Off topic:

Maes said:

Ultra-Violent Rectal Imagery.

What is it with you and rear ends?


On topic:
Before I played DooM, I couldn't communicate very well. But now, thanks to the game, I bought myself a chainsaw, and boy, I really do get my message across!

Olroda said:

What is it with you and rear ends?

It's part of his cultural heritage.