reception of doom when it came out

It's hard to convey just how big of a deal Doom was when it was released. I was 9, living in smallish town Tennessee, when it came out and kids were talking about it on the back of the bus, my dad's coworkers were talking about it, etc. Kids my age and older kids were passing around floppy disks with wads on them by the next summer (iirc), there were whole chunks of the internet dedicated to it, books on making Doom levels started popping up in your neighborhood bookstore, etc. It really was a phenomenon on a scale that even something like Fortnite today doesn't seem close to touching.

Doom is one of those rare games that caused not only a permanent shift within the video game industry; but affected popular culture as well.  Other games of such magnitude would be Tetris and Pac-man.   It was on that scale of importance, as it was referenced in both TV (X-files, Friends, etc.) and film (Grosse Point Blank, etc).

Programmers and Level designers became rockstars briefly...

The closest thing I can relate it to was when grunge became a thing and suddenly everybody had to find the next Seattle sound;  every game company had to make a shooter or implement 3D all of a sudden.   

There was a somewhat innocent and quaint time before Doom, and then there's everything that followed a year after.

5 hours ago, Master O said:

Again, throughout human history, there have been movies violent plays, novels, comic books, songs, poems, and other forms of expression, yet video games get singled out for "violence".

Nah, make no mistakes, the other mediums have gone through their growing pains with the same concerns, especially music, movies, and comic books.

12 hours ago, joepallai said:

Doom is one of those rare games that caused not only a permanent shift within the video game industry; but affected popular culture as well.  Other games of such magnitude would be Tetris and Pac-man.   It was on that scale of importance, as it was referenced in both TV (X-files, Friends, etc.) and film (Grosse Point Blank, etc).

 

Don't forget Street Fighter 2 as well.

so why was doom so forgotten in the mainstream for such a long time when compared to other influential games?

Because Halo.