Canon Game Report:

Doom
By Jose Melchor Elegado 3847
Med3905A
January 10, 2010
 In the world of videogames, A "Canon Game" is a game that is successfully innovative to the
point that an entire genre of games appears that, even with major tweaks here and there, are clearly
patterned after this one game. By genre, we refer to the body of rules, features, conventions and other
details that both the creators and the audience of a particular type of media assume to be present
within that media, and accept without question. A game of a genre follows the genre conventions; the
Canon Game, by being not just the first to use them but by also being the one to make everyone take
notice of them, makes and rewrites the genre conventions. In the same way that Shakespeare is held in
high regard by fans of literature or Citizen Kane is always being studied by scholars of movies, the Canon
Videogame is a historical backtrack to the first time anything like Awesome Video Game no. 563 ever
came into being.

For this essay, we take a look at what is unanimously agreed to be the First-Person-Shooter
game's Canon Game:

Doom is one of the earliest first-person shooters in the history of video games, released by Id
Software in 1993. In this game, the player is a nameless military marine trapped in a science facility on
Mars overrun by devils and demons. The player starts off with a pistol, but eventually gets to find and
use other effective weapons, like shotguns, chainguns, rocket launchers, and even a chainsaw. The space
marine travels the single-floor levels of the facility with the simple objective of find the exit and kill
everything that moves and is trying to kill you (i.e everything). Unlike most other games that show the
game world from a distant camera, in Doom the player sees everything in the first-person view. Other
than the title screen, the player never actually sees the space marine aside from what he's holding and
what's directly in front of him.
 Big guns, ammo, health, armor, manly dude, and things to shoot at that explode in gory fashion?
Doom did it best first.

So what exactly about this game makes it "canon"? What did it do differently to other games of
its time, what did it do similarly to other games, what did it have that no other game ever had before it?

same as before

We have the manly square-jawed space marine, the abandoned science facility, and the freaky
alien monsters. The concepts have certainly been done before, at least in movies. Rambo has the
muscular dude with the giant guns, while Alien has the abandoned science facility in space taken over by
monsters. Combine the two, then mix up the backstory from "aliens from outer space" to "demons from
hell", and we have the premise for Doom.

Rambo, Alien

The first-person view has also been tried before as well, this time in other videogames older
than Doom. The earliest take on this is Battlezone, an arcade game made by Atari in 1980 that used
vector lines to simulate a tank battle with the player in the cockpit. Operation Wolf, a 1987 game by
Taito, used sprite graphics to take the player on an "on-rails" set pathway through a Vietnam War-era
battlefield and shoot down enemy soldiers and tanks. Even Id software made a first-person shooter that
came before Doom; Wolfenstein 3D, a 1992 game that involves the player shooting Nazi soldiers, was
otherwise an earlier version of Doom that proved just as popular. (Reed, 2009)
 Battlezone, Operation Wolf, Wolfenstein 3D: Each experiment brings something new.

different from before

Before Doom, Action and Adventure games were the norm (Salter, 2008). Everything happens in
the game all at once, and the player's own skill at spotting and reacting to threats is a major part of what
makes these games work. Despite the genre title, however, the pace at which these games set the
player's mind to was still quite tame. (Salter, 2008) This may be due to the player still being in full
control of the situation by seeing all the opposition around you from a third-person camera; there's less
urgency to deal with a back attack on the player's onscreen avatar when the player can see it from a
mile away. Keep the same pace, but restrict the player's view to the first person and make HIM the
target of enemy attacks, and suddenly a kind of paranoia kicks in concerning what bloodthirsty monster
could be unseen directly behind the player. This extra level of awareness required on the part of the
player makes for a very different action/adventure experience.
 Left: Contra, 3rdperson, player sees all. Right: 1stperson. Was what killed me in front, or behind?

This focus on aiming for maximum action shows through in the design decisions made by the Id
software team. The article, "The History of: Doom", outlines some of the design decisions that the Id
software team discussed as they were developing the game. A "Game Bible" was being written by one of
the team, containing world objects and elements to be included in the game as well as a storyline to be
told within the game. (The History of: Doom, 2009) However, the storytelling part conflicted with the
more pragmatic, bare-bones approach that their lead game designer John Carmack was going for.
(Barnes, 2007). In the end, the story was abandoned. (The History of: Doom, 2009) Along the same train
of thought, despite the high technical capabilities of Doom's game engine at the time, features and
details were kept to a minimum in order to ensure that game runs at a smooth and fast pace. (Barnes,
2007).

The focus was on maximum action; the game itself knew this, and flaunts it. Not just in its
inclusion of a beefy male protagonist with large guns and gratuitous bloody explosions, but even in the
way the game documents itself. The instruction manual reads as if it were said beefy male protagonist,
complete with casual tough-guy descriptions, references to raw meat and slugathons, and a bit of bad
language. Trying to exit the game even has the game talking back to you in the same tough-guy tone.
This testosterone-driven violence, as well as the "shoot first ask questions never" attitude that the game
promotes, has certainly drawn its fair share of negative attention from "Concerned Responsible Adults"
(Salter, 2008), as exemplified in the game becoming a scapegoat for the infamous Columbine School
shooting and other such incidents (Associated Press, 2002)
 Samples from the manual, and one of the many exit prompts. Probably where your kid learned to say
"bastard" and "S.O.B."

That which was entirely new

Doom is also noted for one key feature, one that up until then was not present in games for the
PC: Network LAN play, where several computers are linked together to allow for a multiplayer round of
Doom, either in a free-for-all against each other or as a team against the computer. The new style of
game plus support for competitive as well as cooperative gameplay only adds more points to what made
this game work. (Barnes, 2007)

The copycats afterwards

 Despite the other games that came before it, it was definitely Doom that convinced the gaming
world that these First Person Shooters were a hit (and therefore, a money farm for game makers). About
ten million copies were sold in the two years after its release, and many other games started appearing
en masse that copied Doom's formula. (Reed, 2009) Even more recent first-person-shooter games follow
the same formula. Stuff like the manly trash-talking space marine, the variety of guns (not much on
other weapons, just guns), shooting everything in sight, the hunting for doors and switches, and lack of
story, not to mention the player view, can make even recent games like Halo, Counterstrike, and Left 4
Dead look like they're just different versions of Doom, with a new setting or a slightly modified system
for items, means of travel or whatever new feature it has to set itself apart from the other "doom-
clones". These similarities, however, are rarely contested or called into question, as they are precisely
what people enjoy about the style of game that Doom has codified, the video game genre we now know
as the First-Person-Shooter.

Halo, Counterstrike Left 4 Dead: you all look familiar... and you're all good!

Therefore...

Doom was the first of the First-Person-Shooters games that got the entire system working just
right, from the game system and rules to the lightning-fast pacing, from the bloody and creepy
presentation to the awesome tough guy attitude. It's the success in bringing the First-Person-Shooter
formula to the spotlight that makes Doom a Canon Videogame.

References:

Reed, Kristan. The History of First Person Shooters, part 1. Sept 29, 2009: Videogamesdaily.com
http://videogamesdaily.com/features/200909/the-history-of-first-person-shooters-part-1 accessed
January 8, 2011.

Barnes, Aaron. A Brief History of the FPS. May 24, 2007: Yougamers
http://www.yougamers.com/articles/3624_a_brief_history_of_the_fps-page2/ accessed
January 8, 2011

Salter, Anastasia. A Gaming Canon: Slaughtering Space Demons. August 14, 2008: Cerise Magazine
http://cerise.theirisnetwork.org/2008/08/14/a-gaming-canon-slaughtering-space-demons/
accessed January 8, 2011
McCalmont, Jonathan. The Video Game Canon and the Age of Forgetfulness. June 10, 2010: Futurismic
http://futurismic.com/2010/10/06/the-video-game-canon-and-the-age-of-forgetfulness/
accessed January 8, 2010

The HIstory of: Doom. January 27, 2009: Nowgamer.com

http://www.nowgamer.com/features/176/the-history-of-doom?o=0#listing
accessed January 8, 2011

The Associated Press. Columbine Lawsuit Against Makers Of Video Games, Movies Thrown Out.
March 5, 2002: freedomforum.org http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?
documentID=15820 accessed January 9, 2011