I bet 2000 years from now Doom is belongs to canon like Iliad. It's of the timeless classical epics among the oldest extant works from the early silicon era. Doomguy is mentioned with Gilgamesh and Odysseus.
If they wouldn't have released source code for it in 1997, who would actually be thinking of DOOM today in terms of anything but "Wow, that had pretty cool tech!"?
I could kind of understand the story appreciation for DOOM 3, because it at least had a story, but DOOM?
Magazines would bundle floppies (and then CDs) full of levels, with new textures and recorded games. Total conversions were made. Tools appeared to directly manipulate the executable and achieve various effects. As far as I remember no other game before had clustered such a large and active community around it? (which is not to say that no other great and amazing games existed before, so many gems lie in the past!)
And then there was the networked play. I spent an afternoon with a friend soldering a cable to play 'null-modem', and we got it working around ~6pm. At 5am the next day we were still playing, me on a luxurious 486 DX2-66, my friend in a tiny window on a 386 DX-33Mhz, both with red eyes. This was an experience like quite no other at the time.
The gameplay was simplistic but huge fun. The immersion was intense. The tech was stellar. But I am obviously biased by nostalgia ;)
― Terry Pratchett
For the lazy, I just looked this up, and it does seem to be a real quote :)
Heck, Half Life looks like a -mediocre- episode of The Outer Limits.
That said, story is but one element of a video game. Most are praised for their gameplay, but some are for their aesthetics (Hollow knight, bastion), music (transistor), or others criteria. Thus, a game that excels at none can sometimes come on the top... But so can other games that all but stopped trying scoring on some aspects (dwarf fortress, or doom).
Normally I agree with the GP, and prefer the joyously silly/unashamedly dumb approach over the 99.9% of more 'serious' games that are tediously mediocre at best. And on paper Deus Ex should have been pretty annoying: it is a slightly janky mix of lowbrow conspiracy fiction and quasi-highbrow philosophising. But somehow -- obviously partly because of the still-fresh-20-years later gameplay, but also because of something I can't quite pin down in the synergy between gameplay and story -- it works amazingly well.
It really nails the feeling of existing in and shaping an exciting world, and I think every component is crucial, from the (blocky) environments to the (ludicrous) characters to the (somewhat awkward) mechanics, and of course the 'every conspiracy theory is true' plot. Obviously it has a sense of humour too, but I don't think it would have worked if it were constantly taking the piss out of itself.
SOMA, SOMA, SOMA. The best story I have ever seen in any videogame, ever.
I’d turn it around and instead of shooting the idea down, play the game and suggest what games you think will make the history books and get talked about in a thousand years. Even if it’s just some sort of computer or game history class in college, what games made before today will make it through the sieve of history and why?
I’d humbly suggest that story isn’t a very strong reason for the majority of the best games ever made; games are good for other reasons, including but not limited to visuals and graphics, immersion, interaction, engagement, sound, mood, viral play, pushing boundaries on limited hardware, etc., etc.
I’d turn it around and instead of shooting the idea down,
You just shot down the idea in five words.
play the game
I have. This is why I know it's not on the level of Charlotte's Web in terms of story, let alone the Epic of Gilgamesh.
I’d humbly suggest that story isn’t a very strong reason for the majority of the best games ever made
Exactly.
games are good for other reasons, including but not limited to visuals and graphics, immersion, interaction, engagement, sound, mood, viral play, pushing boundaries on limited hardware, etc., etc.
Literally none of this is relevant to what the poster proposed.
Architects don't try and claim that the Colosseum is part of canon. It's not part of canon. It's stone arranged in a particular way. It's impressive architecturally; it's part of architectural history. It's not part of canon.
I don’t speak for the GP comment, but FWIW I think you are misunderstanding the original comment and mine. The Colosseum absolutely is part of the architectural canon.
- The Lovers, painting by Magritte
- Nighthawks, painting by Edward Hopper
- Girl with a Pearl Earring, painting by Johannes Vermeer
- Space Invaders, arcade game by Tomohiro Nishikado
- Pacman, arcade game by Toru Iwatani
- Tetris, PC game by Alexey Pajitnov
- Doom, PC game by John Carmack and John Romero
Freudian doom.
I mean, no, but that event is the point. I don't think the parent is asserting that DOOM the game will be remembered in the classical canon. It's the codebase that belongs there!
Historically story in games has been, as Carmack himself once put it, "like story in a porn movie". It can be good or bad, and that can affect the end product's quality, but it isn't what people show up for.
In other words, only by intellectual gaming buffs.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Arriv%C3%A9e_d%27un_trai...
Might an AI capable of remastering DOS games have a similar affect?
Not sure what the Illiad of games is. Maybe there isn't one. Maybe Doomguy and Mario are closer to mythos like Hercules and other demigods.
The Wright brothers built an airplane that was a simple and early innovation, yet will always be remembered. Henry Ford build a simple and early car that will always be remembered. There’s evidence that simple and early innovations are lasting and culturally important.
Who knows if it’ll be remembered in a millennium? No one here, and maybe it will or maybe it won’t, but it already stands above most computer games ever made as an important milestone, it’s place in video game history is pretty solid. No reason to doubt a legacy is possible.