Friday, November 15, 2013

Language warning: DOOM dissertation

And another quotation from yours truly, this time from my dissertation writing:

More generally, DOOM could be considered as the game that cemented the modern conception of the hard-core gamer, negative stereotypes included. As mentioned earlier, Sega, in its promotion of the Sega Genesis, attempted to appeal to teenaged gamers moving out of Nintendo`s “kid” demographic through connecting coolness to its mascot character Sonic’s speed; id pursued a similar sense of cool, but accelerated it, through an emphasis on speed, violence, and a culture of competition that drew on both. Consider this passage from Kushner`s book-length study on id, wherein he describes Romero’s adoption of a “rock star” persona as the public face of id, and his trip to Austin with id employee Shawn Green:
It was all silent except for the sounds of fingers rattling on keys. But all that changed as the id guys began to play.

Romero hurled a few shotgun blasts into an opponent and yelled, ‘Eat that, fucker!’. The sheepish guy on the computer looked up in fear. Shawn knew that look—the look of a gamer never heard true, unbridled smack-talk, just like he’d been the first time he had heard Romero insult him during a game. But now Shawn was a pro and joined right in. “Suck it down, monkey fuck!” he called, after firing a few blasts from his BFG. The gamers cowered. They would learn. (187)



"Suck it down, monkey fuck." I really need to get done this section on DOOM, because it's reminding me about everything I hate about videogames.

Later Days.


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