Why is Doom available to play on....everything?
The '93 groundbreaking shooter is playable on some strange hardware, but...why?
My 8 year-old brother somehow got a copy of Doom for our PC in the mid 90’s. This was a time where how computers worked wasn’t exactly common knowledge, and it certainly wasn’t knowledge that my parents had. My dad got one for the same reason he got a Tamagotchi; it was the new big thing. He didn’t understand how it worked, the rules and laws of using a computer, what a “desktop” was, etc.
Back to my brother. He got Doom, installed it on the family computer, and went hog wild. When my mother saw what exactly the game was, she decided it wasn’t suitable for a 6 year old and an 8 year old. She made my dad uninstall it, and assumed that would be the end of it. She didn’t understand that my brother could just reinstall it the same way he originally installed it. So, of course, he did, and my mom was both furious and dumbfounded.
I imagine if my brother had to now, he would easily be able to play Doom right under my mom’s nose. The game is one of the most widely ported games of all time. A quick google search estimates the number to be around twenty-three, give or take. On everything from Linux to Gameboy Advance, to smart phones.
As it turns out, Doom is playable on way more than just game systems. Anything from cash registers, to public transportation card readers, to……pregnancy tests?
After seeing Doom running on so many different(and weird) pieces of tech, I became genuinely curious; Why are people so fascinated with porting Doom?
As it turns out, it all started with a meme.
"It Runs Doom" is an expression indicating that a device is capable of running the 1993 first-person shooter video game Doom, which has been successfully ported to a variety of electronic gadgets designed for purposes other than gaming.
Starting in 2006 with a youtuber showing off Doom running on a Scope Monitor, people have been trying to one up each other by running Doom on unusual machines and sharing videos online. Tech as recent as Macbook Touch Bars. Tech as unorthodox for gaming as ATM machines!
Throughout my digging, I came across a tumblr that keeps up with all the wacky ports and shares them in one place. Naturally, it’s called “It Runs Doom!”, and it dates back to 2013. The bio for the tumblr summarizes itself perfectly; “A celebration of computer science's most violent Hello World substitute”.
While I didn’t really get an answer as to why Doom is being ported to strange hardware, it’s been fun seeing what it’s been ported to. It’s become a sort of strange tech pissing contest; what is the most bizarre piece of hardware that I can get this game running on? I shudder to think of what the game will be running on next.
Thanks for reading!