Doom: The Dark Ages is finally out, which means that I’m once again thinking about an iconic social media moment we only got because of Doom Eternal.
“You Control The Buttons You Press”
In anticipation of the 2020 shooter, the official Doom account tweeted, “The new ice bomb will let you freeze demons in place in Doom Eternal.” The tweet included a gif of the ice bomb in action, as the Doom Slayer lobbed a frosty frag at a Hell Knight and then smashed it to bits.
In response to that awesome display of arsenal innovation, Twitter user @Otakugear asked, “Will we have an option to turn off that canon and play classic? like good old times? [sic]”
The official Doom account wasted little time in responding: “you control the buttons you press”. That response quickly became iconic, and even has its own Know Your Meme page.
Though, in retrospect, it’s surprising that it actually has fewer likes than the original post showing off the ice bomb.
It resonated with people because it casually, but in no uncertain terms, ethered one of the most annoying attitudes we see governing how fans relate to the things that they’re a fan of. Unfamiliar stuff is guilty until proven innocent. And if you put an unfamiliar thing into the new version of an old thing, you better give me the opportunity to switch back to the old thing.
Unfamiliar Is Bad, Familiar Is Good
All of the culture revolving around IP has led to audiences being increasingly accustomed to being constantly, and absolutely, catered to. It’s the reason that The Last Jedi’s less obviously heroic take on Luke Skywalker was instantly controversial, and has kept the movie a reliable discourse starter for eight years, while The Mandalorian season two’s finale is the highest rated episode of live-action Star Wars TV ever. One asked audiences to imagine that Luke grew and changed. The other presented Luke exactly as we remembered him, frozen in digitally de-aged amber.
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But I like when a brand shows a little bit of hostility to its fans because, let’s be real, fans are often deeply entitled in the way that they engage with games and the developers who make them. Whether it’s arguing that Baldur’s Gate 3 should add action combat because some people don’t like turn-based, or that it was an affront to good gaming for developers to choose to make Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Cyberpunk 2077 first-person, or that Insomniac had transgressed greatly by slightly altering puddle sizes between Spider-Man’s E3 demo and its full release, fans want games to be exactly what they want without an ounce of errant artistic expression from the developers.
Developers Need To Like The Game, Too
@Otakugear’s tweet is pretty innocuous in comparison to a lot of fan responses. We’ve seen much nastier feedback for developers when their games deviate from the expected norm mechanically or narratively, like, say, The Last of Us Part 2’s story choices. But it represents the same irritating attitude, and the Doom account’s tweet also, humorously, stands up for developers’ rights to experiment with a series’ formula.
As much as fans care about Doom, the people who actually work at id Software spend all day, every day thinking about the series. As much as you, as a fan, may want to not have to use the ice bomb, the continued health of the series and the studio depends on developers being free to try new, invigorating things. Can you imagine how boring your life would be if you did the same exact thing at work every day for decades? You might have a job like that, but it likely isn’t one that you would want to stay in for long. Developers playing around with new ideas is the key to a studio having longevity. We have to let id control the buttons that it presses.
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If you have to connect to Wi-Fi to access the full game, that’s not a physical copy.