Germany has lifted a 17 year ban restricting the sale of classic video game ‘Doom’ to adults only.
Doom, along with its sequel Doom II, were banned in Germany back in 1994 as authorities considered the game ’likely to harm youth‘ due to ‘drastic portrayals of violence’ within the game.
It’s this high level of violence and gore that has ensured ‘Doom’ continues to feature in lists of the most controversial video games of all time.
“Crude Graphics”
So why the change?
The ‘Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons’ (known as the ‘Bundesprüfstelle‘ in Germany) adjusted the restriction on the sale of Doom following an appeal by the current owner of id Software, the company which originally created the game.
They (the owners of id Software) argued that the ‘crude graphics‘ in the game, when compared to modern gaming, had lessened the impact of the violence in the game. Agreeing in part that this was true, Bundesprüfstelle also felt that the game was now unlikely to be played by children and held ‘a historical interest’ to gamers.
The American version of Doom II, which incorporates levels of Wolfenstein 3D, remains on the controlled list due to the Nazi imagery used throughout the game.
Chocolate Doom
To ‘toast’ the lifting of the ban instructions follow for installing the ‘historically accurate’ Doom port “Chocolate Doom“.
Chocolate Doom remains faithful to the original version as far as possible, opting to shun the addition of extra levels in favour of remaining within the limitations of the original.
Chocolate Doom can be installed on Ubuntu 10.04, 10.10 and 11.04 by adding the following PPA to Software Sources, updating and then install ‘Chocolate Doom’ from the Ubuntu Software Centre: –
- ppa:pmjdebruijn/chocolate-doom-release