DOOM, Demons & Moral Panic: The Game They Tried to Ban

Why was DOOM so controversial — and why did politicians, pastors, and parent groups try to ban it?
In 1993, DOOM didn’t just invent the modern first-person shooter — it also sparked a full-blown satanic moral panic. Banned in Germany, blamed for youth violence, linked to Columbine, and accused of promoting demonic symbols and devil worship, this gore-soaked trip through Hell turned Doomguy into a 90s counterculture icon.

Created by id Software — including John Romero and John Carmack — DOOM spread across university networks via dial-up, crashed office servers, and became the poster child for debates over violent video games. From pixelated demons to real-world panic, we unpack how a video game ignited fear in churches, legislatures, and living rooms alike.

If you loved this episode, check out our earlier deep dive into gaming and religious paranoia: “Gamer Satan” –  where we unpack how Christians decided controllers were gateways to Hell and why imaginary demons keep getting blamed for very real human behaviour. (Find it wherever you’re listening now.)

If you think demons belong in pixelated corridors and not in parliamentary hearings, you’re our kind of sinner. Join our Doomguy-approved coalition at patreon.com/satanismysuperhero for bonus episodes, early releases, behind-the-scenes chaos, and access to our ever-growing vault of Hoots songs.

Got memories of playing DOOM on a school computer lab network?
Were you personally accused of summoning Satan via floppy disk?
Did your youth pastor confiscate your PC?
Email us: satanismysuperhero@gmail.com 
We read everything. Especially the unhinged stuff. 

Transcript

In this episode we dial up the internet on our home phone landline and blast demons in full 32 bit glory! 

01 [SFX DIAL UP MODEM

GAMER, 'Wait for it... wait for it... wait for it.'] 

We're going back to the O.G. satanic video game, Doom. Which we did briefly cover in one our earliest episodes, Gamer Satan. 

[ERIC, 'Gratuitous back catalogue plug.'] 

In that episode we told you Doom is science fiction horror epic about a space marine who fights demons from and in Hell.  

[JUDE, 'It's become a less ridiculous concept every day, since 2016.']

The character you play in the game is never named. People simply started referring to this avatar as, 'Doomguy'.

[JUDE, ‘That must have been awkward on the dating scene.’]

02 [TINDER, ‘He's cute. I love the chiselled chin and military vibe. But come on, Doomguy?’

CHOIR OF ANGELS, ‘I think I’m gonna have to swipe left.’]

Many have noticed the Inferno level of the game seems to be,

[STING, ‘Inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy.’]

Where did Doom come from? I hear you ask.

[JUDE, ‘No I didn’t.’]

[CHOIR OF ANGELS, 'Time for a brief background.']

In 1992 a five person team moved into an office they dubbed ‘Suite 666’ and set about creating the most evil, gory and violent first person shooter ever.

03 [RESEARCHER, 'Okay, so I’m doing some market research. Which game concept do you prefer? Gory, violent first person shooter or...'

GAMER, 'That one.' 

RESEARCHER, 'But you didn’t let me tell you the other option!'

GAMER, ‘Are they good?’

RESEARCHER, ‘No.’]

And a year later, a legend was born.

[SFX BABY CRYING AND SHOOTING LASERS]

The working title of the game was 'Green and Pissed'.

04 [DOOMGUY, ‘I'm angry coz I can't get laid!’]

The final title Doom allegedly came from the 1986 film The Color of Money. When asked what Tom Cruise has in his pool cue case, Cruise replies,

05 [CRUISE, 'In here? Doom.']

[JUDE, ‘They had to watch a Tom Cruise movie to discover the word, Doom?’]

How much of your vocabulary comes from Tom Cruise movies?

[JUDE, ‘I mean, it's not zero.’]

06 [RESEARCHER, 'Now I'm going to run a couple of potential game titles past you.'

GAMER, 'Okay.'

RESEARCHER, 'Alright, first up we've got, Doom, then...'

GAMER, 'Doom.'

RESEARCHER, 'But you didn't let me tell you the other options!'

GAMER, 'Are they better than Doom?'

RESEARCHER, 'Maybe!'

GAMER, 'Can I look at your list?'

RESEARCHER, 'No.']

The game is split into 3 sections, titled, 'Knee-Deep in the Dead, The Shores of Hell, and Inferno'. Because the game is,

[CHOIR OF ANGELS, 'Inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy.']

In 2012, Time said the designers of Doom,

07 [TIME, ‘showed a bracing lack of restraint in their deployment of gore and Satanic iconography’]

[JUDE, ‘Yeah they did!’]

08 [RESEARCHER, 'I've got some options regarding the icon... You know what? I'm just gonna go right ahead and put down, satanic.'

GAMER, 'Now you’re getting it.’]

The series contains Baphomet, portals to hell, a demon apocalypse and a spaceship made of bones, metal and flesh. 

REPLAY GS 01 [MARY, ‘What’s that smell?’

JOHN, ‘It’s my spaceship. Sorry about that, it’s made of flesh.’

MARY, ‘How does that work in space?’

JOHN, ‘It has its pros and cons.’

MARY, ‘Oh yeah?’

JOHN, ‘A con I guess would be every time we enter the vacuum of space the entire crew dies. But on the flip side, that does provide the material required to plug the holes.’]

Co-Designer John Romero said, 

09 [ROMERO, ‘everyone in the company was an atheist. We didn’t believe in hell or heaven or any of that stuff.’]

[SATAN, ‘Which is exactly what I tell all my followers to say.’]

In a January 1st 1993 press release I.D. Games claimed Doom was going to be,

10 [ID, ‘the number one cause of decreased productivity in businesses around the world.’]

They were kind of right. There were multiple reports of major institutions having their very limited 1993 computer networks clogged up with Doom traffic.

11 [SFX DIAL UP INTERNET 

TEEN, 'Mum! Get off the phone! I'm trying to connect to my AOL account.']

Co-creator of Microsoft’s DirectX platform Alex St. John said among Microsoft programmers, Doom became a, ‘religious phenomenon.’

12 [ST JOHN, 'Now let us turn to page 9 of the Doom Manual and repeat after me. Shift down arrow to run backwards.'

FOLLOWERS, 'Shift down arrow to run backwards.'

ST JOHN, 'Shift left arrow to make a fast left turn.'

FOLLOWERS, 'Shift left arrow to make a fast left turn.']

Intel and Texas A&M University had to ban the game from their servers.

13 [DOOMNAZI, 'No Doom for you!']

In the 2003 book, Masters of Doom, it is claimed at the University of Louisville, 

14 [MOD, ‘people sprinted into the computer lab, falling all over each other to play the game.’

SFX COLLISION 

WITNESS, 'Oh no there's been a nerd collision! Oh the humanity! There's glasses and pocket protectors everywhere!']

And a special program had to be created to routinely delete the game from the campus computers.

15 [ROBOT, 'Initiate program Killjoy.'

SFX DIAL UP INTERNET]

In 1994 the game was banned in Germany. The censor told the BBC they judge material based on,

16 [CENSOR, ‘drastic portrayals of violence directed against human or human-like beings.’]

[JUDE, 'Human-like beings? So in Germany it's illegal to be mean to JD Vance.']

17 [VANCE, 'I'm a real boy!']

In 2011 the ban was lifted because, well, by 2011, Doom was looking pretty tame.

18 [GERMAN, 'You know, flesh ripping demons pouring through an open portal to Hell committing drastic portrayals of violence directed against human or human-like beings seems to be more appealing after seeing Adam Sandler's Jack and Jill.']

Despite Hollywood’s long and fruitful partnership with the Dark Lord, they sidelined Hell and its demons in the movie adaptation of the game.

19 [RESEARCHER, 'We have 12 years of market research that says, Satan is cool.'

EXEC, 'Listen here little Missy, I produced, Nice Girls Don't Explode. I think I know what people want']

Lead programmer John Carmack said this about the film,

20 [CARMACK, ‘My only regret is that they didn’t play up the satanic Hell aspect, that it just became a genetic mutation.’]

The film was an unmitigated box office flop.

21 [EXEC, 'Didn't have enough exploding girls!']

Writer/Director of the 2019 reboot, Doom: Annihilation, Tony Giglio said,

22 [GIGLIO, 'what I really wanted and thought was lacking in the last film was demons. Hell.']

[SATAN, 'I only agreed to come back once they promised Dwayne the Rock Johnson would not be involved with the project. That thing he does with his nipples, freaks me out. I don't like it.']

It’s all been fun and games so far but we do now have to cover one of the darkest stories that still makes Doom internet famous today.

[JUDE, ‘Did Doomguy go to Epstein Island?’]

No. The dicks who committed the Columbine Massacre were known to be Doom players. It was rumoured one of them had created a custom level of the game, based on the layout of the school. 

23 [NRA, 'Today we commemorate all those school children that have died, protecting our 2nd Amendment Rights.']

This mythical custom level has never appeared. But he did write in his journal about Doom and compared his planned shooting spree to the game.

24 [HARRIS, 'Dear diary. Pew, pew, pew!']

And finally, we love to hear from the Christians on this show and here is Colleen Riley, spokesperson for Christian Mothers Against Violent Video Games.

REPLAY: GS 04 [RILEY, ‘We believe that the Doom games are a morally bankrupt, depraved piece of pop culture that continues to endanger our children’s innocence.’]

[JUDE, ‘We probably shouldn’t have followed Columbine with Christian Mothers Against Violent Video Games. We kind of helped Colleen make her point there.’]

True. But counterpoint...

REPLAY OG [MUM, ‘Hey, I’ve got one of my old games from 1993, do you want to play?’

TEEN, ‘What is a 1993?’

MUM, ‘It’s a year. Last century.’

TEEN, ‘No I don’t want to play a game from a hundred years ago.’

MUM, ‘It’s been described as morally bankrupt and depraved.’

TEEN, ‘Oh okay, put it on.’]

24a [LEXI, ‘If you’ve also been described as morally bankrupt and depraved why not join us on our Patreon. Because we’re not just morally bankrupt, we’re also financially bankrupt.’

JUDE, ‘And it would be nice to feed the kids.’

LEXI, ‘Well...’]

[JUDE, ‘What can we take away from Doom?’]

In 1993 the occupants of Suite 666 explicitly warned us anyone who claims they want to go to Mars is a psychopath who just wants to open portal to Hell and unleash a maelstrom of demons on us. We should have listened.

25 [MUSK, ‘In space, no one can hear your wedgie!’]

[JUDE, ‘Time for a quote.’]

Prior to the great social media migration of 2024,

26 [USER, ‘Where did all these Nazis come from?’]

John Romero followed exactly 666 people on Twitter and in 2018 tweeted, 

27 [ROMERO, ‘Satan is my homeboy.’]

[SATAN, ‘He might not be a believer but he’s certainly a fan.’]

[JUDE, ‘And that’s why Satan is my superhero.’]