Carmack: Violent video games are "potentially positive"

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Legendary Doom creator downplays the effects of video game violence

Being the creator of Doom carries a lot of street cred with the gaming community, but as id Software boss John Carmack has learned, it also makes one a constant target in the never ending video game violence debate. In hismost recent interview on the topicwith IndustryGamers, Carmack said not only has he never taken the issue seriously, he believes violent video games can actually create peaceful gamers.

Narrowing in on Doom, Carmack recalls having to bite his lip for years following the hellish FPS's release in order to avoid adding fuel the mainstream media fire. Moreover, rather than regarding Doom as the game that revolutionized video game violence, Carmack said he instead sees it as the game that propelled the industry forward, explaining:

"I remember what I think was one of the turning points, really for the industry, when we were developing Doom and we were at our office and I noticed that the janitor that was emptying the trash had just been sitting there watching... John Romero was playing something and he had just been sitting there, a guy who probably never had played a video game in his life. And he was just mesmerized watching this. And I realized that we had reached a point now where we were reaching beyond the self-selected geeky gamer-type audience that used to be all that there was."

You can catch John Carmack's next bloody ultra-violent masterpiece(?), RAGE, on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC this October.

Aug 1, 2011



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“I really think, if anything, there is more evidence to show that the violent games reduce aggression and violence,” said Carmack, explaining, “There have actually been some studies about that, that it’s cathartic. If you go to QuakeCon and you walk by and you see the people there [and compare that to] a random cross section of a college campus, you’re probably going to find a more peaceful crowd of people at the gaming convention. I think it’s at worst neutral and potentially positive."

Narrowing in on Doom, Carmack recalls having to bite his lip for years following the hellish FPS's release in order to avoid adding fuel the mainstream media fire. Moreover, rather than regarding Doom as the game that revolutionized video game violence, Carmack said he instead sees it as the game that propelled the industry forward, explaining:

"I remember what I think was one of the turning points, really for the industry, when we were developing Doom and we were at our office and I noticed that the janitor that was emptying the trash had just been sitting there watching... John Romero was playing something and he had just been sitting there, a guy who probably never had played a video game in his life. And he was just mesmerized watching this. And I realized that we had reached a point now where we were reaching beyond the self-selected geeky gamer-type audience that used to be all that there was."

You can catch John Carmack's next bloody ultra-violent masterpiece(?), RAGE, on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC this October.

Aug 1, 2011



id Software's John Carmack likes horsepower. He also likes the Wii U. Interesting, very interesting...
Rage coming to a Nintendo machine near you? Sounds like it could happen



Bleszinski: Violent game critics 'flatter' the industry
Epic's Cliff Bleszinski says attacks on the games industry are 'scary,' but put it in the company of Elvis and moving pictures



Supreme Court video game trial makes way more sense in Taiwanese animation
NMA TV recaps serious California video game trial in awesomely non-serious manner

Matt Bradford

Matt Bradford wrote news and features here at GamesRadar+ until 2016. Since then he's gone on to work with the Guinness World Records, acting as writer and researcher for the annual Gamer's Edition series of books, and has worked as an editor, technical writer, and voice actor. Matt is now a freelance journalist and editor, generating copy across a multitude of industries.