[sylefeb]

Doom has had an immediate huge impact in its time ; even before the source code got released the game had a hacker-friendly wibe to it. For instance DEU (the first editor I used) was released in 1994 (https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/Doom_Editing_Utilities). The 'unofficial specs', still invaluable today if you want to hack Doom, were released in 1994: http://www.gamers.org/dhs/helpdocs/dmsp1666.html

Magazines would bundle floppies (and then CDs) full of levels, with new textures and recorded games. Total conversions were made. Tools appeared to directly manipulate the executable and achieve various effects. As far as I remember no other game before had clustered such a large and active community around it? (which is not to say that no other great and amazing games existed before, so many gems lie in the past!)

And then there was the networked play. I spent an afternoon with a friend soldering a cable to play 'null-modem', and we got it working around ~6pm. At 5am the next day we were still playing, me on a luxurious 486 DX2-66, my friend in a tiny window on a 386 DX-33Mhz, both with red eyes. This was an experience like quite no other at the time.

The gameplay was simplistic but huge fun. The immersion was intense. The tech was stellar. But I am obviously biased by nostalgia ;)

[Baeocystin]

I was in college at UCSD when the 14-Mb shareware DOOM was released. I finally found it (after frantic searching) on a public FTP server somewhere in Australia. I started the download, then went to dinner. After eating, I came back to both the completed file and a salty email from the Aussie sysadmin admonishing me for saturating their connection. The next few days (and my GPA for that quarter) were a bit of a blur. Good times. :D

[nickpeterson]

Basically, Minecraft is doom for today’s youth (minus the technological prowess)