Sales show Doom 3 was "not bad" - Willits

By Tom Bramwell Published 5 August, 2008

But he gets why it divided opinions.

Doom III designer Tim Willits has said he understands why some people found the first-person shooter disappointing, although he maintains he's very proud of it.

Id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead ripped into people retrospectively criticising Doom III earlier this year, declaring "they get no credibility", and Willits echoed elements of that. "Games that sell over three-and-a-half million copies are not bad games," he told Eurogamer.

But he was gentler for the most part. "If you are any self-respecting videogame player, you love Doom, but everyone's vision of Doom and memories they had of playing Doom, and what they thought Doom should be - everyone had a different idea," he explained.

"When you're that popular, you will have different opinions. It was very successful for us, and I love playing it even to this day, and there are few games that look better, still, and that game came out a long time ago."

Hollenshead has previously described Doom III as "the most successful game in id's history", and the game, which came out in 2004 on PC (and later on Xbox 1), received big scores at the time, despite concerns about repetition and monsters jumping out of cupboards.

A quick tour of the QuakeCon LAN party floor last week suggests Willits isn't alone in his fondness for it either - with the game blaring away on a number of screens late into the night while others played free beta versions of Quake Live.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (40) Latest comment 4 years ago

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  • Der_tolle_Emil #1 4 years ago

    "If you are any self-respecting videogame player, you love Doom, but everyone's vision of Doom and memories they had of playing Doom, and what they thought Doom should be - everyone had a different idea,"

    I think everyone except id hat pretty much the same idea of what it should have been.

  • alimokrane #2 4 years ago

    Who on earth said Doom 3 sucked ? It's one of the best shooters out there. I loved that game.

  • Cappy #3 4 years ago

    I've never liked Doom. Guess I'm not a self respecting videogame player then. I'm glad that has all been cleared up and now I know.

  • subtlesnake #4 4 years ago

    As with the previous Eurogamer Doom 3 news story, expect half of the comments here to claim Doom 3 sucks and half to praise it as a fantastic game, and nobody to try look beyond their own narrow personal preferences.

  • DFawkes #5 4 years ago

    I enjoyed Doom 3, but it didn't fell like a proper Doom game, more like a spin-off. I could understand people hating it though, but I though it was solid enough.

  • Der_tolle_Emil #6 4 years ago

    Since Painkiller came out I don't complain. Painkiller is what Doom 3 should have been so it's all good for me.

  • Whizzo #7 4 years ago

    I bought Doom 3, I thought it sucked.

    A sale doesn't equal approval.

  • Subquest #8 4 years ago

    Doom 3? Painkiller? What year is this again?

  • myiagros #9 4 years ago

    surely its sales of your next game that tell you how good the last one ones. Most people don't how good/bad a game is when the fork over the cash, as they haven't played it yet.

    If the 3.5 million people that bought Doom 3 don't buy Doom 4, then they didn't like the game.

  • subtlesnake #10 4 years ago

    Well, a 'good game' will generate good word of mouth, which sales over time are an indication of (most shooters tail off pretty quickly).

  • louyfitz #11 4 years ago

    I liked it, in fact loved it.

    But thats just my opinion, looked good for the time, gameplay I thought was fun, apart from those bloody PDAs all the time and the damn locker codes that you could just print off the internet.

    but still I'd still buy and play it if it came out tomorrow, because imo it's still better than half the crap games brought out this year.

  • penhalion #12 4 years ago

    If I were him, I wouldn't pay any attention to the sales. Those were purely down to fans of the original (myself included) who assumed (ass out of u and me!) that it would be good. Trust the masses when we say "We ain't making that mistake twice"

  • Tomo #13 4 years ago

    Awesome game.

  • loop7 #14 4 years ago

    i was pleasantly suprised by Doom 3, had it on xbox,expected a run-of-the-mill shooter but i got totally hooked and felt the game got better as you played through it. Preferred the single player to the likes of Halo 2.

  • Der_tolle_Emil #15 4 years ago

    Preferred the single player to the likes of Halo 2.

    That is not an achievement.

  • Gaol #16 4 years ago

    Doom 3 was pretty good, just a bit long. Could've done with some of the middle sections cut, they were quite samey.

  • anomagnus #17 4 years ago

    I liked it, it was scary enough

    i just wish i could have killed lots more demons!

  • rudedudejude #18 4 years ago

    'woop i can make enemies teleport in by clicking these buttons'

    as opposed to

    'woop we can make highly detailed scripted sequences of enemies and how you encounter them'

  • figgis #19 4 years ago

    It was shit. Took the simplisitic level design of Doom and left out the hordes of monsters we all wanted.
    Edited by 1 at 05/08/08 @ 13:03

  • dsmx #20 4 years ago

    That comment about doom 3 wasn't bad because it sold well just shows what's wrong with the game industry at the moment. They don't care about making a good game any more it's just if it sells well.

  • paketep #21 4 years ago

    Doom 3 would still be crap if it had sold 30 million. Also, they were already wildly popular with Doom 2 and there were no different opinions: Doom & Doom 2 were fantastic.

    The fact that id can't even recognize that they fucked up with Doom 3 gives me ZERO confidence for Rage and Doom 4. I know Hollenshead is full of BS, but I expected more from Willits.

  • Nocturne #22 4 years ago

    Huh? Doom 3 was crap? Doom 3 was fantastic? It was neither. What Doom 3 was: an okay game with potential, but ultimately a disappointment. The sale figures should not be taken as an indication of the quality of the game since 'Doom' is a big name in gaming, a franchise. If that is how we evaluate games now then Ironman is a better game than Crackdown, and Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness is better than Shadow of the Colossus.
    Edited by 1 at 05/08/08 @ 13:31

  • Nithron #23 4 years ago

    It wasn't a bad game, it was just that damn Torch-or-gun-but-not-both gimmick that eventually stopped me from playing it. Sure, there was a button that let you easily swap between the torch, and the previous gun you just used, but it infuriatingly it would just not work, at all, periodically, and you'd be left smashing a nine foot demon in the face with a flashlight.

  • Gl3n #24 4 years ago

    Really enjoyed doom 3 at the time, appreciated peoples concerns, but thought it was excellent and scary.

  • loop7 #25 4 years ago

    Bloodkult "It's not bad, but it's not that great either.
    I've been playing through again recently and I've just about given up on it again where I stopped last time.
    It's too bloody samey, there's just no need for multiple identical lab sections or the same monster jumping out the same obvious place every time."

    It is worth persevering with as the latter levels are the best, once you start teleporting back and forth and pick up the better weapons etc it comes into its own. In fact it was probably the best shooter I played on xbox - way better than Doom 2 on the PC in my opinion.

  • Collymilad #26 4 years ago

    I thought Doom 3 was alright.

    Had potential to be better though. I think they get the basic idea down ok, but the execution was a little lacklustre.

  • kangarootoo #27 4 years ago

    "As with the previous Eurogamer Doom 3 news story, expect half of the comments here to claim Doom 3 sucks and half to praise it as a fantastic game, and nobody to try look beyond their own narrow personal preferences."

    Haha. More than a little prophetic it would seem. +1

  • hbunny #28 4 years ago

    Doom III got tired really quickly with the, "trigger the switch; watch demons pop out the door you just passed!" mechanic.

  • Nocturne #29 4 years ago

    kangerootoo: 'Haha. More than a little prophetic it would seem. +1'

    Yeah, and like most prophets, full of shit.

  • vegard #30 4 years ago

    the problem with doom 3, and i'm just gonna come out and say this, is that is was too fucking SCARY.

    edit: spelling
    Edited by 1 at 05/08/08 @ 17:50

  • J.C #31 4 years ago

    Loved it. incredible how they managed all that trickery on the Xbox 1. their is still nothing on the wii that matches it imo.

  • subtlesnake #32 4 years ago

    "Yeah, and like most prophets, full of shit"

    I never claimed to be a prophet!

  • Rodney #33 4 years ago

    "I never claimed to be a prophet!"

    Brian?

  • Kami #34 4 years ago

    Doom 3 wasn't scary enough for my liking, but to give me the creeps would probably require a new ratings system.

    The tech was well ahead of its time, but Doom 3 never felt like it was taking full advantage of it. What you got was a great little creepy claustrophobic shooter which was pretty but ultimately forgettable. Which is a shame.

    To use more recent examples - it wasn't fantastic like Crysis. But it was certainly no Haze. Somewhere betweeen the two likes Doom 3. But one thing can be said - the fact the engine still holds up against some more recent games is quite an achievement and I think people forget that the engine behind the game has really managed to stand up to the march of time. It's old, sure, and it''s not the best shooter in the world, but it ain't ugly and it's cheap. There are certainly worse ways to blow a tenner...

  • Svecke #35 4 years ago

    Doom 3 was not bad? Perhaps. But I'm still putting in more hours in Doom and Doom II every year than I ever put into Doom 3. So it certainly ain't good.

  • LtMerc #36 4 years ago

    I thought Doom 3 pretty much sucked.

    I got bored somewhere around generic gloomy metal corridor #3499 and never finished it. The action was kinda slow and clunky and the tight corridors didn't allow for much run and gun stuff, the guns were pretty slow and uninspiring (compare the half-life 2 shotgun and pistol to the doom 3 ones!).

    I didn't get into the atmosphere much, so I didn't get many scares out of it. It became way too predictable, and when you start playing through the game thinking "haven't had any monsters jump out behind me for a few minutes, there's probably one soon. Hey, there's a suspicious panel, I'll just go past it and turn around. Yep, thought so.", you just lose any immersion so it's impossible to get into the atmosphere. The only exception was the lab entrance part where no monsters are around and nothing jumped out, that part was good and freaked me out because I suddenly couldn't predict what would happen.

  • zakrocz #37 4 years ago

    I thought the game was brilliant until the last part in hell that was hard as nails and repititive. It was like how Resident Evil 1 to 3 should have been.

  • HEAVYface #38 4 years ago

    i'm a self respecting gamer, and i fucking hate doom.

  • YourMessageHere #39 4 years ago

    Sales show Doom 3 sold well, no more. Player opinion shows how good it was or wasn't. Irrespective of what I think, It's pretty undeniable that it was not the same sort of thing as pretty much everyone expected based on the previous game, which was something between the same game but with the lights on, and Serious Sam/Painkiller. I hated single player, but being persuaded into playing co-op via some mod or other, I forget what it was, made it fun.

  • AlphaOmega #40 4 years ago

    I truly enjoyed the hell out of Doom III. While HL2 had a better story, and perhaps better gameplay, aesthetically D3 blew it away. Bring on the next one.