Adaptation Semiotic Data Elaboration (Doom)

Doom (1993)

Adaptation- First of it’s kind the game hit the scene as a first person horror shooting game based on a unnamed space marine nicknamed “Doomguy,” running around killing invading demons from hell. This was the beginning of the popularized business model of online distribution of the game.

Ideology- Doom came out after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 but with the fear of the Ozone as well as the increase in satanic ritual abuse spreading panic throughout the U.S. there was a sense of something dark behind the things happening going on in the 90’s.

Genre- The genre is based on science fiction although a new form where the protagonist is not only fighting through Demon hordes but it is the decisions made by the player that decides what is to happen to the protagonist whether he lives of dies as he goes on a rampage.

Social history- Most of the ideology seen within the game is formed from the social issues around that time in the 90’s where there was a sense something dark approaching due to the cold war finally ending the U.S. population was trying to find knew things to have a new profound fear for which was the 27,000 nuclear weapons in the states of the old soviet union that could be used due to their being no real main power controlling all of them as well as the Ozone layer coming to light as the due to new debates of global warming.

Semiotics- Just going off of the main points of the story of the game the signs are of the fight between good and evil, where the doomguy symbolizes the good and the demon spawns being the evil that the U.S. population must fight to save their world.

Doom (2016)

Adaptation- The adaptation not necessarily changing the story itself but the way it is depicted. Going from pixelated demons to massive gruesome cyber-demons that seem to have no other reason to live but to crush you in your puny green space marine suit. The adaptation adds a few new points with the storyline being not only about killing demons but destroying a portal to hell that someone opened thinking they could control hell energy drawing the ideology and social history into why this is put in the new doom game.

Ideology- It’s 2016 and there is nothing more horrifying to the common U.S. citizen than that of having no control over a situation. The story begins with “doomguy” waking up to a portal that he must close because everyone else has failed and the only person that talks you through it is an artificial intelligence robot that only wants to contain the demons not destroy them. Artificial intelligence and having no control is a match made in heaven to describe the ideological fears of the 20^th century.  

Genre- Same genre as the very first science fiction horror shooter.

Social History- Social issues that add to this new adaptation are the ever present sense of insecurity of the everyday citizen and the idea of being in a terrorist attack.

Semiotics- For signs and symbols they have adapted as the ideology and social issues have where instead of the signs being over the idea of good and evil it is more over the sense of fighting the good fight and fighting for others lives kind of giving the doomguy a role of a hero who will sacrifice it all for the sake of others. The doomguy now symbolizes the patriotic citizen that is fighting the evil hordes of demons or terrorists that want to destroy life as the citizen knows it.