Software dev joins ranks of history's greatest monsters by adding microtransactions to the original Doom

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EA is presumably already on the phone.

The cover of the video game Doom
(Image credit: id Software)

It should go without saying that we all live in hell. A tin of beans costs £2, the Gulf Stream is giving up, and (worst of all) Blizzard wants $65 for a Diablo horse. If only we could return to those halcyon days before memory: The '90s. Things were simple then, with shared wares aplenty and an internet that was still young and warm and wild and free. Just imagine how many more microtransactions we could spring on those naive suckers before they cottoned on.

Such is the bold vision of Guy Dupont, a developer whose recent entry into the Boston Stupid Shit Nobody Needs and Terrible Ideas Hackathon was the most sacrilegious gag I've ever seen: He added microtransactions into Doom earlier this month. That's the original, 1993 Doom. Can he ever be forgiven? No.

You can see a video of the nightmare in action below, but in short, it works like this: Whenever you pick anything up in Dupont's Doom, the game freezes. It then presents you with a handy-dandy QR code, which you can scan to be taken to a payment portal that will let you fork over some real-life cash for your in-game pickup. Then you can go on your merry way, at least until the next pickup.

It's truly nightmarish (and, to be clear, 100% a joke), and no doubt Mr Dupont is fielding job offers from numerous major game companies as we speak. The good news is that it seems like the payment portal is a bit of a Potemkin village: Dupont gets past it by putting a lot of numbers which definitely aren't a real credit card in, and my brief experience writing marketing copy for a Lithuanian payment processor (sometimes you just take jobs, man) tells me that the "little python server" Dupont set up probably isn't a 100% functioning payment gateway.

Anyway, here's the full thing in action. Dupont is a true moral criminal, and I can't wait to see what evil he conjures next.

Joshua Wolens
Joshua Wolens
News Writer

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.