Talk:Commercial games

Move Hacx back to "Other games"?
I realize that lxfd64 moved Hacx to an expansion pack section because it needs Doom 2 to run. But I question is this really justified? Assuming that the statement on the Hacx article "authors of HacX paid id Software $5,000 for the rights to market HacX as a commercial add-on for Doom II." is correct this should be enough to justify it as an official game. If not I could also argue that Deathkings, Master levels, and Chex Quest 2 should also be placed there since they require another game to run. Also, If it helps my point any, a standalone update is planned for release soon enough (and I'm not talking about v2.0). Blzut3 23:38, May 18, 2010 (UTC)

Other games using the Doom engine
I don't think Doom64 TC belongs here, as it's a TC. Did deathkings come with a new EXE or did it rely on the old one to play? -- Jdowland 18:39, 26 Nov 2005 (UTC)


 * Doomsday's sourceforge site, and our article, certainly call Doomsday a source port &mdash; which means that Doom64 TC doesn't belong here.  Ryan W 03:07, 12 Jan 2006 (UTC)


 * A quick look around the web strongly suggests that Hexen II comes with its own executable, like Final Doom does, but frankly that was quite a long time ago for me &mdash; someone who's played more recently should probably have the final say. :>    Ryan W 03:59, 12 Jan 2006 (UTC)


 * Hexen II certainly comes with its own EXE, but it isn't a Doom engine game. Deathkings of the Dark Citadel does come with an EXE, but I'm pretty sure it's just a launcher that makes the game load HEXDD.WAD and start on the correct level, but still uses the standard HEXEN.EXE to handle the game. -- ETTiNGRiNDER (talk) 20:39, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Due to the GPL, it's quite possible for people to make commercial games using the Doom engine these days. In fact, several are underway, most notably the 3DGE projects Hypertension and Slave. Are such games worth including in this section, or should a "post-GPL-release" section be established? Sodaholic (talk) 17:05, 1 August 2015 (CDT)


 * Bit of an unanswered/open question really. Take Action Doom 2 as an example. Though still calling itself "Doom" in the title, it had nothing to do with Doom besides using a highly modified version of its engine. It was also briefly offered as a limited-run commercial product. Technically, if we were to go by the precedent set by Heretic, Hexen, Strife, and Chex Quest, this would mean we'd be adding pages for all Action Doom monsters, weapons, levels, and gameplay mechanics. But somehow I don't see that happening because, by and large, it's still regarded as a mod. I have a feeling that's going to be the attitude taken toward all games, commercial or free, developed on ports derived from the source release, mainly because the alternative would exhaust this wiki's resources and ability to organize itself if it went far enough. --Quasar (talk) 17:24, 1 August 2015 (CDT)


 * How about the nature of its commercialism? Action Doom 2's stuff was more of a "thanks for donating, here's a bonus" than it was a fullfledged commercial release. It didn't have a vendor to my knowledge, it was just a "basement manufacturing" thing. Whereas Hypertension has an actual publisher that's funding it and is going to be printing factory-made disks and such. Theoretically, a game could target the likes of Steam and Desura as well. Personally, I think it should be on a case-by-case basis depending on the "seriousness". Sodaholic (talk) 17:52, 1 August 2015 (CDT)


 * What exactly is our policy for having map-by-map pages for megawads? If a standalone release is notable then I see no reason why, given there's a fan willing to do it, we shouldn't carry detailed information (free and commercial included).  I don't think we should pre-emptively red link just because it's a standalone game.  Note that we have very little information about Chex Quest right now. Blzut3 (talk) 18:20, 1 August 2015 (CDT)


 * For megawads we've actually stayed fairly close to the written criteria: if a wad deserves inclusion, then each map gets an article also. As with anything, we can make commonsense exceptions &mdash; Congestion 64 probably won't have map pages, and it's been suggested that fan-created resources could do if especially memorable (bruiser demon, rocket trooper).  For something like Action Doom 2 that radically changes gameplay physics, I can imagine a general spinoff article on "Tactics" (attack and defense), in addition to walkthroughs.  And as you probably know, lack of content doesn't always imply lesser notability; maybe nobody's written it yet is all.  :>     Ryan W (talk) 20:46, 1 August 2015 (CDT)


 * I'm not really sure what megawads have to do with this, I was talking about standalone commercial releases and whether or not modern indie stuff should be counted in with the more traditional stuff like Heretic, Hexen and Strife. Personally, I think something like Action Doom 2 barely qualifies at all, while Hypertension most certainly should. Sodaholic (talk) 21:00, 1 August 2015 (CDT)

"Non-Doom games"
I think this section creates more problems than it solves. If we confine it to games which use the Doom engine, it won't be redundant with Timeline, and it won't have to include all 200+ titles (like Duke Nukem) which are related to Doom only through literary influence. Ryan W 21:10, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Doom3 ¬¬
how come doom3 is not mentioned in this article? ¬¬..... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 201.137.247.50 (talk • contribs).


 * You appear to have missed it at the bottom of the article, where it has its own section. Dom  Rem  | Yeah? 05:21, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Amulets and Armor / Shadowcaster
I have removed both of these games from the list of "Doom-engine games" because neither is a Doom engine game. Shadowcaster is based on a post-Wolf engine, probably done by Carmack as part of his research and incremental progress toward Doom, but sharing pretty much nothing in common with the latter while having obviously very much still taken from the former.

Amulets and Armor has been discussed on the wiki multiple times, and research by myself, fraggle, and others has repeatedly demonstrated that this is not a Doom engine game and has absolutely no relation to Doom other than utilizing a first-person view as part of a larger interface, and using the Doom map format to save the devs time and cost of developing their own tools (DeePSea was used as the editor to create the levels - and of the data inside the level wads, only the lines, sectors, and things appear to be used, and the linedef specials are implemented in custom scripts that bear more resemblence to Windows INI files than to anything from Heretic, Hexen, or Strife). Unlike Raven and Rogue, the company that did A&A had no ties to id Software whatsoever.

If somebody wants to readd these games, it's going to have to be under a different category, such as "transitional" or "Heavily-Doom-influenced" or "related to Doom only by a wild-ass speculative tangent with no empirical support whatsoever." --Quasar 03:46, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me. There are other games that have some "Doom technology" but aren't based on the Doom engine, such as Rise of the Triad (it's Wolf3D-based but uses an IWAD), and if I am not mistaken, even Quake and derivatives, which use WADs to lump some resources together. An article mentioning such inheritances may be worthwhile. The Amulets & Armor and Shadowcaster articles may be out of place, actually. Perhaps they should not have full articles, only mentions in relevant topics (such as the proposed "some direct technical influence" article). Who is like God?

Doom for Win3.x and OS/2 Warp?
Should i add these (unfinished, but somewhat official) ports here?--Cybdmn 14:52, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * If you explain why they are "somewhat official" (e.g. the old Linux port is somewhat official because the readme file says it was written by Dave Taylor on company time), then yes, we'll be ecstatic.  :>     Ryan W 13:48, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

There are two betas of Doom for Windows 3.x, both use Win32s and WinG, one is Doom, and one is Doom II. Both was made by Microsoft and id Software. They can be fond at http://www.gamers.org/pub/idgames/historic/ The OS/2 Warp betaversion of Doom i have uses DIVE, and was coded by an external programmer for IBM, so says the about screen. You can find a my screenshots of all this here: http://www.blood-is-red.de/wiki/wikka.php?wakka=DoomPortsOfficial (Site is in german) --Cybdmn 14:06, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Doom Unofficial Games
Can someone add more info or proof of Total Ruin, MegaDoom Adventures, and others? I want to know more about these. 66.142.55.193 03:14, May 12, 2010 (UTC)

Hoax section
A game named "Doom" is available for the BlackBerry smartphone  platform, but it is actually a Wolfenstein 3D port.    Um... what?? Ryan W 07:31, June 2, 2010 (UTC)

Licensed vs non-licensed versions: some evidence

 * At least one BeOS port is id-sanctioned
 * QNX port is id-sanctioned
 * ZX Spectrum version should be considered a clone, not a port
 * Symbian mobile device versions were developed independently, which only makes sense since none were released until 2006
 * Tapwave Zodiac was an official collaboration
 * GamePark editions are "merely" commercially marketed source ports
 * At least one Windows CE port had the stamp of approval
 * NEC PC-9801 port is real
 * OS/2 version eventually got finished
 * Solaris version: oh, duh
 * Acorn version is as real as our so-called life gets

Ryan W

Unofficial games and expansion packs
Propose that shovelware items be removed from this section of the list in favor of the dedicated List of commercial compilations (possibly with a "see also" link.) Leave only the things that are actually "games and expansion packs" in the sense of having new custom megawads or the like. The ones I would consider keeping on this page under said criteria would be HacX, Hell to Pay, Lost Episodes, Perdition's Gate and H!ZONE. -- ETTiNGRiNDER (talk) 02:06, 27 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Yeah, maintaining multiple versions of the same list should be avoided if possible. Why isn't H!ZONE considered shovelware?    Ryan W (talk) 02:23, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
 * H!ZONE is partially shovelware, but also includes a bunch of custom episodes that were made for the collection and weren't released anywhere else. -- ETTiNGRiNDER (talk) 02:37, 27 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Agree. --Quasar (talk) 19:10, 27 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I am going to proceed in execution of this if it hasn't been completed already. --Quasar (talk) 14:03, 2 April 2016 (CDT)