Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture

by David Kushner

Senator Lieberman took it as a call to arms. “After watching these violent video games,” he said, “I personally believe it is irresponsible for some in the video game industry to produce them. I wish we could ban them.” This wasn’t the first time that America’s political and moral establishment had tried to save youth from their own burgeoning culture. Shortly after the Civil War, religious leaders assailed pulp novels as “Satan’s efficient agents to advance his kingdom by destroying the young.” In the twenties, motion pictures were viewed as the new corrupter of children, inspiring sensational media-effects research that would be cited for decades. In the fifties, Elvis was shown only from the waist up on television; MAD magazine’s publisher, William Gaines, was brought before Congress. In the seventies, Dungeons and Dragons, with all its demons and sorcery, became associated with Satanism, particularly after a player enacting the game disappeared under the steam tunnels of a Michigan university. In the eighties, heavy metal artists like Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne were sued for allegedly invoking young listeners to commit suicide. In the nineties, video games were the new rock ’n’ roll—dangerous and uncontrolled.