10 Video Game Origins You Never Knew

10. Doom Got Its Name From A Tom Cruise Movie

Doom is one of the most influential video games of all time, an impossibly important first-person shooter which paved the way for every other entry into the genre that followed.

Beyond the ultra-tight, satisfying gameplay, though, it also benefitted from that elegantly simple title, which immediately conveyed the tone of the game in one snappy, imposing word.

But designers John Carmack and John Romero didn't come up with the name by just leafing though a thesaurus: they were inspired one night while watching a certain Tom Cruise movie.

The film was none other than Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning hit The Color of Money, and the particular scene which spawned Doom's moniker involved Cruise's Vincent Lauria ominously referring to his custom pool cue as "doom" to an inquisitive opponent.

And like that a brand was born, with Romero quickly getting to work on the game's press release before Carmack had even completed a rough build of it.