A Bethesda Account Is Required

About

A Bethesda Account Is Required refers to jokes made in parody of a feature in rereleases of the first three Doom games which requires players to login to a Bethesda account to play the game. The feature irritated many players, leading parodies imagining if classic video games and other electronic devices required a Bethesda account to use. Bethesda quickly promised they would make the online login feature optional after public outcry.

Origin

On July 26th, 2019, Bethesda announced that Dooms I, II, and III were rereleased on the Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Windows, Google Stadia, and Xbox One and were currently available for purchase.^[1] One of the features of the rerelease required players to log-in to a Bethesda account before playing, and forcing players to create an account if they wanted to play.^[2]

Spread

Players were unhappy with being forced to create a Bethesda account to play the games. Players quickly parodied the feature by posting photoshops in which it appeared other classic video games asked players to log in to a Bethesda account to play. Twitter user @rockcock64^[3] tweeted such a parody using Super Mario, gaining over 3,000 retweets and 10,000 likes (shown below, left). Many people posted different versions in the replies to the tweet. For example, Twitter user @The_Shadow_Hog^[4] tweeted an example from Castlevania, gaining over 290 retweets and 910 likes (shown below, right).

Others created video parodies to mock the requirement. Twitter user @Kavaducky tweeted a video parody featuring Pokémon Gold, gaining 27 retweets and 62 likes (shown below, top). User @bobbyblackwolf posted an example imagining if one had to have a Bethesda account to drive a Tesla car (shown below, bottom).

Bethesda quickly stated that the log-in feature was intended to be optional for all players. The feature was implemented so Bethesda's Slayers Club members would be rewarded for playing the games. Bethesda stated that they were working on a fix (shown below).^[5]

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References