Well, paused for a gameplay demo.
Sensible I suppose. Yet it baffles me slightly they even started. You’d think industry veterans would have a much better feel for what is needed for a pitch.
Yep. They say:
There’s a hitch here, a hitch that’s making us do something that’s right for the game, the team, and the community: we’re pressing “PAUSE” on the fundraising campaign for BLACKROOM to complete this gameplay demo. Simply put, this will take more time than the Kickstarter has left, so we’ve decided to suspend the campaign and launch a new one when the gameplay demo is ready. We believe, however, it is the right choice. Thanks to the community feedback, we know we should have included it at launch.
They didn’t have anything but concept art, a vague outline of the project, and their names. They seemed to have thought that the strength of their names would get them through the funding period.
It was a poor pitch throughout.
Yeah, the 90k drop from day one to day two…
He ran into one of the things we did, the damn kids don’t know who we are. Also, unlike Paul and Warren, John has a pretty spotty record post Id. People remember him as much for Doom and Quake as they do for Ion Storm, Diakatana and ‘making us his bitch’.
I’ve reached out to him, and gave him some of our experiences. But yes, ill prepared for the insanity of a kickstarter. I feel like we were ill prepared, and we hit our numbers. Maybe Romero reached out to some people, but the little group of us that talk, no one knew he was doing this. We would have helped out. That is the big difference in the scene…we actually share, unlike AAA developers.
Poor Romero, indeed.
Is that the kind of thing he’d previously pitch to a publisher?
You were at Looking Glass right? What was the Kickstarter you did, I totally missed it!
Edit: This? The band get's back together: Looking Glass 2.0 - Games - Quarter To Three Forums
Yes, Underworld: Ascendant. That was a kickstarter done right.
Good call by Romero & Posse. Get out early, fix your pitch, then come back strong.
On a side note, I’m not entirely convinced that a well-executed nostalgia pitch to kickstart oldschool DOOM would be particularly successful anyway. DOOM was a very simple game, and it’s not like other very simple yet well-executed modern-ish FPS games don’t exist. Serious Sam and Painkiller immediately come to mind.
I mean, do I really want to play DOOM with much better graphics and a different setting? I know Tom loved it, but I only played 2 hours of Painkiller.
I’d love to play updated Bioshock in a different setting. Same for Ultima 7, Baldur’s Gate, Terminator: Future Shock (please!), Westwood’s Bladerunner, and Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All The Girls. I’d love to see sequels to tons of dead franchises with a modern presentation but the same old gameplay. Just… not really DOOM.
that would be it Quaro. We just hit ‘pre-alpha prototype’ if that is a real thing. As of monday I started working in earnest on a real area of the game…finally. Preproduction is fun and all, but at a point…I just want to build stuff.
Think the only game that I’d spend over 100$ on a kickstarter for would be another Midwinter.
That said; If they do a nice pitch I might drop in 24$ or something for the cheapest Doom pack…
That’s really thoughtful of you, Major Malphunktion. To me, I assumed Romero and Carmack would have consulted with a bunch of developers behind successful Kickstarters before launching the campaign. He seemed to be taking his time, dropping hints over the past year, and getting his name back out there with his very successful Doom level re-imaginings. Maybe with the brouhaha surrounding the Doom 4 beta made him do something impulsive?
I think with a decent gameplay presentation and a clear road map their next crowd-funding campaign could be reasonably successful. He was on the right track with the delightfully cheesy Force Awakens-style teaser.
Oh neat! Next time you see him, let him know that I, a fellow Dave, read [i]Masters of Doom[/i]many years ago based on a recommendation from this board. I enjoyed it, and re-read it several years ago. I heartily recommend it to the sort of people who read this forum!
I also read Johnny Magic and the Card Shark Kids and liked it, but didn’t enjoy my time with it nearly as much as Masters. At the end of the day, John Romero is a far more interesting John than is John Finkel.
Suppose it should have coincided with the Kickstarter having a demo up and running, so people could immediately go - AWESOME TEASER -> AWESOME DEMO -> TAKE MY MONEY. Instead of Awesome Video -> waiting… -> Lackluster Kickstarter –> No money.
But hindsight being 20-20 and all that.
UA is looking SO GOOD… the latest videos I saw of it made me start drooling in anticipation (that’s to say, more than usual!).
I played his latest Doom level (the E1M4 replacement). It’s short, not bad. Interesting use of multiple levels and windows to restrict the size of the targets.
It felt like it was made by someone who thought about level design in a smart way rather than just throwing new graphics and a ton of enemies into a Doom WAD.
Skipping Kickstarter this time it seems?
Yay more washed-up dev garbage.
Guys, it’s OK to rest on your laurels. There will always be cons to attend, and stalker-y underage groupies to marry.
Man, this comment from 2016 is haunting.
It will be announced on Dec 10th, Doom anniversary, so I expect it to be Doom related.