John Romero cancels Kickstarter campaign for Blackroom after only four days

Shawn Knight

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id Software co-founders John Romero and Adrian Carmack (no relation to fellow id Software co-founder and gaming legend John Carmack) launched a Kickstarter campaign earlier this week for a compelling new game called Blackroom.

The game, which was to be the first from new studio Night Work Games, was well on its way to reaching its $700,000 funding goal with more than $131,000 in pledges from 2,287 backers before Romero and Carmack pulled the plug on the campaign a few hours ago.

An update on the game’s Kickstarter page said they’re pressing pause on the campaign in order to make a gameplay demo.

Romero told Develop that people have been receptive to the game’s concept but they want to see some gameplay footage. A demo was already in the works, Romero said, but it won’t be ready by the end of the campaign so they decided to step back and wait until the demo is ready before moving forward.

While Romero laid out his vision for the game, the pitch lacked any actual game footage or screenshots, instead relying only on concept art.

The veteran designer said they’re not in a massive rush to hurry up, get all the money and start making the game. Instead, they want to do it the right way and will finish the demo then hit reset. They expect to have the demo ready in a month or so and will relaunch the Kickstarter at that point with the same goal and reward structure.

The cancellation comes as a bit of a surprise, especially as others in the industry like Boss Key Productions founder Cliff Bleszinski had publicly vouched for Romero in recent days.

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Why does the headline say they cancelled it when, as the ARTICLE CLEARLY STATES, its just a pause to increase sellability? Very lame clickbait.
 
Instead, they want to do it the right way.

This is artist talk for 'It will never be finished'.

**cough**Chris Roberts**cough**
Blame the console peasants and their puny hardware that he hates so much! Also, um, you cant rush art! yea! something like that.
Wait, did I trash chris roberts? I guess I better go into hiding. You cant just say something negative about one of the world's foremost "PC MASTER RACE" activists and get away with it.
 
What did I say when the first article was posted, that it looked like crap, well turns out no one bought in to the "I'm John Romero, this is Blackroom, it'll be awesome give me your money" strategy. Doesn't stop people from kissing his *** however...
 
What did I say when the first article was posted, that it looked like crap, well turns out no one bought in to the "I'm John Romero, this is Blackroom, it'll be awesome give me your money" strategy. Doesn't stop people from kissing his *** however...

133k in pledges so someone bought into it.
 
133k in pledges so someone bought into it.

Little short of his $700k goal still. Maybe when some actual game play gets released he'll have better luck, but it's still a horrible plot for a game.
 
133k in pledges so someone bought into it.

Little short of his $700k goal still. Maybe when some actual game play gets released he'll have better luck, but it's still a horrible plot for a game.

It's a shooter. They almost always have bad plots.

COD: AW - Artificial intelligence!
Doom: Demons on Mars... from Hell!
RE 4, 5, 6: Zombies!
Dead Space: Space zombies!
Etc.
 
It's a shooter. They almost always have bad plots.

COD: AW - Artificial intelligence!
Doom: Demons on Mars... from Hell!
RE 4, 5, 6: Zombies!
Dead Space: Space zombies!
Etc.

Yes but this is a particularly bad plot, feels like your fighting a computer virus... So exciting.

Zombies isn't a plot line either, it's pure laziness it the gaming industry, also a band wagon everyone has tried to get on and few have succeeded at delivering much more than a mini game experience.

Don't even bother with CoD, those are just online shooters with a campaigns thrown in for the sake of throwing in a campaign, most people who play it haven't played the campaign to begin with. Which coincidentally also contains the zombies mini game experience, and not a very good one at that.
 
Why does the headline say they cancelled it when, as the ARTICLE CLEARLY STATES, its just a pause to increase sellability? Very lame clickbait.
Because he actually Cancelled the Kickstarter project and says he will "relaunch" it in a month. At this point the Kickstarter is cancelled, not paused. We have nothing but his word that it will ever relaunch. Did the current supporters get refunded?
 
It's a shooter. They almost always have bad plots.

COD: AW - Artificial intelligence!
Doom: Demons on Mars... from Hell!
RE 4, 5, 6: Zombies!
Dead Space: Space zombies!
Etc.

I read this and thought to myself - did my favorite shooter (Halo) have any of these. And sadly yes... there were Aliens (the main villain), Artificial Intelligence (Cortana), and the Flood, which were pretty much Zombies. /facepalm.

But at least Blackroom uses 'Black' in the title - which is popular nowadays with everything from TV shows to Alcohol. I don't think I'd play though unless they have an overly masculine hero with a voice like Clint Eastwood on steroids.:)
 
I read this and thought to myself - did my favorite shooter (Halo) have any of these. And sadly yes... there were Aliens (the main villain), Artificial Intelligence (Cortana), and the Flood, which were pretty much Zombies. /facepalm.

Yep. When I composed the list I suddenly realized 99% of the shooters out there (good and bad alike) all revolve around the exact same plot elements, thus termination at Dead Space.
 
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