Romero Remains

$50 million head start

We wrote about the trouble over at Romero Games (founded by John Romero, Doom) after losing funding for their as yet unrevealed shooter. The lose was a part of Microsoft’s recent staff culling.

Despite the setbacks Mr. Romero hasn’t given up on the videogame yet. In a talk with Gamereactor Mr. Romero explained that, although the losing Microsoft has caused problems, there is interest from other possible companies to publish the game. ‘We own the IP, we own the code, we own everything about the game, right? So we have a lot of companies that are interested and still working with us on it’.

The game was already roughly halfway finished, as Mr. Romero said, and that millions have already been invested into the game’s development, meaning any prospe3ct new publisher would be investing into a game with a head start, ‘when you develop a game for years and you put in, say, $50 million into a game, if you move and start working with somebody else, they get $50 million for free.’

The prospect of jumping to publishing a videogame that already has had substantial investment in it, as well as one that was considered worth that investment by Microsoft (at least to begin with), must surely be tempting to some ambitious individuals.

Playing videogames, writing about videogames, considering videogames—that about sums it up. Videogames are the one hobby that I’ve kept since I was only little, zapping ducks on the NES or knocking out MR. X. And when I’m not enjoying classics from the bit generation of games or checking out those earliest of polygons, I’m probably playing something from today’s age of modern gaming: if I’m not complaining about it. Something I’m doing at the moment? Playing through Alundra again, this time on the Polymega.