Just Kidding! Doom Creators Hit Pause On Blackroom FPS Kickstarter To Focus On Gameplay Demo

We learned earlier this week that John Romero's long-rumored first-person shooter is BLACKROOM, and without delay, money started pouring en masse into his new company's Kickstarter campaign. That should cause nothing other than rejoicing, right? Well, not so much in this case, and while any pulling of a Kickstarter campaign can give off a vibe that the project probably wouldn't have been successful anyway, that doesn't at all seem to be the case here.

So what's the deal? In talking to Develop, Romero noted that there was an obvious disconnect between the amount of hype surrounding his holographic shooter and those who were actually backing it. He says, "There’s not tens of thousands of backers on this one, but there are a lot of comments on YouTube, our sign-up and from the backers that we do have. All the comments are really great, massively positive, but it's weird that it didn't translate [to more backers]."

Romero believes that the only reason for this obvious disconnect is due to the lack of a proper gameplay trailer, or even a demo. As BLACKROOM isn't due out until the end of 2018, it's hard to expect a demo at this point in time, but a gameplay video? That's not just nice to see, it's expected. Gamers want to know exactly what they're getting into before dropping their hard-earned dollars, and who could blame them?

Whether or not this move could hurt or help Romero's BLACKROOM, we'll have to wait and see. Some might end up seeing a gameplay video and realize it's not for them, and then not fund the project the next time a Kickstarter is launched. However, contrasting that, there could be five times as many people who decide to back it after seeing the trailer. Based on Romero's goals for the game, and his company's interest in catering to old-school PC gamers, it's hard to not want this project to become an overwhelming success.