John Romero Selling Original DOOM 2 Floppy Disks on Ebay
John Romero, the co-creator of DOOM and Quake and co-founder of ID Software, is selling DOOM 2 on five floppy disks, the way it was made back in 1994. There’s no box or instructions, just the 3.5″ floppies. The item condition is “Very Good”; it’s just the glue coming through the label. If you want DOOM 2 on its original format, it can be yours for a mere couple thousand bucks.
John Romero was once the golden boy of the gaming industry. After co-creating such smash hits as DOOM and Quake, he left ID software and created his own studio, ION Storm. He attempted to make players his bitches (his words, not mine) with Daikatana, which ended up a colossal failure. Eventually, through his rock-star lifestyle and reckless spending, ROmero drove the studio into the ground, becoming the poster-child for hubris. Meanwhile, the Austin branch of ION Storm managed to pull through and create the universally-beloved Deus Ex.
Romero is now selling DOOM 2 on five floppy disks via Ebay. The disks are very well-preserved. The only damage is that the glue is coming through the label, which is an unavoidable sign of aging. These are from 1994, after all. The product description reads:
These are the originally shipped DOOM 2 floppies (3.5″) for PC and compatibles. The version is 1.7 (the first DOOM 2 version). NO BOX included – these are only the 3.5″ disks.
Romero is only including the floppy disks. There’s no box or instruction booklet or anything at all; what you see is what you get. This is truly a piece of gaming history, no doubt about that. As you’d expect, the bids are very high. As of writing this article, the bid stands at $3.050. There’s only four more hours left, but there’s no doubt in my mind that the price will go up before it’s all over.
So, if you want to own the “first print” of DOOM 2 in its original format and have 3.000+ dollars just lying around, you can still bid on it if you act fast enough. The price may seem steep, but hey, Romero will even sign the disks if you want him to!
