John Romero's original Doom 2 floppy disks sell for more than $3000 (Updated)
No word on whether or not the buyer will have Romero sign the three grand disks.
Update: The auction has ended with a winning bid of $3150. That's right, $3150. There's no missing decimal. That's three thousand, one hundred and fifty dollars. Yowzah.
There's no word yet on whether the buyer wants Romero to sign the diskettes, but given the selling price I'd say it's the least he could do.
Original story:
Doom 2 first released 23 years ago, finally bringing the Mancubus and super shotgun into digital being. Back then you could get it on a CD-ROM—which were still pretty expensive back then—or you could get it on five floppy disks. A copy of the latter, without its box or manuals, is currently on eBay with its current bid set at $900. The reason it's so expensive is that the disks belong to John Romero, id Software co-founder, Doom co-creator, and level editor extraordinaire.
Considering it doesn't have a box or manual, that seems a bit steep. But they do belong to Romero after all, and on the eBay listing, he even promises that he'll sign them if the buyer sees fit. "These are the originally shipped DOOM 2 floppies (3.5") for PC and compatibles," Romero writes. "The version is 1.7 (the first DOOM 2 version). NO BOX included—these are only the 3.5" disks."
The condition of the set is "very good", with no defects other than natural wear of the glue that holds the labels to the disks. Romero had initially set the starting bid to $10, so even he's probably surprised by how much demand there is.
Here are some more images of the vaunted floppy disks for your perusal:
The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.
'Destiny has a long history of reinventing itself in response to feedback': Assistant director teases a Metroidvania-inspired future, talks weapon crafting and vault space, but fails to address the shocking number of bugs
Ballistic, Fortnite's new tactical FPS mode, is a deeply unserious Counter-Strike clone that's going to be huge anyway