8Bit/Digi

Over the weekend, we reported that John Romero was auctioning his VIP pass to the Age of Empires II launch party back in 1999. The auction ended on Monday and the pass was sold for a surprising amount.

With 32 bidders on eBay wanting a piece of gaming history, the pass was sold to a lucky collector for $80.99. It’s unknown if the buyers wants the pass autographed but it could be speculated that they would given its association with Romero.

To recap; Ensemble Studios held a major launch party for Age of Empires II at their main office back in 1999 and Romero was among the VIP’s invited to the event. In the last few years – Romero has been selling some of his games or gaming memorabilia, which have sold for a lot of money. In 2017 alone; he put many Doom memorabilia for sale including his floppy disk copy of Doom II.

John Romero is a pioneer in the gaming world having co-founded id Software in the 90’s alongside John Carmack and Tom Hall. His gaming credits include work on Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake just to name a few while also coining the multiplayer term “deathmatch”.

In 2015; he established Romero Games Ltd., an independent game studio located in Galway, Ireland. Their first title, Gunman Taco Truck was released in January 2017 and it was highly praised by critics along with gamers.