3D Realms SHUTS DOWN (No More DNF)

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MusicallyInspired
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3D Realms SHUTS DOWN (No More DNF)

#1 Post by MusicallyInspired » Thu May 07, 2009 1:08 pm

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/58519

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8037688.stm

http://gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23518

Truly a sad day for nostalgic gamers and believers in the release of Duke Nukem Forever. Couldn't really believe it at first. Just came as such a shock. I guess it was a long time coming, but still. It's yet another (very large) link to the golden era of PC gaming broken. Apparently 3DR went to Take Two (the publisher for DNF) asking for $5 million more to finish the game and they refused but instead offered to sell them back the franchise again for $30 million which 3DR declined. Another source says it was actually Take Two who offered to buy the rights to the Duke Nukem franchise for $30 million and make the game themselves. Not sure which is true. Even after all this, though, Take Two still retains publishing rights to DNF but not IP rights. The newly revived Apogee, however, looks to be unaffected and is continuing work on the Duke Nukem trilogy for the PSP and DS.

RIP 3D Realms

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Re: 3D Realms SHUTS DOWN (No More DNF)

#2 Post by Lambonius » Thu May 07, 2009 7:19 pm

I say good riddance. The depth of incompetence at that company was staggering. Commercial games don't take 12+ years to finish.

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Re: 3D Realms SHUTS DOWN (No More DNF)

#3 Post by MusicallyInspired » Thu May 07, 2009 8:32 pm

I wouldn't say it was the whole of 3D Realms' fault. Just the management. So George Broussard and Scott Miller are the ones to blame.

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Re: 3D Realms SHUTS DOWN (No More DNF)

#4 Post by Lambonius » Thu May 07, 2009 8:40 pm

MusicallyInspired wrote:I wouldn't say it was the whole of 3D Realms' fault. Just the management. So George Broussard and Scott Miller are the ones to blame.
Fair enough. Hopefully this means that someone else will pick up the Duke Nukem franchise and do a new shooter that does the old game justice. I absolutely LOVED that game back in the day. Played it to death. The Apogee originals were pretty cool, too. :)

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Re: 3D Realms SHUTS DOWN (No More DNF)

#5 Post by Erpy » Thu May 07, 2009 9:36 pm

That's sad news. I have a pretty large collection of Apogee classics (stuff like Commander Keen, Duke Nukem, Realms of Chaos and Hokus Pokus) and this kinda feels like another fond youth memory dying.

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Re: 3D Realms SHUTS DOWN (No More DNF)

#6 Post by DrJones » Thu May 07, 2009 10:38 pm

I know I shouldn't be affected by this, but... do not want!!! :cry

How can they close without releasing Duke Nukem Forever? Because it wasn't finished? Hell, Big Rigs sold over 100.000 copies and it was so half-assed that it couldn't even be called a game. Last news I got about the game, it was "almost completed" save for 24 bugs in the task list. Well, DNF has been almost complete since 1997, but this time it really looked as if it was going to be released this year!

Really, really shocking news, and weird, and crazy. I guess we'll have at least interesting stories to read the following days. :\

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Re: 3D Realms SHUTS DOWN (No More DNF)

#7 Post by Brainiac » Fri May 08, 2009 12:17 pm

Erpy wrote:That's sad news. I have a pretty large collection of Apogee classics (stuff like Commander Keen, Duke Nukem, Realms of Chaos and Hokus Pokus) and this kinda feels like another fond youth memory dying.
At least Apogee Software, LLC is still solvent (though that's because it was licensed out).

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Re: 3D Realms SHUTS DOWN (No More DNF)

#8 Post by Anonymous Game Creator 2 » Fri May 08, 2009 5:32 pm

What a joke! Lambonius hit the nail on the head, I think. Incompetence in large companies has grown to unimaginable levels since the 90's and the whole development hell phase of DNF, plus all the built-up promises and hype that lead to absolutely nothing is absurd. I guess this is what happens when the greed for money overrides the passion to uphold a legacy. But also, consumer expectations are so high for new titles these days that so much more cash needs to be injected into the technological side of development, which wasn't so much the case in the 90's. Pretty soon, the development of anything other than idie or retro titles seems like it's going to be a self-defeating battle for many developers.

It's a real shame that 3D Realms won't finish DNF. I was looking forward to it. But, at this juncture, I would honestly not be surprised if a clown or a bunch of untrained monkeys were responsible for managing most large corporations these days. How anyone can whittle away a huge multi-million budget over the course of more than a decade and then STILL end up with nothing to show for it is beyond me! Give us that kind of cash and we could turn the adventure game industry right around!

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Re: 3D Realms SHUTS DOWN (No More DNF)

#9 Post by MusicallyInspired » Sat May 09, 2009 2:12 am

Actually, 3D Realms isn't a large corporation. It's lead by the same people that started it in 1987 and still privately owned (well, not anymore). What happened to Sierra, for instance, never happened with 3D Realms. It's all the same people. They did make too many mistakes in DNF's development with all the delays and engine reboots, though. They even said so themselves. And now it's cost them the whole company.

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Re: 3D Realms SHUTS DOWN (No More DNF)

#10 Post by Blackthorne519 » Sun May 10, 2009 6:48 pm

It really comes down to money - the franchise isn't enough of a lucative IP to make up for all the money spent on it. You can throw more money in the hole, but it isn't gonna bail it out! Not when games like HALO and GEARS of WAR come out on a regular schedule...


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Re: 3D Realms SHUTS DOWN (No More DNF)

#11 Post by DrJones » Sun May 10, 2009 9:46 pm

One of the game animators left on his website a little video of his work on Duke Nukem Forever, meant to be part of his portfolio. The video got posted on gametrailers and even though not even 20 hours have passed, it's now well over 310.000 views. :eek

I'm quite saddened because Duke Nukem Forever was done in their spare time, and they all wanted to do the best game they could make. They feared the game could end like Daikatana, so they entered this kind of spiral in which they had to keep with the joneses every X years and start from scratch. They told many times they weren't doing the game for the money, and that the main reason of the delays were because they were trying to be innovative and fun, concepts they thought were very important for a game, and that it was what took them all these years. Concepts no publisher seems to care about nowadays, which is why they were self-funded.

They also got distracted working on other projects meanwhile like Max Payne 1 & 2, and Prey, and modifying the unreal motor to have a tool they could license to other game studios, like they did before with their Build engine. It's not that they were playing WoW all this time without working on the game. I believe they put all their heart on it, and I suspect the closure of 3dRealms has been caused more because some disagreement with Take 2 than because lack of funding.

Oh, here's the 'trailer' of DNF, just in case someone wants to see it before it's taken down.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/user ... 16675.html

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Re: 3D Realms SHUTS DOWN (No More DNF)

#12 Post by Brainiac » Tue May 19, 2009 8:19 pm


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Re: 3D Realms SHUTS DOWN (No More DNF)

#13 Post by Brainiac » Wed May 27, 2009 5:07 pm


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Re: 3D Realms SHUTS DOWN (No More DNF)

#14 Post by DrJones » Wed May 27, 2009 6:04 pm

That one was actually funny. :lol

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Re: 3D Realms SHUTS DOWN (No More DNF)

#15 Post by Brainiac » Tue Jun 16, 2009 12:22 pm

Okay, now it's getting nasty...

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