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Duke Nukem For Never
Posted by
samzenpus
on Thu May 07, 2009 02:33 AM
from the let-god-sort-'em-out dept.
from the let-god-sort-'em-out dept.
PLSQL Guy writes "Duke Nukem Forever developer 3D Realms is shutting down, according to Shacknews. They cite 'a reliable source close to the company,' who said the developer is finished and employees have already been let go. It looks like all of the Duke Nukem Forever jokes are turning into reality; DNF might turn out to be the ultimate vaporware after all."
3D Realms' webmaster, Joe Siegler, confirmed the closing, saying that he didn't know about it even a day beforehand. Apogee and Deep Silver, who are working on a different set of Duke Nukem games (referred to as the Duke Nukem Trilogy) say they are not affected by the problems at 3D Realms.
Related Stories
Submission: Duke Nukem Developer Shuts Down by Anonymous Coward
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Duke Nukem Forever Gameplay Footage Leaked 189 comments
Tjeerd writes, "It seems that while 3D Realms is dead, some new footage has been leaked of Duke Nukem Forever." 3D Realms posted a brief good-bye to their website, and two of the developers have hosted screenshots and concept art from DNF on their personal blogs. Also, for those who haven't seen it yet, there's an entertaining list of things that have happened during DNF's development cycle.
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3D Realms Sued Over Failed Duke Nukem Forever Plans 180 comments
Take-Two Interactive has now sued 3D Realms over the cancellation of Duke Nukem Forever . Take-Two did not provide continuous funding for the game, but they did pay $12 million for the publishing rights to the game. A Bloomberg report quotes Take-Two's complaint as saying that 3D Realms "continually delayed the completion date" and "repeatedly assured Take-Two and the video-gaming community that it was diligently working toward competing development of the PC Version" of the game. (The complaint refers to 3D Realms as part of Apogee Software, Ltd., not to be confused with Apogee Software, LLC, the publisher behind the still-forthcoming Duke Nukem Trilogy.)
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The Nuking of Duke Nukem 325 comments
Rick Bentley writes with more on the story behind the meltdown of Duke Nukem Forever, the game that will now live on only as a cautionary tale: "Although the shutdown was previously reported on Slashdot, this new Wired article goes in-depth behind the scenes to paint a picture of a mushroom cloud-sized implosion. Developers spending a decade in a career holding pattern for below market salary with 'profit sharing' incentives, no real project deadlines, a motion capture room apparently used to capture the motion of strippers (the new game was to take place in a strip club, owned by Duke, that gets attacked by aliens), and countless crestfallen fans. *Sniff*, I would have played that game."
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RIP DNF (Score:5, Interesting)
There've been calls to open-source the game. Take-Two still owns the publishing rights on the title, and apparently never had an agreement to support development with funds--DNF was essentially privately funded.
DNF is now the gold-standard for vapor-ware. How much money did they spend, I wonder, producing nothing?
Re:RIP DNF (Score:5, Funny)
There've been calls to open-source the game.
Why ? There is already better open source vaporware - Hurd. Though I must admit that DNF has a much cooler mascot with Duke.
Perhaps Duke can become the mascot of Hurd now ?
He is free... for other vaporware.
Parent
Re:RIP DNF (Score:5, Funny)
"Install the Hurd NOW, or I'm gonna rip off your head and shit down your throat."
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Re:RIP DNF (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:RIP DNF (Score:5, Funny)
GPL v. 2 isn't bad, just outdated.
As opposed to GPL v. 3, which isn't good, just new.
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Re:It's time... (Score:5, Funny)
Come get some.
Parent
Given how long Hurd has been in the making (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:It's time... (Score:5, Funny)
You've got it all wrong...
it's time to write code and chew bubble gum; and I'm all out of job...
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Re:It's time... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:RIP DNF (Score:5, Insightful)
With such an acronym as the abbreviated name of the game, who could have expected anything less, to be honest? Maybe it was just a practical joke all along!
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Re:RIP DNF (Score:5, Funny)
With such an acronym as the abbreviated name of the game, who could have expected anything less, to be honest? Maybe it was just a practical joke all along!
Yeah, I mean, I read "DNF" and I'm like Disjunctive Normal Form ? Ha, what kind of name is that !
*chuckles*
aha... okay, stop staring at me, guys ?
Parent
You stole my joke; oh well, it's "Did not finish" (Score:5, Informative)
What, I thought DNF was "Digital Noise Filter". Which is what you need when reading rumors about the impending release of DNF :)
Wikipedia says it's
"Did not finish" in racing parlance
(Non-native English speakers might not be familiar with this particular acronym expansion.)
Parent
Re:You stole my joke; oh well, it's "Did not finis (Score:5, Funny)
I thought it was "Do Not Fold" - which is normally stamped on packages containing CDs or other fragile media, and indeed, it seems that DNF are folding :)
"Did not Finish" makes much more sense though.
Parent
Re:RIP DNF (Score:5, Funny)
I thought it was Did Not Finish...
Oddly it makes sense...
DNF DNF. Did Not Finish Duke Nukem Forever...
DNF Squared I guess.
Parent
I want to hear more... (Score:5, Interesting)
Rampant egos? Ineptness? Fraud? There has to be some juicy tidbits that will come put of the tale...
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Re:I want to hear more... (Score:5, Informative)
I believe they made a name with Duke 3D and had good intentions of making a sequel..at first. Then along came licensing rights. Easy money. Then came some noteable side-tracks. Max Payne for one. Then came some more licensing. Then it really didn't make sense to work that hard any more. The money (anyone with a buck to buy licensing) just called on the phone, the lawyers did their work, and the money showed up in the bank.
Here is some of what we got instead of DNF..
Duke Nukem 64
Duke Nukem - Game Boy Color
Duke Nukem - Land of the Babes
Duke Nukem - Manhattan Project
Duke Nukem - Time to Kill
Duke Nukem - Total Meltdown
Duke Nukem - Zero Hour
Duke Nukem Advance
Duke Nukem II
Duke Nukem Mobile
They milked it for over 10 years. I am surprised they actually "called it off" and didn't just let it fade away.
The shame here is the magnificent property that was lazily shit off.
Parent
Re:I want to hear more... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Axl Rose wins the vaporware wars against 3DRealms (Score:5, Funny)
I always thought Guns 'n' Roses was DNF's main competition in the Vaporware Wars Of 1994-2009. :)
I honestly never thought Axl would ship his album first for the win, but, here we are.
Parent
Re:RIP DNF (Score:5, Funny)
I would like to reiterate http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1220783&cid=27813603 [slashdot.org]
The vapor that I long for most
The Duke, the Wolf*,
And the Starcraft: Ghost
They saw their code build
So they'd boast
The day
Their sche-----dule died.
And Duke was saying:
(Chorus)
bye, bye
Eat some shit and then die
... apparently, writing code isn't as easy as (American) Pie :)
Parent
Re:RIP DNF (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe the reason for the shutdown is that they couldn't deliver a product after at least 11 years of development.
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Re:RIP DNF (Score:5, Insightful)
It was poor management that ruined them. Whether a company treats employees well or not poor management can kill a company.
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Re:RIP DNF (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahem, actually, there might be a fine line between 'respecting employees and being cool' and 'taking eleven year to finish a program'.
Sorry, no, it's a line the size of a road.
Parent
Re:RIP DNF (Score:5, Funny)
Crap normally means deification
I have no humorous quip to add do this, but it stands on its own =)
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Re:RIP DNF (Score:5, Funny)
SecureROM Activation Failed: Could not connect to the 3drealms activation server.
What does it mean??
Parent
Re:RIP DNF (Score:5, Informative)
try eduke32
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Re:RIP DNF (Score:5, Interesting)
If you read their site [3drealms.com] you'll see they seemed to do lots of fun stuff along the years.
Of course they've been having fun. They've been playing around for over a decade.
What'll be interesting is to find out how true this is.
http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?story=58519 [shacknews.com]
By: mourningstar Crosspost from SA:
Channel_F, a previous employee of 3DR, posted some interesting info:
In my best interest, I'm going to be somewhat candid for now. I will, however, elaborate a bit on some things:
The 2001 trailer was 100% scripted cinematic, and not actual gameplay. They built specific demo maps just to record video from to make a trailer. Everything you see in that trailer was phony.
The typical work flow there went something like this: Designer would be assigned a task (build a new map, rebuild an old map, polish a bit of a map, etc.). Designer would work on said task for two, three weeks, a month, all the while lower management would be looking over it and making sure it was going in a "good general direction." Designer would move on to another task. A month or two later upper management would finally look at the work and say, "It's all wrong, do it again." Rinse, repeat.
Entire maps would be done from the ground up, almost to beta quality, and then thrown out simply because no one would make decisions early on in the process. (Read up on Valve's 'orange box' method of design -- that's how you make games)
Another example of WTF is the fact that there was one part of one map that was being worked on before I started working there. Nineteen months later and the same designer was still working on the same part of that same map... I'm not blaming the designer, it wasn't his fault.
I think the biggest problem that the company had in general is being self-funded. When you're a developer working directly with a publisher and you have milestones to meet it's a whole different ballgame. If you don't meet those milestones, you don't get any money. That right there will keep your project on schedule. If, however, you're funding it yourself, you don't really have anyone to answer to except yourself and you can quickly lose sight of just how much money is going out the door.
Parent
Damn (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like they are all outta gum
Re:Damn (Score:5, Funny)
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About time (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been kind of expecting/hoping for this for some time. Ever since the economy got so bad, I figured we might come to this. I'm actually amazed this didn't have before. You can't go that long with such incompetent management of a project and expect to be allowed to keep going, especially when you can't even be bothered to produce an actual time estimate for completion anymore except "When it's done".
Re:About time (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:About time (Score:5, Insightful)
Competent managers are not required to have a product out the door in, what?, 15 years? Other companies without real managers do that in three. Example: iD Software managed several of these feats, making quality games, having some kind of time and money estimate beforehand and then actually finishing something.
When a product like this takes *umpteen* years without any kind of progress or even a measly status report, you have incompetent managers, incompetent programmers, insufficient funding, incompetent financers, inadequate workplace or ideas distant from reality. 3D Realms probably had all of it and more.
Unfortunately, badly managed companies go bankrupt. Fortunately, they're not wasting anyone's resources, money and time anymore.
But it's much much worse when badly managed companies cannot go bankrupt under any circumstances, being deemed "too big to fail" or having some other kind of socialist protection.
Parent
Re:About time (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going to repent all of my sins and start frequenting a church, hopefully when I die, Duke Nukem Forever will be waiting for me on God's Commodore 64.
Parent
Well, so....how long will they shut down? (Score:5, Funny)
SCNR...it is bad for the devs at 3d, but still...it opens a whole new series of jokes.
scheuri
(When) will DNF be released? (Score:5, Funny)
New answer: "No, we are done."
Talk about a blow to PC gaming... (Score:5, Funny)
This is like the vatican coming out and saying "Shows over people, no second coming. Sorry, pack it up and go home."
What ridiculous mythical everpresent promise are we going to look forward to now?
Re:Talk about a blow to PC gaming... (Score:5, Funny)
What ridiculous mythical everpresent promise are we going to look forward to now?
The year of Linux on the desktop, of course!
Parent
good gnus (Score:5, Funny)
I guess the Hurd has a chance to beat Duke Nukem Forever to 1.0, after all! Who woulda thunk it?
Re:good gnus (Score:5, Insightful)
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And in other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Guinness World Records reports that the long-standing record for constant masturbation previously held by Gooey, a chimpanzee at the Buffalo Zoo, in what was thought to be an unbreakable grip, was "overcome in one magnificent stroke" by the DNF team at 3D Realms.
The sheer magnificence of the accomplishment has moved a Guinness spokesman to suggest that DNF has actually outgrown the term "vapourware", and become something else entirely. He suggests a new definition, "spankerware", be coined to cummemorate this astounding, 12-year feat of dong-flogging. "If this were an anniversary, the appropriate gift would be linen...and lots of it", the spokesman said.
I'm here to kick ass (Score:5, Funny)
I'm here to kick ass and fund development!
And I'm all out of funds.
I propose... (Score:5, Interesting)
...that Wired names their annual vaporware awards in honor of Duke.
~Philly
The Duke Nukem Forever List (Score:5, Informative)
I think now would be as good a time as any to repost the Duke Nukem Forever List for those who haven't already read it, or remember it fondly and looking for a encore laugh.
Just as the DNF team would occasionally tease us over the years with trailers, the list has been updated to include humanity's latest accomplishments (and failures.)
Interestingly, a conversation regarding the late great duke came up at work just today...
Duke Nukem For[N]ever (Score:5, Insightful)
For a couple years I eagerly awaited DN4, but after that, enough is enough. I gave up the ghost, earned a college degree, started a career, and next thing I know, I'm almost 30. I literally have not thought once about DN4 in years until I saw this headline.
What a shocker. Not.
Does 3DRealms still deserve headline space? They haven't done anything innovative in years. Their management is curt, snarky, and drunk with hubris. If anyone dares to post something anti-3DR on their forums, the thread gets locked, Siegler and/or Broussard gets the last word, and the user gets banned. But that's cool. It's their forums, they can do whatever they want, and apparently they only allow sycophants.
"When it's done," they say. "The game will revolutionize interactivity," they say. "We don't need any money, we're 100% self-funded, and can afford it indefinitely because we are rock star developers and can sell ice to eskimos," they say. Oops.
How many engine changes did DN4 go through? How much work was wasted in redesigning all the levels over and over again? And most importantly, how much money could DN4 have made if they simply instilled a little more discipline than "when it's done" into their culture? Management has to be stunningly demented to squander such a valuable franchise, and instead be content with trickling out old Duke Nukem ports and re-makes. If I were a developer at 3DR, I would be seriously pissed at having busted my ass all these years without ever seeing a dime of royalty that could've been seven figures, and instead am now laid off and have to look for another job in this craptacular economy.
Memo to 3DRealms: thanks for the good times back in the day, but good riddance to your arrogance, your lack of respect towards the industry, and your vaporware promises. You will not be missed.
Re:Duke Nukem For[N]ever (Score:5, Funny)
What a shocker. Not.
Apparently, you retained some of your witticisms from when you were 15, as well. That's da bomb!!
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Charlie Wiederhold's Chair Story (Score:5, Informative)
This is the strangest read I've had in a while:
http://gamingisstupid.com/2009/05/06/the-chair-story-revival/ [gamingisstupid.com]
I was told to think about my next words very carefully before giving my final answer. Honestly, I felt this was a test to see how well I would hold up to pressure later when we had to "hold the lie" (the similarity to "hold the line" isn't on accident), so I held firm and said I really wanted to, but needed to have it reviewed...
oh fuck...
Faster than I can even remember (literally... I don't remember) I was knocked out of my chair by I *think* of all people Tim Sweeney (it was a wooden kitchen chair) and was pinned on the ground by Mike Wilson and Cliffy B (he's so much stronger than I ever expected). George walks over to my chair and fucking stomps the shit out of it until the legs are broken off. He casually picks up one of the legs that had split into a shit your pants style point and starts tossing it up and down. Scott and Mark Rein alternate on and off saying that I apparently wasn't aware how *real* business is done and that if I didn't want to find out why those two companies had maintained such a strong position in the industry dating back to the shareware days (when it seems people didn't ask nearly as many questions about why developers appeared, made a game, and then disappeared without a trace)... I had better reconsider my answer.
I do remember the next part very very well though... I will never forget it and I have to admit that I have dreams about it pretty frequently.
Cliffy and Mike pulled me up and shoved my face about 6 inches from the point of the chair leg. I was drenched in sweat (the trailers didn't have decent AC so it was already hot as hell in there)... and if they had let go of me I would not have been able to stand on my own.
George looked me in the eyes and asked me one more time what I was going to do... so at that point I did what anyone would do...
I mean, this guy actually did work at 3DRealms and this is his blog, but seriously, CliffyB and Marc Rein threatening developers with broken chairs? Tim Sweeny tackling people and holding them down for gang beatings?
Re:Charlie Wiederhold's Chair Story (Score:5, Insightful)
I read "This is a story I wrote on..." to mean it was fiction. Do you honestly believe that if these people really behaved as described, that Charlie would post the entire story with his and everyone else's names intact?
Parent
this is so sad! (Score:5, Interesting)
I was patiently waiting for DNF since 1997 and I never lost hope that some day it would be done
to me, this is as if a relative had died
Wow. (Score:5, Informative)
Gotta love the site that lists all the things that have happened in the time DNF was "supposed" to be being made.
For instance, it took less time to implement and complete the entire Moon landing program.
The Beatles were formed, released every song, and split up in less time than it's been since DNF's initial announcement.
Wars came and went quicker.
The *entire* GTA series of games was released since the announcement.
58 Mario games were made since the announcement.
It always was a farce, always will be a farce. Even if the source was released tomorrow, complete and playable in every detail, DNF would *still* be the biggest development farce in gaming. It should have had its tail cut long ago, rather than constant "reinvention". All we can hope is that the developers and producers involved learn a lesson and start getting things out of the door in their new jobs. It sounds like it was technically good at most points but reinventing the wheel and constant, inept, managerial interruptions turned it into a circus (so, what else is new?).
Surely anyone with a brain would have left 3DRealms *long* ago anyway, if this is how it was working?
Re:The king is dead.... (Score:5, Funny)
hail to the king baby
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Re:What about facts? (Score:5, Funny)
Besides Bloussard in his blog mentioned that the check list of undone/buggy stuff for DNF has/had only 24 objectives left.
23. ?????
24. PROFIT!
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