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Duke in Trouble?

Posted by Zonk on Fri Sep 01, 2006 12:38 PM
from the need-more-than-a-headshot-here dept.
Entertainment Games
1up reports on rumours of trouble at 3D Realms, the long-term developers of the Duke Nukem Forever project. The duke project is apparently in jeopardy, according to the buzz, as several key developers have left the company for greener pastures. 3D Realms webmaster Joe Siegler has responded to these rumours, saying on the message boards "It's internal business - all employee departures and comings have always been that way. This is nothing new. People have left before, IT IS THE NATURE OF THIS BUSINESS. It's the way it goes ... There's honestly nothing to be concerned about. People leave. People come. There's staff on the project you don't know about."
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[+] Duke Nukem Forever Due This Year? 251 comments
nz17 writes "Under the original deal, 3D Realms was to receive some $6 million from Take-Two to develop the title. Now the Texas-based developer will receive only $4,250 for the oft-delayed game when it is completed. Just the same, 3D Realms has a fairly large incentive to get Duke Nukem Forever done by the end of the year; Take-Two has offered the studio $500,000 in the form of a promissory note if the game sees commercial release by December 31, 2006."
[+] 3D Realms Won't Rush Duke Nukem Forever 310 comments
WeAz writes "GameSpot has news that 3D Realms has no plans on rushing Duke Nukem Forever. Despite the $500,000 bounty that Take-Two Interactive was found to be offering for the game after a filing with the SEC last week, George Broussard, President of 3D Realms, has given his official response: 'We're certainly not motivated by that amount of money, after all this time, and getting the game right is what matters. I would never ship a game early (even a couple of months), for 500k.'"
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Duke in Trouble? 25 Comments More /

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  • Tagged 'shocking' (Score:5, Funny)

    by bunions (970377) on Friday September 01 2006, @12:40PM (#16024812)
    Honestly, who could have predicted this? I am at a loss for words.

  • Obligatory... (Score:5, Funny)

    by RoloDMonkey (605266) <rolo@ i r o l o . net> on Friday September 01 2006, @12:42PM (#16024824) Homepage Journal

    "We have top men working on it."

    "Who?"

    "Top. Men."

  • Nothing to see here.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by BigNumber (457893) on Friday September 01 2006, @12:43PM (#16024836)
    Nothing to see here...in fact there probably never will be anything to see here.

    • Re:Nothing to see here.... (Score:4, Funny)

      by legoburner (702695) on Friday September 01 2006, @12:56PM (#16024942) Homepage Journal
      That is not entirely true, there is always the atari 2600 [3drealms.com] version.

      • Re:Nothing to see here.... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by soft_guy (534437) on Friday September 01 2006, @01:56PM (#16025424)
        I'm still waiting them to release a version I can play on my Atari 1450XLD [wikipedia.org].

        For those who don't get the reference - Atari announced this top of the line 8Bit computer in 1983 as if it were already shipping. Two years later they "canceled" it. There were never any units actually made (other than prototype), yet they advertised it as a shipping product. I had the misfortune that my family decided to get one and we decided to not buy a new computer to replace our Atari 400 until we could get one of these. All the mail order houses "advertised" them with "call for price". I was 12 (with all that implies), so I called them every couple of days for about 8 months asking when they were going to have units available to sell. So, to me, the Atari 1450XLD computer is the epitome of vapor ware.

  • So... (Score:5, Funny)

    by daranz (914716) <daranz@gmail.com> on Friday September 01 2006, @12:44PM (#16024844)
    So Joe Siegler is basically saying that the infinitely long developement process for DNF is going to continue as planned, and will be subject of jokes and speculations for many years to come... Good to know.

  • I thought... (Score:5, Funny)

    by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) (613870) on Friday September 01 2006, @12:45PM (#16024851) Journal
    ...Duke Nukem Forever was a geek joke. You know, like the coming of the Messiah, the second coming of Jesus or the arrival of the Maitreya Buddha. I didn't know there really was such a game in development. That's shattered my whole world view. I might have to rethink my views on religion now.

  • "The duke project is apparently in jeopardy" (Score:3, Funny)

    by ip_freely_2000 (577249) on Friday September 01 2006, @12:53PM (#16024921)

    In other news: Water is wet.

  • Of course people left (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MobyDisk (75490) on Friday September 01 2006, @12:56PM (#16024949) Homepage
    Duke Nukem has been in the making for 10 years! With an average lifespan in this undustry of 3 -5 years, how the heck could a 10 year project be completed with the same set of employees?

    "It's time to write code and chew gum... and I'm all outta gum."

  • It is the nature of a business. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kinglink (195330) on Friday September 01 2006, @12:57PM (#16024954)
    You get burnt out in the game industry unless you're constantly shipping high quality titles. Turn over in a couple years isn't amazing, but it's not a great thing.

    The fact is after EVERY game there's a good amount of turn over and even then that's a game that takes 2-4 years. People wanted to stay with the company til the game goes gold then leave. Duke Nukem has been going for far longer than any other game it's not a shock people are leaving the company now, especially before people have seen the game.

    This might mean the game isn't amazing or up to par and people want to cash out now, but more likely it's business as usual.

  • I'm disappointed (Score:5, Funny)

    by ludomancer (921940) on Friday September 01 2006, @01:04PM (#16025009)
    After keeping the stupid project alive for so many years, I really am surprised. You'd think after 10 years it'd pretty much keep going forever, if not eventually get released.

    I really hope this game doesn't get cancelled. I really want to play this badly because I have the highest expectations of getting the absolute worst game ever. Something to love for it's terribleness. Something Mystery Science Theater 3000 bad.

    Please release this game. I honestly can't wait.

  • Duke is dead? (Score:5, Funny)

    by BrunoBigfoot (996441) on Friday September 01 2006, @01:12PM (#16025087)
    He's not dead. He's frozen. And as soon as we find a cure for cancer, we're gonna thaw out the Duke, and he's gonna be pretty pissed off. You know why? Have you ever taken a cold shower? Well, multiply that by fifteen million times, that's how pissed off the Duke's gonna be. I'm gonna get the Duke, and John Cassavetes, and Lee Marvin, and Sam Peckinpah, and a case of whiskey, and drive down to Texas...

  • Obituary (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nahor (41537) on Friday September 01 2006, @01:46PM (#16025332)
    And soon, we'll learn that people killed themselves on the project, while in truth, they just died of old age.

  • maybe (Score:5, Funny)

    by Billly Gates (198444) on Friday September 01 2006, @01:55PM (#16025415) Homepage Journal
    Maybe the DNF developers are leaving to join the exciting GNU/Hurd team with its quick and upbeat release record.

  • The List (Score:5, Informative)

    by inotocracy (762166) on Friday September 01 2006, @04:49PM (#16026790) Homepage
    Has yet to be posted, so I shall do just that, things that have occured since the announcement of Duke Nukem Forever [a-13.net]:

    Popular Video Game Series Releases
    Final Fantasy:

    * Main Series
    o Final Fantasy VII
    o Final Fantasy VIII
    o Final Fantasy IX
    o Final Fantasy X
    + Final Fantasy X-2
    o Final Fantasy XI
    o Final Fantasy XII
    * Cell Phone Games
    o Before Crisis: Final Fantasy
    o Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII
    o Dirge of Cerberus: Lost Episode
    * Tactics Series
    o Final Fantasy Tactics
    o Final Fantasy Tactice Advance
    * Crystal Chronicles Series
    o Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
    o Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates
    o Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearer
    * Remakes
    o Final Fantasy Collection
    o Final Fantasy Anthology
    o Final Fantasy Chronicles
    o Final Fantasy Origins
    o Final Fantasy I & 2: Dawn of Souls
    o Final Fantasy III DS
    * Games Featuring Final Fantasy Characters
    o Ehrgeiz
    o Kingtom Hearts
    o Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
    o Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix
    o Kingdom Hearts II
    * Movies, Anime Series & Concerts
    o Final Fantasy: The Sprits Within
    o Final Fantasy: Unlimited, Entire Series
    o Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
    o Final Fantasy: Dear Friends, Entire World Tour

    Grand Theft Auto:

    * Grand Theft Auto
    o Grand Theft Auto, Gameboy Color Port
    * Grand Theft Auto
    * Grand Theft Auto: London 1969
    * Gr

  • Nobody quit... (Score:4, Funny)

    by AmazingRuss (555076) on Friday September 01 2006, @11:00PM (#16028366)
    ...but a few did die of old age.

    • Re:Doesn't matter (Score:5, Funny)

      by creimer (824291) on Friday September 01 2006, @02:15PM (#16025588) Homepage
      Except for the hardcore Duke Nukem fans who run around E3 in their foam body suits.

      (BTW, Someone did tell them that E3 was cancelled?)

      • Re:Doesn't matter (Score:5, Funny)

        by MojoBox (985651) on Friday September 01 2006, @02:48PM (#16025880)
        Why? Can't you see the comedic value of a half dozen geeks in foam body suits, wandering the deserted halls of the Convention Center, bits of paper blowing in the drafts, a broken pipe dripping water somewhere in the distance, and each of the "Dukes" quitely whispering, "Hello? Anybody here?" Come to think of it, that's a bit like the condition of DNF itself.

      • Re:A theory of late games and program development (Score:4, Informative)

        by ScrewMaster (602015) on Saturday September 02 2006, @10:10PM (#16031452)
        Well, maybe not completely impossible ... but the reality is that code tends to move from elegance to thorniness, and not the other way 'round. Call it ScrewMaster's Rule of Developmental Entropy. Fixes for this and fixes for that: over time the code will be inelegant as hell yet reliable and perfectly functional, but nobody in their right mind would dare try to rewrite it because nobody remembers why all those hacks and patches are there. I deal with that a lot in some of the older code I have to support and maintain. I wasn't the original coder, and I'd love to dig in and rewrite some of the stuff that truly offends my engineering sensibilities. I don't dare, however, because if I did I'd miss some of the special cases taken care of by all the thorns, wreak havoc amongst our customers, and would probably end up spending just as much time to make my new code work as well as the old. At which point, it would be just as thorny anyway.

        Ultimately, what it comes down to is that it is very difficult (if not impossible) for even a very good, clean, thoughtful initial design to account for all the eventualities that a codebase will have to face. You may truly want to leave that code cleaner when you leave, but odds are that time pressure alone will sometimes leave you with what you know in your heart is a hack. Trying to do everything perfectly all the time takes forever, which is unacceptable in most production environments. 3DRealms may be different in that regard. Certainly they don't mind giving their developers all the time they need.

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