Apogee Suing Gearbox Over Unpaid Royalties For Duke Nukem Forever 88
jones_supa writes "Apogee Software/3D Realms alleges that Gearbox has refused to pay more than $2 million owed to 3D Realms from royalties and advances Gearbox received from publishers for Duke Nukem Forever. In a lawsuit filed June 7 in Texas district court, 3D Realms insists that its agreement with Gearbox permits it to conduct an audit of Gearbox's royalty statements, which the studio has not allowed. 'Gearbox is simply stonewalling here in an improper attempt to conceal information from 3D Realms that it is absolutely entitled to receive,' the suit alleges. The company also alleges that Gearbox has refused to pay the agreed-upon portion of revenue Gearbox received after Duke Nukem Forever was released. 3D Realms has asked for a jury trial. This suit is apparently the end result of a friendly deal gone wrong."
Re:Wait, DNF came out? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't bother playing it, it's crap. It is nothing like what we were led to believe over the decade... it morphed into a piece of shit with Halo-knockoff controls and health-regeneration system. Sad too... many of the older trailers, from closer to 2000, were fucking awesome.
Re:DIE GAME DIE (Score:3, Insightful)
Duke Nukem was famous for many different weapon types, common to FPS games.
Then I read "DNF lets you only carry two weapon types at once." Why? Console design.
And I knew it had changed into something else. Other changes others have discusses, all related.
Re:Wait, DNF came out? (Score:4, Insightful)
The funny thing is... it even makes a Halo joke at an early point in the plot.
As in... Duke Nukem Forever (one of the worst fpses of recent years and a commercial and reputational disaster) takes the piss out of Halo (which, like it or not, is incredibly successful).
Thing is... it's made even worse by the extent to which DNF rips off all the *WORST* parts of Halo. All of those tropes and cliches that Halo introduced that gaming in general could really do without:
- 2-weapon limits (say goodbye to tactical flexibility and hello to "the game's just given me a rocket launcher, guess I have to fight a tank next");
- regenerating health (goodbye tension); and
- hateful protagonist - the old Duke was kind of funny in a horrible way, the new one is just a trash-talking dudebro (much like the Master Chief).
At the same time, it omits the decent stuff from Halo - like the responsive controls (on a console) and the fairly open level design.
See, if they'd wanted to spoof Halo, they should have had the first level put only 2 weapons available. Then you get out of it... and a third weapon is ahead of you. A prompt pops up inviting you to swap one of your existing weapons for the new one. Except when you do so, Duke makes his Halo joke - and picks up a third weapon without dropping one of the ones he already had.
That would have been a proper dig at the hateful conventions introduce by Halo. As it is, it just felt pathetic.