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3D Realms Finally Goes Under
MikeMan
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8037688.stm
How does a company continue to receive funding for a game for that long without a single thing to show for it? Why did it take until now? Were they riding on the coattails of their success in the 90s? That seems fairly unlikely, considering their games are barely even relevant nowadays.
If anyone works in the industry and could give some insight, it would be much appreciated.
Also, who saw this coming?
So, aside from the usual "olol Duke Nukem Forever" comments, I'm interested in discussing just how this could have possibly happened.Duke Nukem developer goes bust
Veteran games developer 3D Realms has closed down because of a lack of funds.
Founded in 1987, the firm popularised the concept of shareware gaming and published the seminal Duke Nukem and Wolfenstein 3D first-person shooters.
The company was working on a follow-up title, Duke Nukem Forever, which after being in development for 12 years has become the object of industry derision.
Publisher Take-Two says it will no longer fund development of the game but retains rights to the title.
"We can confirm that our relationship with 3D Realms for Duke Nukem Forever was a publishing arrangement, which did not include ongoing funds for development of the title," said Take-Two's Alan Lewis in a statement.
There has been no official comment from 3D Realms, other than a forum posting from the company's webmaster, Joe Siegler, who said: "It's not a marketing thing. It's true. I have nothing further to say at this time."
Other companies with links to 3D Realms or the Duke Nukem series were quick to distance themselves.
In a posting on Twitter, Apogee Software said it was "officially not affected by the situation at 3DRealms".
"Development of the Duke Nukem Trilogy is continuing as planned and further announcements about upcoming games will be made in the near future," the statement added.
Guardian newspaper games writer Steve Boxer said it was astonishing 3D Realms had not finished the game after more than a decade of development.
"It would have been nice to see another Duke Nukem game, but given they had more than 12 years it's just incompetence of the highest order.
"3D Realms made some great games in the past, but they got overtaken by the 21st Century.
"Sadly, Duke Nukem Forever was the most aptly named title in the history of games. Now, it's just Duke Nukem Never."
How does a company continue to receive funding for a game for that long without a single thing to show for it? Why did it take until now? Were they riding on the coattails of their success in the 90s? That seems fairly unlikely, considering their games are barely even relevant nowadays.
If anyone works in the industry and could give some insight, it would be much appreciated.
Also, who saw this coming?
MikeMan on
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Posts
When you don't have a publisher standing over you demanding certain deliverables at certain times, it can be easy to lose sight of how long you're taking and how much cash money is going into the big ol' furnace.
(and hey, the recession is officially directly affecting me now. Or maybe not; it's unlikely that the game would ever have released anyway.)
Mods you can lock, then.
TALK AMONGST YASELVES
edit: alright we're stayin open motherfuckers!
I loved duke nukem and if the game does ever come out I will probably get it (if it sucks I'll just wait till the price drops). Don't underestimate the power of their brand name, I'd say it is almost solely responsible for keeping them afloat so long.
Yes but it was basically a side project of a bigger company that was actually releasing things and making money.
3D Realms hadn't produced a product in like a decade
So you aim your target an extra 12 months out, and by the time you finish, graphics hardware is roughly where it needs to be to handle your game. You make your textures at ridiculous resolutions, you lavish them with all the bells and whistles, and then you scale them down at the end. Turning on and off effects and scaling your textures is trivially easy to do. In the meantime, poly counts haven't changed dramatically over the past half-decade. Level design shouldn't have changed much at all.
Ignoring the first, say, 8 years of the game's development, they could've started from scratch with the debut of the UE3 engine and produced a kick-ass game by now if they weren't complete idiots. It is not that hard. The hard part of making a game is securing the publisher. They had a publisher, and all they had to do was produce an actual game. They couldn't do that. Ergo, they suck.
I...um...hmm
You're right. Someone who doesn't suck should finish this game. I miss my jetpack, shrink and freeze guns!
I am very surprised that 3D Realms lasted this long, and doubt DNF would have been enough to keep them going if it had been finished and released. Which it still might, depending on how 3DR's assets get sold off (if they do).
There had to have been a point that they realized even if the game did get finished and was the greatest thing in the history of mankind they'd still never break even on it.
That's the million dollar question isn't it. Who owns the IP now?
Has take two been funding them that long?
Again, like I said in the second post of this thread, DNF was self-funded by the developer, 3DRealms, and the publisher simply retained publishing rights; they didn't pay money to have the game developed, and they didn't set any deadlines (and so they didn't really lose any money here).
I mean, they could always outsource it or transfer it to, you know, an actual game developer to get it finally finished. That's what they ended up having to do with Prey, I believe, after 3DRealms dicked around for several years with nothing to show for it.
It just seems so strange. This is a game developer that put out reasonably high-quality, fun games during the 90s, then completely fell on their face. How does that happen?
Well that sort of makes more sense. Now it's just a matter of how the hell did they have enough money to last them 13 years without a single game title published in that time?
They lost potential money that could have been made if they gave someone else the IP
Edit: NM I thought Take Two owned the IP
Duke Nukem 3D made a ton of money and is still earning today from the XBLA port and GOG.com release.
The two Max Payne games made a bunch of money as well.
It looks like it finally ran out, though.
edit: I think TakeTwo can still license DNF out to another developer, but only DNF and not the Duke character in general for other Duke games.
Then the BBC is wrong? I'm just going by them.
Unless I'm misreading that and don't know anything about IP law. Which is entirely possible.
edit: I see. Owning the rights to the title is not the same as the IP.
What about the rights to the series?
TakeTwo holds publishing rights to Duke Nukem Forever (they did to begin with, there's no such thing as "corporate inheritance"), but 3DRealms still has rights to the character and series. This will probably get auctioned off as 3DR files for chapter whatever bankruptcy.
edit: note: T2 owns the rights to the title but doesn't necessarily get whatever source code, graphical assets, etc. that 3DRealms finished with (although it's likely, assuming they want to finish the product rather than forget it ever happened).
This really isn't the end, it just means that someone (someone smart) is going to get the chance to buy the IP and actually release the game. Think Bethesda and Fallout 3.
So whoever buys the rights to the series gets to decide if the DNF title sees the light of day or not (and if not Take Two is out of the picture)? Well wahoo.
Can't wait to see who inherits it though. I've never been a big fan of Duke Nukem (that's not to say I don't like it) but I'd still like to see it go into capable hands.
Hey, Duke Nukem Manhattan Project was fuck-awesome!
But, seriously, the Duke license may not be what it once was but it's still pretty big.
:edit: er, linking the footage...