3DRealms Developers Axed? Created 15 years ago2009-06-03 03:07:24 UTC by monster_urby

Did anyone even notice?

Does anyone even care?

On May 6, 2009, due to lack of funding, major staff cuts were initiated with the entire development team being laid off and other employees being given notice of their employment with the company being terminated. The official company website briefly went offline on that day, but went back up soon afterwards. While there was no official statement at that moment on the closure, apart from messages on the 3D Realms forum, a final message appeared in the front page of the site, showing a group photo of the 3D Realms team, with the caption "Goodbye. Thanks for being fans and for all your support."

It was reported on May 14, 2009 that Take-Two, holders of the publishing rights of Duke Nukem Forever, filed a breach of contract suit against Apogee Software Ltd (3D Realms) over failing to deliver the aforementioned title. Take-Two has asked for a restraining order and a preliminary injunction, to make 3D Realms keep the Duke Nukem Forever assets intact during proceedings.

On May 18, 2009 3D Realms key executives released the first full official "press release" with their side of the developments. "... 3D Realms (3DR) has not closed and is not closing. ... Due to lack of funding, however, we are saddened to confirm that we let the Duke Nukem Forever (DNF) development team go on May 6th,... While 3DR is a much smaller studio now, we will continue to operate as a company and continue to licence and co-create games based upon the Duke Nukem franchise. ... Take-Two's proposal was unacceptable to 3DR for many reasons, including no upfront money, no guarantee minimum payment, and no guarantee to complete the DNF game. ...we viewed Take-Two as trying to acquire the Duke Nukem franchise in a "fire sale." ... ...we believe Take-Two's lawsuit is without merit and merely a bully tactic to obtain ownership of the Duke Nukem franchise. We will vigorously defend ourselves against this publisher."

Discuss.

I have no sympathy for them, they deserve it.

Duke Nukem 3D kept me entertained back when I had it. I feel like playing it again actually.

As for DNF... meh.

Developement and Gamplay footage released 10th May after 3DR announces team cuts.

I don't know, this stuff just doesn't justify 12 years of waiting.

My thoughts too. I laughed when I read about this some weeks ago. I think their development strategy consisted mostly of:

• Make generic shooter
• Add boobs

Pah.

They spend twelve years and boatloads of money "developing" a game that everyone knows is a complete joke, and they're surprised when their publishers finally reach their wit's end? I'm amazed it took this long for them to cut the cord.

"Duke Nukem Forever" has always been synonymous with "vaporware". I doubt if the developers even expected to finish it in their lifetime.

Clicky. Need we say more?

I grew up with DN3D. I was 7 when I got the KILL-A-TON edition mega pack.

This thing was huge and came with 4 disks and a crap load of shit. When they announced DN3D I was 10 so I was pretty fucking excited. They also released the first Max Payne and Prey trailers. Both of those games have been and gone and by the time Max Payne 2 rolled out I had pretty much forgotten about Duke. Even the new media and trailers in 2007/08 didn't bring back my faith.

I grew up with DN3D. I was 7 when I got the KILL-A-TON edition mega pack.

When they announced DN3D I was 10 so I was pretty fucking excited.

Did you hit a time warp? Or did I just read that wrong?

Take-Two has asked for a restraining order and a preliminary injunction, to make 3D Realms keep the Duke Nukem Forever assets intact during proceedings.

What assets? 3 models, a quater of a UT map and a bit of custom code? If it's taking that long to release, they obviously don't have much, even today.

I think they probably made a great mistake from the start. Maybe they even didn't know how to organize the project and they wanted to make a long story ( -> lots of levels) and things like this. They should have sticked to simplicity.

If you look back they had a lot of good work done on an engine that was similar to Gldsource, but it seems like they saw a new engine they wanted to make it on so they waited for that engine to come out, and that engine came out later than they wanted, then they needed to learn that engine and learn its capabilities. I think that if they released it back on the engine that looked similar to Gldsource they could of made a newer game on a newer engine. The bottom line is they took to much time waiting and not enough time producing.

I read an interview about how Konami and Kojima Productions was going to wait for the PS3 to release before they made Metal Gear Solid 3, as Sony told them it would be out very soon, when it got delayed and delayed they went ahead and made it on the PS2, then put MGS4 out on the PS3, instead of waiting for this new engine they just used the older one to get the product out there, thats what 3D Realms shoulda done.

This month's PCGamer UK came out today and has a 2 page article on this.

Here's a few of the major points:

...in May 1998 the first trailer hit E3. Powered by the Quake 2 engine, it showed aliens, flying saucers, buildings collapsing, a highway chase and a blonde sidekick named Bombshell. Already the game looked to be on its way to completion. Then, the following month, 3DRealms dropped the Q2 engine. They had moved developments to the Unreal engine, the first in a number of technical leaps.

Each change in engine meant artists had to recreate all their models, textures and levels. New screenshots were released in 1999

...in May 2004, the second Duke Nukem Forever trailer lauched at E3.

Then DNF jumped graphics engines again branching from Unreal Engine 2 to a codebase largely developed in-house. Almost all the level design work was scrapped.

...on December 18, 2007, 3DRealms announced a new trailer... ...it was underwhelming compared to the thrilling 2001 trailer.

Duke Nukem Forever is dead. Killed by the quest to produce the perfect game.

The developers were perfectly able, but the higher ups made some shitty decisions and killed it.

Sounds like Daikatana Syndrome x10.