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3D Realms closure confirmed, Take-Two retains Duke Nukem Forever publishing rights

By Tor Thorsen, GameSpotPosted May 6, 2009 6:06 pm PT

[UPDATE 2] Online accounts finger monetary issues in demise of developer, which still owns IP; publisher says arrangement "did not include ongoing funds for development of the title"; DS, PSP spin-offs "unaffected."

In the 12 years since Duke Nukem Forever was announced in 1997, the game's ever-shifting "when it's done" release date became a running joke in the game industry. Today, though, comes news that few will find funny. According to numerous reports, the elusive shooter's developer, 3D Realms, has informed its staff that it is ceasing operations.

Though it did not explicitly confirm the closure, the recently relaunched Apogee Software and its publishing partner Deep Silver issued a statement saying that they were "not affected by the situation at 3D Realms. Development on the [portable] Duke Nukem Trilogy [series] is continuing as planned." The Apogee label was relaunched by 3D Realms during last year's Electronic Entertainment Expo and was billed as a portable-dedicated branch of the company.

[UPDATE2] Unfortunately, it seems that the rank and file of 3D Realms proper were not so lucky. In response to a flurry of shutdown reports on the studio's official forums, longtime webmaster Joe Siegler issued a glum confirmation. "It's not a marketing thing," he said, addressing theories that the news could be some sort of guerrilla PR campaign. "It's true. I have nothing further to say at this time."

Adding to the clouds above 3D Realms was a report on Shacknews, which has deep ties to the PC shooter community. Citing "a reliable source," the site reports that employees of the studio were told of the closure this afternoon. The report said that monetary issues were the culprit, which has led many to believe that longtime publishing partner Take-Two had cut off funding for Duke Nuke Forever.

[UPDATE] Citing company policy, Take-Two vice president of communications and public affairs Alan Lewis declined to comment on reports of 3D Realms' closure directly. However, he did say that the company "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. In addition, Take-Two continues to retain the publishing rights to Duke Nukem Forever." Lewis also confirmed that the DNF IP is still owned by 3D Realms.

3D Realms' closure marks a cruelly ironic end to the Duke Nukem Forever saga. After being completely restarted from scratch using the Doom 3 engine, the shooter resurfaced in December 2007 in the form of a brief teaser trailer (above). After a quickly retracted Dallas Business Journal report said that the game was coming to the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, several snippets were shown on the Web show of former Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment vice president (and now movie producer) Jason "Jace" Hall.

This year, work appeared to be progressing on Duke Nukem Forever. According to 3D Realms studio head George Broussard's Twitter feed, Take-Two was shown the project on January 26 or 27. He made no subsequent updates about the publisher's reaction to the game, the fate of which is now uncertain. As of press time, requests for comment sent to Broussard had not been answered.

To see the original version of Duke Nukem Forever, check out the trailer below from E3 2001.

568 Comments

  • austinite04

    Posted Sep 16, 2009 2:04 pm PT

    Man I'm ticked that we'll never ever see a Duke Nukem game... I am 28 and back when I was 15 DNF was announced. it's been too long.

  • insanitycheck7

    Posted Aug 19, 2009 10:01 am PT

    Duke Nukem rocks!

  • MetallicFPSNut

    Posted Jul 25, 2009 8:48 pm PT

    Eh, they'd been developing that game since I started gaming.

  • Coolyfett

    Posted Jul 13, 2009 6:30 pm PT

    Interesting, There just needs to be more games about Greek Mythology. I have never played a Duke Nukem, but I have heard they were fun games. oh well, they got the plug pulled on them so thats life. Im sure their employees will land on there feet.

  • Alex_09

    Posted May 17, 2009 1:57 pm PT

    I never liked the first ones, old school FPSs are brutal for me to play. Still, this is lame for the fans. Reminds me of Dark Sector kind of.

  • moshel_007

    Posted May 17, 2009 6:38 am PT

    other publishers should learn a lesson from this saga............"refrain using the F word in the title"....lol

  • Leninade223

    Posted May 14, 2009 4:35 pm PT

    The fact that these "Forever" jokes are older than the average development cycle for a game speaks for itself. They could've simply released a "meh" game back in 2000 and they could've started over again with a better sequel.

    No.

    Instead they chose to continue development on it and look what ended up happening. The footage released looks alright for a game that was in development for 3 years. But this game wasn't in development for 3 years, it's development cycle is 4 times older than that.

    These guys deserve to be ridiculed with every tired DNF joke in existence, and believe me, there are plenty of those in the 11 years that have passed since their first trailer was released.

  • idnut

    Posted May 13, 2009 2:22 pm PT

    In the words of Duke Nukem himself:

    "This sucks."

  • venasque

    Posted May 13, 2009 9:12 am PT

    I know I will sound harsh saying this, but I'm not exactly surprised. 12 years is a stupid long time to be waiting for one game. It's also a long time for a studio to be unprofitable. They can only make themselves and a publisher money if they actually release a completed title. Until they do they only cost someone money to run and maintain and even a basic understanding of business will tell you when expenditures are higher than income, it can only last for so long. Looking at the above 2001 E3 trailer I am a little confused. That trailer had a lot of work done in it. It wasn't a 20 second teaser, it was showing a lot of finished gameplay elements and environments. Why didn't they just finish that and release it? Why scrap it all and start all over again? Seems such a waste and if it had been released maybe this wouldn't have happened. Maybe we'd all be excited about a new Duke Nukem game that would be coming out, rather than a 12 year long legend, that would never live up to our expectations (look at Too Human). It's a shame though. I hate to seeing studios closing and talented people losing their jobs. =(

  • KrAzY_Croat

    Posted May 12, 2009 12:25 pm PT

    While this news comes bitterly ironic, it's also very unfortunate. As one of the many waiting (forever waiting) to see Duke Nukem shine again, I hope someone else may pick up this project.

  • Cloud737

    Posted May 12, 2009 11:25 am PT

    @ nappan

    Yes, and what does that have to do with who has the rights to the IP?
    I'm guessing you either haven't read the article, forgot about it, or don't know what IP means.

    It means no studio can make a game with elements from Duke Nukem (especially the character) without 3D Realms' permission. Since I'm guessing 3D Realms won't license their IP to someone else, no else one is allowed to make a game off it.

    Sure, Take-Two still has publishing rights... but the only one that was allowed to make Duke Nukem games has gone under. So, Take-Two has publishing rights for... nothing.

    Take-Two really can't assign the game to one of it's studios, so publishing rights is really worthless now...unless there is still a possibility that 3D Realms can transfer the IP rights even after it goes under.

  • SnuffDaddyNZ

    Posted May 12, 2009 4:03 am PT

    i remember this trailer back in 2k1, it looked good, mistake not to release it in 2002.

  • soupa_mario

    Posted May 12, 2009 12:20 am PT

    @gangsteric No they probably wont.

  • Ripper_TV

    Posted May 11, 2009 4:25 pm PT

    Mmm, people, do you really think they played WoW at work instead of working? Oo

  • Ripper_TV

    Posted May 11, 2009 4:21 pm PT

    plm3d_basic, you got a very reasonable point here, actually. Let me give only one remark..
    "Duke Nukem 3-D, which was nothing more than a one trick pony and a ripoff of the Evil Dead series and Doom."
    Ultimately EVERYTHING is a rip-off. DK3D was a great rip-off, excellent compilation of ideas of others.

  • LordKevas

    Posted May 11, 2009 3:23 pm PT

    omg... It just took like forever to make this game and in the trailers the game looked pretty good. Why the heck were they not able to finish it? XD. Instead they stop the developement and the game will forever known for its lazy frickin developement team who couldn't finish a game but had to re-do it over and over again. And instead of working they played WoW. I love Duke!!! Take 2 gotta do the Duke Forever game some day maybe... whatever happens I will not wait anxiously. I will be happy if they do it. And when they announce that I will once again wait a lifetime for it to be released =)

  • TheKokopelli

    Posted May 11, 2009 2:27 pm PT

    This is not surprising - DukeNukem Forever has been through more changes and rewrites than the US tax code.

  • gangsterjc

    Posted May 11, 2009 1:38 pm PT

    Good now take 2 will finish it.

  • maverick_76

    Posted May 11, 2009 1:04 pm PT

    Man I wish I could have done this in the real world. Manager: Where are my TPS reports? Are they even done!!!!!

    Me: When its finished I will get it to you, maybe another 10-15 years. Manager: OK, don't worry, we will pay you for all that wasted time too. See you when its finished!

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