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

And now 3D Realms and Duke belong to the ages.

magusat999 Posted May 8, 2009 12:13 pm CET You know they say death comes in threes - I don't know who the third candidate might be, but I'm looking at Blizzard to be the second. I say Blizzard because they have the same philosophy "It's done wen it's done..." And how long have they been working on Diablo III? They already screwed up taking too long with Diablo II, and everyone said it was dated by the time it was "Done when it was done...". I hope Blizzard and other developers who cannot tell time will see this as a wake up call and start thinking instead "It's done when it's good enough...". And I don't believe that developers do wat 3Drealms did because they want the best product. I think they wanted to put it in the most profitable and expensive format they might have had the game finished and ready to distribute / sell on a DVD - no wait, DVD9 came out; nope, here comes Blu-Ray - lets make a deal with Sony; hey let's make it hi-def; oooh, let's add multiplayer to it - that hadn't taken off back when we started 12 years ago; hey, the Wii is selling well too - lets make a version for that... Oh damn! Out of time... U made this statement on reasonable observations, but you forgot, that Blizzard got one golden egg called World of Warcraft, sold roughly around 12 mil. copies, makes it a great base of fundings for a long time......

You know they say death comes in threes - I don't know who the third candidate might be, but I'm looking at Blizzard to be the second. I say Blizzard because they have the same philosophy "It's done wen it's done..." And how long have they been working on Diablo III? They already screwed up taking too long with Diablo II, and everyone said it was dated by the time it was "Done when it was done...". I hope Blizzard and other developers who cannot tell time will see this as a wake up call and start thinking instead "It's done when it's good enough...". And I don't believe that developers do wat 3Drealms did because they want the best product. I think they wanted to put it in the most profitable and expensive format they might have had the game finished and ready to distribute / sell on a DVD - no wait, DVD9 came out; nope, here comes Blu-Ray - lets make a deal with Sony; hey let's make it hi-def; oooh, let's add multiplayer to it - that hadn't taken off back when we started 12 years ago; hey, the Wii is selling well too - lets make a version for that... Oh damn! Out of time...

Big big shame but they did ask for it really! Hopefully, if the game is in some sort of near-finished stage, Take 2 may be able to pull something out of the hat but I very much doubt it.

"Its time to kill" i miss duke nukem...

Hate to say it but they brought it on themselves. Come on 12 years!?

*sigh* i can still remember my 10 yr old self shooting those piggys in "3d", anyway all good things come to an end some time. I suppose there is still the hope that take 2 can make something of the rights

Let's face it, this game was never going to be finished anyway.

Tis a sad time I loved this studio :( At least I've still got duke 3d :D (fav shooter ever)

Duke Nukem Forever not getting released!? WHO SAW IT COMING!?

duke nukem is history now -_-

New industry term for delaying a game. "Pulling a Duke." Sad to see them close up, but it was bound to happen.

"they must have had to start from scratch so many times just to keep up with other games graphics." The game originally used the Duke3D engine (which was actually 2D) and as it got more ambitious, its engine changed to Quake, then Quake II, then Unreal engine, then Unreal Tournament engine, then I believe Unreal II engine, then Doom 3 engine, and after that, some custom engine developed in house. This is the price of taking so long. You either release an outdated game, or you're forced to start over with new engines and scrap a lot of the work you've already done. The saddest thing about this is, 12 years of developments and no screenshots. Most of the screenshots are old, and we have a couple of thumbnail sized low res shots of the current engine. We never even got to see what the game looked like really. All this time in development and nothing to show for it? Makes you wonder whether there ever really was a game at all. Could 3DR have been pulling off one of the biggest scams against Take2?

I am sad. It wouldn't have been a great game, but it may have had some appeal. I just wanted to see what it was like.

they must have had to start from scratch so many times just to keep up with other games graphics.

Make no mistake -- the game was never going to be AAA (it was probably going to be another Daikatana), and gen Y gamer is too young for the brand to have any nostalgic appeal to. Here is the big list of things (game series, consoles, movie series, wars, technology and other big things) that have happened during the 12 years that Duke was in development. Quite hilarious. Someone even has a preorder docket for the game. << LINK REMOVED >>

This is what happens when you have release dates of "when it's done." Every developer has a budget, which demands a deadline that can only extend so far. Once you cross that point, it becomes financially untenable to produce the game. The sales have no hope of recouping the costs. A game that takes 12 years to make and still nothing more than a couple of screenshots? The writing was on the wall at least 7 years ago, with 3DR not releasing any games, and the one game up their sleeve literally taking forever. Too much money was poured into a game that would never finish and return its investment. Lesson learned: Unless you're Blizzard, release the damn game. You can't afford for it to take Forever unless you have a lot of other big profile games releasing in the meantime to pump revenue into continuing your developments. And at some point, the game has to either release or be cancelled lest it drag down the company with it.

I think im gonna cry

damn... and I was really looking forward to shadow warrior 2 to come out sometime before rapture

As much as I hate to say this game's future looks bad, 3D Realms brought it upon themselves.

as Stewie said, "Ah, yes, ummm... Requiem in terra pax and so forth..." Still, since I did love DN3D when I was 16... Requiem In Terra Pacis Duke Nukem.

sad day but they should have known this would come to this they should have put out more games than what they have its tottally Ridiculous that they have to close up shop.

Long time coming their closing. How the hell can you survive off of one IP and a 12 year interval between games? Ridiculous.

Duke Nukem fornever? Their extremely macho game will miss me...

This is a sad day when a company like 3d realms goes bye bye ! Wouldn't surprise me if some company doesn't pick up the rights to the game and finish it!

Amazing that they lasted this long. If I could get a salary for a 2 minute video every 4 years I'd be laughing. Personally I'll remember 3D Realms for Duke Nukem 3D, and try to forget all this DNF buisiness.

Duke Nukem not Forever any more...

It's sad to see a longtime developer like 3D Realms go, but when you bank on something like Duke Nukem Forever and little else for so many years... I hate to say it, but they dug their own grave. I wonder what this means for the Shadow Warrior IP.

There's no way it could have been unique from any other shooter anyway

This is total crap, 3drealms is known for doing dumb things, no reason why they are not pulling something now. 50 bucks says you will see dukenukem forever in the next 2 months. There is no way this game is not going to get out there and when it does 3drealms will be back in business. Somebody will fund them. This is not over, Always bet on DUKE!!

"I'm lookin' for an alien publisher to park my DNFs!"

Bethesedia will pick it up and make it an open world RPG that will be NOTHING like Oblivion/F3!

Got nothing to say except that i am really going to miss Duke Nukem and John St. John with his voice. R.I.P Duke

::mouth agape, a tear rolls down my cheek:: I guess I can't count on Duke anymore. I swear revenge on Take-Two Interactive if it was THEM that caused the closure. I've been so hyped for DNF... :: one more tear::. I don't care about anyone else... I would have waited Forever.

Who really cares about Duke anyways? I mean, it was a good game, with some cool one-liners and a fun depiction of the seedy underbelly of humanity but let's not get bent out of shape about it. Someone will pick the license up sometime right? they've got guaranteed sales right? So no worries to Duke fans going forward! You'll just have to play all the other awesome games until the Duke rises again, at which point you will likely be moderately impressed with a mediocre game that is trying to cash in on a killer name....am I on crazy pills here?

wat i relly understand here that this game is gonna be 3D game ...

i don't understand, i mean valve has been release expansions for a 8 year old game for how long and its still doing well? (episodic content is NOT what we were promised).. why couldn't they have released this game back in 2001? maybe in the next 5 years we will see the end of Half-life 2!! HAHA not likely. valve REALLY likes working with 8 year old tech, look at their games!! HAHA PS: I do really like vavle's games, but can only imagine what they would be like with CURRENT and RELEVANT technology running them.

I am happy to see 3drealms close. I USED to love them, but there is NOTHING you fanboys can say about promising a game for 12 years, THEY DESERVE TO CLOSE. Hopefully this will remind companie's that they shouldn't piss around with release dates, eventually you just FORGOTTEN. Just because 3drealms was good back in the day, doesn't mean we should even BLINK at this news. HORAY FOR ANOTHER FULL OF S*** COMPANY GONE HAZAAAH. Aside from this, i was REALLY looking forward to duke nukem forever, I have been following since it first announcement in 1997.

LMFAO XD

It seems like Duke Nukem will forever stay in development. JK, seriously, it would have turned from legend to just another FPS if they ever released it. And WTF? There were boobs and strippers in games way before GTA and nobody cared about those, poor rockstar.

Don't even get me started here... been following this since april 27th 1997.. this is just another sad day in a sad story of DNF... Man, it was like yesterday I was rockin the RPG in Holly Wood holocaust laying pipe bombs down behind the movie theater screen through my 56k modem owning my friends hahaha.. aww poor Duke..

Farewell Duke Nuken Dorever! :(

If it takes you 12 years to finish a game your not doing a service to your fans.

lmao "I'm looking for alien toilets to park my bricks, who's first?" Man its a shame we won't get to see this game.

The farce is finally over with, terrible another developer has gone under, but they had it coming. With having to pay off the administrators the IP will probabllys go before long. Remember how long it took games like GhostBusters to get picked up after Activision dropped it? Also, look how quick Crytek was to pick up Free Radical & keep the TimeSplitters brand alive. A compitent developer or even T2 who pick up the rights will want to see a return in their investement quicklly so we might not be waiting as long as we thought for Duke's return.

If Duke Nukem Forever, is now never released, it will be the greatest tradgedy in the history of gaming.

Ha ha. Looks like they finally ran out of bubblegum.

man.... I just want the game to be released already.

At least 3D Realms owns the IP - back in the 1990s I contracted with an indie team that themselves were contracted by a major publisher to create a game using IP which they had licensed (without using the real companies involved, imagine if indie LittleGameCo was hired by BigPublisher to create a low budget game based on, pro wrestling IP [not even close to what it really was]). We had all features done and gameplay was starting to come together, but we needed and asked for a couple of months for polish past their late August deadline. The publisher said no, pulled us off the project and gave it to an in-house studio and our jobs went poof. I can't really discuss specifics without potentially getting sued (the fun NDA I had to sign forbid press announcements and reviews, among other things - I even edited this a couple of times to remove such info), but I can't say my brief experience in the game industry was good. The game was released, did OK, but IMO if we'd had the time to do the polish it'd have been better and gotten out sooner (hint).

R.I.P Duke Nukem, you've joined the greats up there in heaven, Tu-pac, Biggy, Hendrix, Kurt, and Eazy mutha f%$£ing E ice cube take the mutha f%$£ing stand (couldnt resist) Dukes Probably looking down on us from heaven kicking ass and chewing bubble gum, but heaven doesnt alow gum, so he's all outta gum why do the good die so young