I will never release anything but maybe when everyone involved is dead and someone else cares they will". Randy has simply shifted tone from "we are working on it and it will be released", which he promised to do several times, to "it seems disrespectful and like going through a dead persons stuff. Randy confirmed a few months ago they had secured a license from 2K that enables them to release Duke Nukem Forever and related materials themselves as part of a collection. Would any of these people actually care? I also think most people at this point are well aware there isn't a "whole game" here. His last reason is stupid to me, the people that made those assets and things did so with the intention of one day releasing it to the world. And it appears that 3D Realms never got past that contradiction.So his reasoning is 2K still owns the pre-Gearbox build, and it would generally be a legal minefield? He mentioned that 2K has been open to the idea, so what's the hold up? Is it because he wants to try and sell it? But you’re simply not going to be so far ahead of the game that no one is ever going to catch you. You can use others’ technologies if you want to be incrementally better, and to then continue to improve. But 3D Realms put itself in the impossible position of both needing to be leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else, while at the same time relying on the technology of others they hoped to leapfrog. The simple fact was that no one was ever going to be that far ahead of the game any more, and so there are times where you just release what you have and iterate. By the time 3D Realms “caught up” with others (often by licensing their technology), someone else had already jumped ahead and gone further - leading 3D Realms to pull back and jump on board the next platform… leading to the same situation yet again. In some ways it’s a story that shows why just copying what other people do isn’t enough. Basically (according to the story) Broussard kept focusing on why the game had to be the absolute best, and so every time a new (better) gaming engine came out, he wanted to use that, and dump all the development done on earlier engines. But even more interesting is the constant changing of game engines. Every year the game wasn’t released, the more it would have to “prove” to eventually live up to its reputation. And, in fact, that probably only got worse with time. There is definitely this undercurrent of “this game must be perfect before it can be released” that runs through the whole story. While the crux of the story is that 3D Realms boss, George Broussard, had the earlier success stuck on his brain, it seems like there are a few other things to be learned. So what happened? How could one video game be under development for a dozen years, and despite promos from over a decade ago, still never come out? Clive Thompson, over at Wired, tried to piece together an autopsy of Duke Nukem Forever.Īs with just about anything Thompson writes, it’s a great read, with some interesting lessons. Tue, Dec 22nd 2009 03:30pm - Mike Masnickīack in May the “lifetime achievement” award winner (many times over) in vaporware, Duke Nukem Forever, officially went onto the permanent vaporware list as developer 3D Realms shut down. Either way, in my head, Duke Nukem Forever will always be vaporware.įiled Under: duke nukem forever, vaporware I’m not sure I really believe it, but considering it’s not the old team involved any more, perhaps it can actually happen. Either way, Peter Suderman noticed that Duke Nukem Forever actually appears to have a release date on Amazon of May 31st of this year. However, Take Two got into a bit of a legal fight with what was left of 3D Realms, and finally cleared the way for Take Two to release a game called Duke Nukem Forever, though I imagine many won’t feel it’s the “real” Duke Nukem Forever (because that game is a myth). There was a fascinating post mortem of the effort, which talked about the rather perfectionist views of 3D Realms boss, George Broussard, who kept having the team effectively start over to avoid being “behind” the state of the art. Finally, in 2009, we thought it had gone into permanent vaporware mode, after the developer, 3D Realms, shut down. At some point, Wired had to “retire” it from its annual vaporware list, giving it a “lifetime achievement award.” But that was back in 2003, and after strong demand, it was added back to the list later. A decade ago it was already being mocked as Vaporware. The video game Duke Nukem Forever has been a perpetual joke in video game circles.
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