3D Realms collapses

Spear

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/58519

And yet somehow Duke Nukem Forever continues.

Overheal

Good Riddance.

It occurs to me that the development team has been scamming the system for years with media stereotype, adding more and more delays, milking the project for the wages.

At this point I don't believe there ever really was a DNF. If they wanted to work on the game it would have been done years ago. I know theres been the odd press release but cmon - it wasn't enough to justify such a grossly long development cycle. What game takes 12+ years to make? Name One (besides this)

thelordofcheese

Overheal wrote: »

Good Riddance.

It occurs to me that the development team has been scamming the system for years with media stereotype, adding more and more delays, milking the project for the wages.

At this point I don't believe there ever really was a DNF. If they wanted to work on the game it would have been done years ago. I know theres been the odd press release but cmon - it wasn't enough to justify such a grossly long development cycle. What game takes 12+ years to make? Name One (besides this)

Scamming the system? How do you figure that, exactly. I'm curious to see your reasoning as to how a 12 year long project is some kind of scam.

and while we're waiting a list of things that have been acomplished since DNF was announced

Kiith

Maybe he just meant that they were milking the promise of DNF to keep them in their jobs. Not actually planning on releasing anything, but saying they were. I'm not saying this is true, just that this is what i think Overheal means.

I'd kind of say 'whatever' as well to be honest. Have they made anything decent (or at all) in the last few years.

thelordofcheese

Kiith wrote: »

Maybe he just meant that they were milking the promise of DNF to keep them in their jobs. Not actually planning on releasing anything, but saying they were. I'm not saying this is true, just that this is what i think Overheal means.

Except that'd never work because they were the ones financing DNF's development, not a publisher.

Kiith

Oh, i didnt realise that. Talk about a money sink. I remember seeing an amazing looking trailer years ago for DNF, and being really excited about it. Looked fantastic. Its been a running joke for a long time now though, and i cant see it ever coming out. (cant read that article atm, so im not sure what it says about DNF itself).

Either way, its a shame that another old school developer has gone under. It just doesnt bother me as much as say Pandemic or Bullfrog did.

Overheal

Yeah there was a so-so trailer in 01 releast then a shorter yet pretty trailer released in 07. Secretly though I wouldnt be surprised if they spent the intervening 6 years just working on the trailer.

Whatever the case may be they were never going to release the title. Who are ya fooling?

(Though the publisher may not have funded them maybe someone else had been, i dunno. Just guessing)

Check out lordcheese's link - the trivia is disturbing.

for example

Things that have taken less time than Duke Nukem Forever's Development:
Pop Culture:

* The Beatles formed, released every single one of their albums and broke up. During this time they also toured the world several times.
* Led Zeppelin released 7 albums, 9 singles, and toured around the world, crossing international borders 27 times (not counting mainland Europe.)

Science & Technology:

* The Wright brothers designed and flew the first airplane.
* The theory of General Relativity.
* The United States' entire program to put a man on the moon, from Kennedy's challenge to the landing.
* The complete construction of many monumental buildings and engineering projects. To name a few-
o The Empire State Building (Jan 1930 - May 1931)
o The Channel Tunnel (Dec 1987 - May 1994)
o The Golden Gate Bridge (Jan 1933 - May 1937)
o The World Trade Center (Aug 1966 - April 1973)

Wars:

* The American War for Independence
* The United States Civil War
* World War I
* The United State's involvement in the Vietnam War.
* World War II and the entire Manhattan Project. Yes, even the complete development of the atomic bomb took less time.

Im having trouble imagining anything that still isnt finished after 12 years. We even overthrew Saddam in less time. Well ok maybe the Cold War.

thelordofcheese

Overheal wrote: »

Though the publisher may not have funded them maybe someone else had been, i dunno. Just guessing

From what i know, 3D Realms had money left over from their Apogee days, tons from Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior, and shitloads publishing games like Max Payne.

I'd imagine their collapse has very little to do with DNF and more to do with the general state of the industry where the dreaded R word is crippling loads of companies, regardless of 12 year long projects or not.

I just want someone to pick up the IP and do something with it. Maybe the guys behind Serious Sam?

Overheal

Someone Else. Anyone Else. Whoever was heading this thing was a stupid tool - bet you they scrapped what they had again and tried adopting Crytek 2.

Whoever was in charge had no grasp of what makes a good game, basically. Bleeding edge graphics only account for so much. If we're to believe the information that the game was at one stage 90-95% complete when they scrapped it for a newer engine, then I'm speechless.

ongarite

Absolute joke of a company. Has to be one of the worst managed (gaming) companies ever. A company run by a fanboy who pandered to the needs & wants of his fanbase.
Would make a great documentary if all the details of what happened over the last 13 yeards came out.

Rumours I've heard from friend in game industry points to all the media and trailer released in 2007 being faked and scripted in game engine and not actual functioning levels, gameplay.

pixelburp

It's a company from a bygone era, but it can't strike people as any surprise that a firm who doggedly plough money into an unreleased product for 12 years goes out of business during the first months of a heavy recession.

Even if 3D Realms had have got around to releasing Duke Nukem Forever, I don't see how the sales could have ever been good enough to recoup the money they invested (supposedly out of their own pockets near the end - madness). I wouldn't say "good riddance" because people have lost their jobs in a real dog-eat-dog industry, but 3D Realms never seemed to act like a responsible company; more like auteurs clinging to their now irrelevant brand.

Dreddybajs

http://duke.a-13.net/ - RIP DNF.

SirLemonhead

Overheal wrote: »

Someone Else. Anyone Else. Whoever was heading this thing was a stupid tool - bet you they scrapped what they had again and tried adopting Crytek 2.

bah, shut it. We've lost a great company. Sure, they had been taking ages with DNF, but they were one of the rare companies that gave a damn about the fans - the 3DR forums were fantastic, lots of interaction from the company with the fans, the source code releases of numerous games including Duke3D and Shadow Warrior..

They don't owe anyone anything, so it's ridiculous that people would slander them.

ongarite

Everything you have posted above shows what was wrong with 3DRealms and George Broussard.
Instead of spending the time to actually develop and manage a sucessful game, they spent more than a decade pandering to their egos and fanbase.

What have we seen over the last 12-13 years, a dozen screenshots and 2 trailers.

pixelburp

SirLemonhead wrote: »

bah, shut it. We've lost a great company. Sure, they had been taking ages with DNF, but they were one of the rare companies that gave a damn about the fans - the 3DR forums were fantastic, lots of interaction from the company with the fans, the source code releases of numerous games including Duke3D and Shadow Warrior..

They don't owe anyone anything, so it's ridiculous that people would slander them.

They didn't owe gamers, but they owed their employees to at least have a viable business plan to keep the company afloat the first sign of financial trouble. They didn't, and instead kept rattling away at a moribund brand on a game that had become a laughing stock in the industry & a by-word for vapourware. 3D Realms had - what? - one active project (open to correction here as admittedly DNF dominated public perception) that had zero public results for 12 years labour. A project that kept changing every 3/4 years on the apparent whim of the wannabe auteurs in charge. That's negligence at the very least, surely.

I hope those artists & programmers can get alternative employment and those are the people I feel sorry for.

Retr0gamer

Crazy to think I had my first gaming PC the year Duke 3D was released and that was the last game they developed. There's a big difference saying the game will be out 'when it's done', doing a blizzard and polishing to a shine and what ever the hell 3Drealms were up to. They really should have finished the first Unreal build of the game and released it with a bit more spit and polish no matter how much Half-life raised the bar by.

Gummy Panda

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Crazy to think I had my first gaming PC the year Duke 3D was released and that was the last game they developed. There's a big difference saying the game will be out 'when it's done', doing a blizzard and polishing to a shine and what ever the hell 3Drealms were up to. They really should have finished the first Unreal build of the game and released it with a bit more spit and polish no matter how much Half-life raised the bar by.

I really wish people would stop referring to blizzard when talking about polish. It flares my wow addiction

Must resist and never go back...

redshoulder

It's to be expected when they kept changing the engine.

Retr0gamer

New expansion out soon isn't it? You're ****ed then :P Thank god I never got into it.

ongarite

Here comes the real story behind the doors of 3DRealm. Expect loads more over the next few weeks.

"The 2001 trailer was 100% scripted cinematic, and not actual gameplay. They built specific demo maps just to record video from to make a trailer. Everything you see in that trailer was phony.

The typical work flow there went something like this:
Designer would be assigned a task (build a new map, rebuild an old map, polish a bit of a map, etc.). Designer would work on said task for two, three weeks, a month, all the while lower management would be looking over it and making sure it was going in a "good general direction." Designer would move on to another task. A month or two later upper management would finally look at the work and say, "It's all wrong, do it again." Rinse, repeat.

Entire maps would be done from the ground up, almost to beta quality, and then thrown out simply because no one would make decisions early on in the process. (Read up on Valve's 'orange box' method of design -- that's how you make games)

Another example of is the fact that there was one part of one map that was being worked on before I started working there. Nineteen months later and the same designer was still working on the same part of that same map... I'm not blaming the designer, it wasn't his fault.

I think the biggest problem that the company had in general is being self-funded. When you're a developer working directly with a publisher and you have milestones to meet it's a whole different ballgame. If you don't meet those milestones, you don't get any money. That right there will keep your project on schedule. If, however, you're funding it yourself, you don't really have anyone to answer to except yourself and you can quickly lose sight of just how much money is going out the door."

ongarite

And even more madness from George Broussard here:

http://gamingisstupid.com/2009/05/06/the-chair-story-revival/

L31mr0d

pixelburp wrote: »

I hope those artists & programmers can get alternative employment and those are the people I feel sorry for.

I was reading one of my feeds and supposedly some of them have already moved over to developing the new Battle Toads that's coming out on the Wii this summer. Supposedly you can ring up gamestop and preorder your copy now.

Dreddybajs

ongarite wrote: »

Here comes the real story behind the doors of 3DRealm. Expect loads more over the next few weeks.

That was a post on SA which was then debunked a few posts later by another 3D Realms employee.

edit: The part about the trailer being purely scripted I mean, the rest seems true enough.

pixelburp

ongarite wrote: »

And even more madness from George Broussard here:

http://gamingisstupid.com/2009/05/06/the-chair-story-revival/

So if I read that right, the whole DNF "development" cycle was a big con job? Wow.

edit: I just got to the "chair" incident. I'm shocked. And Cliffy B was involved in all this too? There has to be something criminal in all this, notwithstanding the violence and threats that is. That's astonishing. Throw the gits in jail.

L31mr0d

pixelburp wrote: »

edit: I just got to the "chair" incident. I'm shocked. And Cliffy B was involved in all this too? There has to be something criminal in all this, notwithstanding the violence and threats that is. That's astonishing. Throw the gits in jail.

I dunno, this whole thing stinks as merely the next chapter in the plan tbh. I mean this has to be raising the games profile again, and 3DR's collapse is all over the net. A mystery developer will come along, pick up where 3DR left off and we'll be hearing about the new version of DNF for the following decade.

SirLemonhead

pixelburp wrote: »

So if I read that right, the whole DNF "development" cycle was a big con job? Wow.

edit: I just got to the "chair" incident. I'm shocked. And Cliffy B was involved in all this too? There has to be something criminal in all this, notwithstanding the violence and threats that is. That's astonishing. Throw the gits in jail.

It's a fictional story... it's been stated by the person who wrote it already

Sarky

This leaves the way open for Ion Storm to make a blinding comeback with Daikatana 2.

I'd like to be able to care about this, I really would. But... Meh. Duke Nukem is only fondly remembered because you were 15 and there were strippers.

pixelburp

SirLemonhead wrote: »

It's a fictional story... it's been stated by the person who wrote it already

It would want to be given the nature of it ...

SirLemonhead

pixelburp wrote: »

It would want to be given the nature of it ...

He wrote it well over a year ago.

thelordofcheese

Sarky wrote: »

This leaves the way open for Ion Storm to make a blinding comeback with Daikatana 2.

I'd like to be able to care about this, I really would. But... Meh. Duke Nukem is only fondly remembered because you were 15 and there were strippers.

I don't get all the hate for Duke 3D, it's like people hate fun.

I would gladly pay $Texas for a new duke nukem game. With every FPS now being some kind of grimdark WW2/dark future shooter, i really want a game that's well aware how silly it, and the whole genre, is.

I'd rather shrink an alien and stomp it into a fine paste before flying off on a jetpack raining pipebombs down pigs in LAPD uniforms than storm Omaha beach again.

pixelburp

SirLemonhead wrote: »

He wrote it well over a year ago.

Yeah I see that, I just wonder what the idea behind it was.

Anyway, regardless of this, you can bet that stories will start to leak out about DNF. 12 years of false starts lol.