3D Realms shuts down.

Apparently 3D Realms, developer of the Duke Nukem series, had shut down.

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

I wonder if this means they won't be releasing Duke Nukem Forever?



On a personal note- I was genuinely saddened to hear this, as Duke Nukem 3D is one of my all time favorite games, and was one of the titles that originally got me into PC gaming.

Read it in the news at work today, too. *sighs and thinks of Blake Stone, RotT and many other old favorites *

So Grimoire outlasted DNF!!!

You should change the headline to mention Duke Nukem

I thought they were making that with the Quake 1 engine?

Fallout 3 got made, I don't see why the next Duke can't be made either once the gov't auctions off the license. Its got to still be worth something. Don't believe me? Castle Wolfenstein (I got a bunch of blank stares from kids at the University when I explained the first two Wolfensteins, and then the second game mod every made: Castle Smurfenstein. (C) It Copied Right 1983.)

Wild speculation:

The Apogee brand has been re-activated a short time ago. Scott Miller is involved in a new game production company (neither developer nor publisher).

It seems (rumors) 3DR wanted a rather symbolic amount of money from T2 - 5M$ is not much for a major brand AAA shooter on multiple platforms. But they were laughed out of the office.

3DR closed, but they are not bankrupt. This means their assets are not on fire sale.

Maybe it's just a stunt to get out of the T2 publishing deal. If 3DR really self-funded the DN3D development they own everything. A 90% completed game could be finished by a contracted (good) studio within reasonable time. Rebranding wouldn't be that much of a problem.

This would be even easier if the Duke IP isn't a 3DR property but owned by 3dr's mother company.

Hardly unexpected you cannot go too long without releasing anything major in the game biz anymore.

They released a lot of games. 3 major products (Max Payne, MP 2, Prey) and lots of licensed Duke stuff on every platform you can imagine. Plus 3DR was a rather small company. I really don't see them running out of cash. Maybe it's more tricky.

Originally Posted by Gorath
They released a lot of games. 3 major products (Max Payne, MP 2, Prey) and lots of licensed Duke stuff on every platform you can imagine. Plus 3DR was a rather small company. I really don't see them running out of cash. Maybe it's more tricky.

Max Paynes were developed by Remedy Enterteinment - a finnish gamecompany. 3Drealms was not a publisher or a developer but a producer so I would imagine that they got only a minor part of the profits. They published prey but the game was that big of a success iirc.

Quote about 3drealms and duke 4ever from another site:

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 WTF 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.

Originally Posted by zakhal
Max Paynes were developed by Remedy Enterteinment - a finnish gamecompany. 3Drealms was not a publisher or a developer but a producer so I would imagine that they got only a minor part of the profits. They published prey but the game was that big of a success iirc.

Prey sold more than 1M copies. 3DR owns the IP. AFAIR they also are a shareholder at HumanHead Studios, although I'm not sure about that.

As far as I understand, 3DR owned 50% of the Max Payne franchise, Remedy the other 50%. 3DR produced, helped with additional staff and negotiated a kick-ass contract with T2, they split everything 50/50. The sum T2 paid for the IP alone, not counting the royalties until then, was at least 40M$. Google should reveal the exact amount. It was big news back then because the whole world was shocked how valuable IP can be.

Remedy still lives off their half.

Edit:
from an official T2 PR, brackets added by me:
… Global shipments of the Max Payne franchise have exceeded 2.75 million units to date. ( = end of 2001) ….

Take-Two also announced that it has acquired ownership of the Max Payne brand and all intellectual property rights associated with the brand, including trademarks, copyrights, characters, perpetual license to utilize proprietary technologies, including the Max Payne game engine and associated "Bullet Time™" technology, and rights to license fees from ancillary Max Payne brand extensions such as cinema, television and literary productions.

Take-Two purchased the Max Payne property from Remedy Entertainment and Apogee Software in exchange for $10 million in cash and 969,932 shares of restricted common stock, in addition to certain future development incentives. ( = the contract for MP 2)

Couple of interesting links I got from Gameguru Mania.com.

One is a blog by former 3D Realms developer Charlie Wiederhold, who tells a very disturbing story about something that happened to him while at 3D Realms. This is a must read! I'm still trying to figure out if he's being serious!

The other link is a 2 page story about the history of Duke Nukem Forever.

Originally Posted by JDR13
One is a blog by former 3D Realms developer Charlie Wiederhold, who tells a very disturbing story about something that happened to him while at 3D Realms. This is a must read! I'm still trying to figure out if he's being serious!

ROFL. Do you believe everything you read in teh internets?

Originally Posted by Hindukönig
ROFL. Do you believe everything you read in teh internets?

Very intelligent response….. but to answer your question…no.

Not exactly a surprise - but I stopped expecting this would happen years ago. I was starting to believe it might actually be released at some point - but alas.

I enjoyed Duke 3D - but it wasn't a big deal for me, so no big loss. But it sort of feels like the end of an era, doesn't it?

Nooooooooooooooo…………

…oooooooooooooooooooo….

….ooooooooooooooo….

…ooo!!!!!!!

Still can't believe it.

It's like … Someone told me that Santa Claus isn't for real.

Shame but not a surprise … but I hear the PSP / DS Duke games are not impacted. Got that at least …

Originally Posted by txa1265
Shame but not a surprise … but I hear the PSP / DS Duke games are not impacted. Got that at least …

I'd gladly trade them all for Duke Nukem Forever.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Couple of interesting links I got from Gameguru Mania.com.

One is a blog by former 3D Realms developer Charlie Wiederhold, who tells a very disturbing story about something that happened to him while at 3D Realms. This is a must read! I'm still trying to figure out if he's being serious!

Very funny story, but I think it's quite obvious it's not true. Otherwise he could have become incredibly wealthy by sueing a lot of famous industry people.

Somebody on QT3 posted that the last few lines of the story have been edited in this re-post. The original included the revelation that it's just a nice story.

Sad day for Duke fans obviously. I stopped following their progress years ago, but I never expected them to close down their business… Well duke4 for sure deserves a place in the history of gamemaking.

i'm gobsmacked, deep down i was rooting for spectacular come-back by the Duke.. one day, eventually..