3D Realms shuts down.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I'd gladly trade them all for Duke Nukem Forever.

In a heartbeat!

It would be interesting to know how much money was leached away by DNF, regardless of 3DR's overall financial position. I'd also love to really know the real extended details of the development.

Considering licensing at least two engines, tooling up for each of them, turning PC's at least 5 times per developer, and 13 years+ of operating costs … have to be a minimum of $25 million, I'd figure …

I wonder if the IP was more worth "in-development" than any release would be.

The greatest game never made…..

I just wonder why they shut them down although they bought them before ?

Couldn't they have foreseen that ???

Very cool video of some actual gameplay from Duke Nukem Forever.

http://www.ggmania.com/?smsid=27131

Yep - that is floating around all over the place now … what might have been …

Ah, how wonderfull it would've been to pass some money to that dancer. Such memories - I was something like ten or eleven, playing duke3d for the first time - got to the strip bar after trying and trying and finally succeeding. Passed the money to the dancer and she started shaking them glorious sprite titties!

Ahhh, the memories.

Try everything once except MMORPGs and sports.

Hmm, suicide…

IIRC Duke Nukem was one of the first "real" games I saw (…mainly because I didn't consider amiga and sega games "real", but I was 8 or 9!). I remember there was supposed to be a scene where you could see some porn! Which got us exited, for some reason (*cough*). Anyway, the scene itself was really disappoining, it was just a woman wiping herself between the legs with a towel. Nobody of my friends (or me) understood what the deal was.

Übereil

To this day, I still consider Duke 3D one of the best games I've ever played, at least as far as first-person shooters go. The number of secrets in that game was nothing short of amazing, and it had some of the coolest Easter Eggs I've ever seen.

We can only hope that someone decides to fund the completion of Duke Nukem Forever, although I realize the chances are slim to none at this point.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Very cool video of some actual gameplay from Duke Nukem Forever.

http://www.ggmania.com/?smsid=27131

Sniff.

Wh-wh-what??

Noo… I don't believe this. I can't! I won't!

Wow, that's just… ubelievably sad… but at the same time somewhat hilarious in a sadistic way.

Hey, does that mean that "When it's done" now means "never, we dropped it"?

Originally Posted by txa1265
Yep - that is floating around all over the place now … what might have been …

Same with Star Wars Battlefront III recently.

And what did LucasArts ? They said that the video was more or less their property and that they might sue the publishers or so (bad memory).

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Same with Star Wars Battlefront III recently.

Doesn't even begin to compare…..

No, I mean that there was also a video "floating around", showing "what might have been", if the developing company hadn't been shut down.

Among the fans this caused quite a stir. Outside it didn't, of course.

More drama unfolding…. Take Two Software is now suing 3D Realms.

Primarily, the publisher demands a complete snapshot of the game in its current state, and all associated source code and assets. Secondly, Take Two demands that 3D Realms not leak the game, or its assets.

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/47…ments-Released

and the saga continues.. but i wonder if Take 2 do get what they demand, they might put an half-finished DNF on the shelves and patch it up later.

It's not clear at this point whether T2 has a case at all. 3DR's publishing contract was not with T2, it was with godknowswho and ended up in T2's hands. It's neither clear they could simply enter into the existing contract, nor that 3DR owed them a game they could publish. If 3DR really funded DN4E out of their own pocket they technically didn't receive a single cent from T2.

Everything could be completely different though. Maybe we'll find it out if they don't settle out of court.

Other possible scenarios for the trial are:
- T2 protects itself from being sued by their own investors for wasting the money, by trying to get something from 3DR.
- T2 thinks they really got a case.
- T2 thinks 3DR is so weakened that they won't be able to defend their IP. So they try to grab it. The IP is worth much more than 5M, probably also more than 30M$.
- T2 is just taking a shot to see what happens.
- T2 is only creating negotiation mass.




In the ShackNews gallery are a couple of progress charts. They prove that the game was nowhere near completed, but way beyond 50%.

Originally Posted by Gorath
In the ShackNews gallery are a couple of progress charts. They prove that the game was nowhere near completed, but way beyond 50%.

Which doesn't mean squat. Failed software projects typically proceed to about 85%, give or take 5%, at which point it becomes apparent that there's some fundamental flaw in there somewhere. At that point they either keep hovering there forever as attempts to fix the problems keep creating new ones (if management doesn't have the balls to authorize a rewrite), or crash back down to 10% or so, give or take 10% (if it does), or get canceled (often the best option).

DNF has had plenty of time to do this several times over. The fact that they didn't manage to reach 100% (or close enough to release anyway) in 12 years says that they're no closer now than they ever were, whatever the burndown charts say.