Editorial: Why I learned to Stop Waiting For Duke Nukem Forever March 13, 2010

In 2003 on my former website The Deep Six (which was online then it went offline, then it went online again, now it’s lord only knows) I posted just before the release of Max Payne 2 some things for 3D Realms to do to celebrate something unfamiliar to them, the release of a game. I had no idea at the time it would be six years later and we’d be talking about that project’s demise.

Does anyone else think it a bit shitty that more news about Duke Nukem Forever has been released since the game had been cancelled than when it was operating? I mean, a whole synopsis hit the internet, trailers of really cool mostly complete gameplay footage, pictures and concept art. You know, the kind of stuff that would get released normally if you were making a game. But none of this stuff had been released during the development. Could you understand now if they had bothered to release what that artist had posted together overnight people would actually continue to care about your product?

You had the worst management system in history. That’s not nearly insulting enough as it should be. I don’t think anyone could actually come close to being as bad a manager as what was seen in this game. They made tons of royalties from Duke Nukem 3D that were still coming in, and they were making tons of money off the Max Payne franchise, enough to sustain them for years.  The managers always thought there was going to be an infinite amount of time and would not put a time restriction on innovation, and because of that, there was no progress.  At some point the bubble is going to burst for you and the money’s going to dry up, and it did.

So now the party’s over. Why shouldn’t I be bitter about this? Well had they managed their game properly they could’ve finished it well over six years ago and still had more money left over and released the game. Why should I care about this? After 2001 when they released that fantastic E3 trailer, I really wanted to play the game. Then the years passed more and more, and no information at all was coming out, and I slowly paid more attention to real games that were coming out instead of fantasy ones that only existed in the mind of George Brussard.

Last I heard Take 2 has filed an injunction demanding the source code for the game, probably so they could give the development to one of their teams to finish it. I hope they get it, I really do. I know if they hand it to a competent development house and lit a fire under them they could have the game released in a year. 3D Realms has shown they are not a competent development studio, they’re a joke, plain and simple. Gamers gave them all the rope they could have and they just continued to wrap it around their necks, and then the chair under them broke.