Is George even conscious of just what a joke 3DR is becoming?
On a serious note, how much longer can 3DR possibly go without releasing a game? They got a bunch of cash from Max Payne, but that was what - 3 or 4 years ago? They have to have pissed most of it away by now, and I can’t imagine that Take Two is sending any more money their way.
JD
Pig Cops…
At this point I’m not even sure I’d bother to play this game if it did come out.
max payne was 3dr? I thought it was…someone else.
Developed by someone else, but 3DR got it distributed and probably funded a lot of it.
Max Payne was developed by Remedy but 3DR helped with testing or marketing or something. Petri from Remedy occasionally posts here, he may be able to shed more light on the relationship than I can. :)
EDIT: That post by Broussard is sad.
Next news item: DNF to be converted to the Source Engine!
Duke Nukem Forever is a phenomenon beyond my comprehension. There’s just no way a developer could tinker about merrily for nearly eight years and have nothing to show up with. Just the thought of it is ludicrous.
My theory is, 3D Realms is just a money laundering operation. Or they are programming flight paths for intercontinental anthrax missiles for a top secret government project and DN4ever is just a cover wearing thin. Or George Broussard is Batman, fighting crime full-time and neglecting his alibi job as a game developer. At this time just any guess seems plausible.
You missed a step: 3DR announces plans to hold a six month competition between Source, Doom 3 and Unreal 3 engines before the conversion.
They are still hunting for ideas? After eight years, you’d think they would at least know what they want to do in the damn game.
At some point, are they just going to come out and say something like
“I’m sorry, we haven’t really been working on DNF all this time - as if! Here’s our new Grand Theft Auto Clone! Sorry we led ya down the path about DNF so long, but boy we had you going.”
So… 3D Realms is Cartman?
Developed by someone else, but 3DR got it distributed and probably funded a lot of it.[/quote]
I thought GODgames had it… oh well.
I got to meet Hench…ehrm, Markus Maki when he had an internship at UT. Good guy. All of the former Future Crew folks I’ve had the pleasure of meeting online or in person have been good guys. I was very happy to see Max Payne do well.
3DR came up with the property and initially owned it, while the product was developed by Remedy and published by God Games, IIRC.
Then they sold it to Take Two for oodles of cash.
My guess is 3DRealms have been cheapskates and never hired enough people to get the game done in a timely manner, and they keep restarting as their tech gets dated.
As to their money situation, they are probably sitting pretty. They got about $20M for Max Payne, they made a lot off Duke, they won a lawsuit against Sierra for selling Duke mods, they made money (I’m guessing) when Gathering was sold to Take 2, they made money selling the publishing rights to DNF, etc.
I bet 3dr is a great place to work. All the fun of creating games with none of that silly stress related to actually finishing and releasing them.
rant
I just have to seriously wonder who thinks there’s still value left in this as a license. I mean, even in its heyday, DN was really a Doom/Quake/Dark Forces also-ran… and now, to see a request like this… I find the notion of the “pig cops” absolutely absurd.
At this point, DNF simply cannot be a good enough game to justify the delays or overcome its laughing-stock reputation. The franchise is dead, and I think some serious damage has been done over the course of this fiasco to the 3DR brand.
We’ve seen in recent weeks Halo 2 and Half-Life 2 launch to at least a degree of backlash… no matter how good those games are, could they ever have delivered the “best game EVAR”-ness in quantities enough to justify the onslaught of hype and delays? And people LOVED those licenses. I don’t think there’s much of an audience that would hold the DN franchise in the same company as Half-Life or Halo. I don’t think there’s enough optimism or goodwill to get the average gamer to pony up for DNF if it ever does reach store shelves.
George, here’s what you do:
1 - Apologize. Say the ball has been dropped so badly that the only remaining decent thing to do is to walk away. Yes, it means taking one final financial bath on DNF, but after what this albatross has cost you, I think that no loss could be too great if it was at least the FINAL one.
2 - Scour whatever cool concepts and assets you have (hint: they ain’t the pig cops) and put them into a new game. This gives you at least something of a head start in the right direction.
3 - Abandon the Duke Nukem concept. Nobody cares.
4 - Come up with a schedule and COMMIT to it. You’ve got two years. That’s it. And I’m willing to extend you an extra quarter for polishing… but we’re talking about making a decent game good or a good game great. No turd polishing. You finish your homework and you hand it in.
/rant
It’s possible for them to save face if DNF ends up being the best game ever. Or very damn close to it. Will anyone care that it took them 8 years to develop if they’re playing a fantastic game? N’ah.
Of course the chances of that happening is slim to none…
I don’t get what there is to rant about anymore.
Its true that nobody cares. At all. People can’t even muster up the energy to make DNF release jokes because they are so tired and so used.
I was still hopeful a couple of years ago when they made Manhattan Project that DNF was going to be on its way. There was a time when 3DR could have potentially used the press generated from its userbase, but even that well has dried of for them.
Let them play in their own little sandbox of procrastination and feature creep. If we hear something from them worth taking note of, we will. Otherwise, lets assume they’ll just quietly close up shop when the money runs out and George Broussard legally changes his name to Diego Ramirez.
I just can’t wait for the Gamasutra postmortem, if we ever get one.
I’d rather have the Geoff Keighley “Behind The Games: The Death Rattle of Duke Nukem Forever” article! There’d be a lot more dirt and… well, not hardball, but at least mediumball… questions in it :-)