How Duke Nukem Forever development ran all outta gum...

clv101 · 22 Dec 2009 at 11:18

Smit said:
Wish someone would just pick the game up and finish it

I think that's the plan:

“It’s an IP grab,” says one Dallas-area developer. If Take-Two actually secured the rights to Duke Nukem, it might likely throw out the by-then-aging Duke Nukem Forever and simply hire new developers to produce new Duke games. But even without the suit, there is only a short window for Duke Nukem Forever to come out in its current form before it will have to be revised yet again, to keep pace with changing technology.

The Duke franchise is still potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Despite more than a decade of waiting, the excitement over the game is still remarkably high; its die-hard fans might be the most patient on earth.

The value is in the IP, the brand. Let's hope Take-Two can grab it, spend a few months to polish it into something that can be released then move on with the Duke Nukem brand.

LizardKing · 22 Dec 2009 at 11:37

clv101 said:
I think that's the plan:

The value is in the IP, the brand. Let's hope Take-Two can grab it, spend a few months to polish it into something that can be released then move on with the Duke Nukem brand.

It would be the bargain of the century!

Pixel · 22 Dec 2009 at 12:23

clv101 said:
I think that's the plan:

The value is in the IP, the brand. Let's hope Take-Two can grab it, spend a few months to polish it into something that can be released then move on with the Duke Nukem brand.

Broussard would probably kill himself if that happened, by the sounds of it.

TruffleShuffle · 22 Dec 2009 at 13:07

What i dont understand is that, according to that story, there is litterally a full copy of Duke Nukem Forever sitting on a disc somewhere (that he took to Take2 earlier this year).

And yet they decided to pack up shop. Absoloute bunch of loons.

clv101 · 22 Dec 2009 at 13:09

TruffleShuffle said:
What i dont understand is that, according to that story, there is litterally a full copy of Duke Nukem Forever sitting on a disc somewhere (that he took to Take2 earlier this year).

And yet they decided to pack up shop. Absoloute bunch of loons.

But it's not perfect yet!

skullman · 22 Dec 2009 at 13:12

Its all speculation. For all we know a third of that pie chart belongs to WoW game time.

This 'striving for perfection' excuse seemed to be centered around the quality of the graphics. Coming from someone who played Duke3D at a competitive level all they needed to do in my eyes was get the multiplayer nailed using fast fluid-feeling engine. If that wasnt their main objective then it would've been a massive fail as far as I'm concerned. I actually gave up hope/caring when it was known it would've ended up a multiplatform title. Thats when I knew it couldn't possibly live up to the hype or meet expectations.

BeeP · 22 Dec 2009 at 13:15

Interesting read. When will talk of this game end though.

TruffleShuffle · 22 Dec 2009 at 13:20

BeeP said:
Interesting read. When will talk of this game end though.

It wont, it'l go down in history with the likes of Pong, Space Invaders, Doom etc. Except their claim to fame will be as the game that never was.

robgmun · 22 Dec 2009 at 13:34

TruffleShuffle said:
What i dont understand is that, according to that story, there is litterally a full copy of Duke Nukem Forever sitting on a disc somewhere (that he took to Take2 earlier this year).

And yet they decided to pack up shop. Absoloute bunch of loons.

That's the sad part of the story, they shut up shop when they were really really close

AWPC · 22 Dec 2009 at 13:36

Stupid business decisions from Broussard flushing $20m of his & Scott Miller's money away (most of it earnt from DNF). When they moved to Unreal engine1 it was looking very good for the time & they should have just polished that version up released & with the healthy profits (Duke was real popular back then) made another more advanced game.

Just goes to show you that modern games need business people & accountants who are non gamers otherwise as in this extreme it goes out of control :eek:

Dark_Angel · 22 Dec 2009 at 13:39

I so wanted this game.

I knew it wouldn't happen, but I really did hold out hope. Duke 3d was fantastic, I remember playing it back in the day and really loving it. Not for the "ladies" or the swearing, but for the amazingly fun game play of a game that didn't taken itself seriously.

Hail to the King baby.... the king is dead, long live the king.

Knubje · 22 Dec 2009 at 13:49

So from reading that article, it's out Spring 2010, right???

Kenai · 22 Dec 2009 at 14:17

AWPC said:
Stupid business decisions from Broussard flushing $20m of his & Scott Miller's money away (most of it earnt from DNF). When they moved to Unreal engine1 it was looking very good for the time & they should have just polished that version up released & with the healthy profits (Duke was real popular back then) made another more advanced game.

Just goes to show you that modern games need business people & accountants who are non gamers otherwise as in this extreme it goes out of control

This is it really, in hindsight the best course of action would clearly have been to finish off DNF in QII and start a couple of guys off working on the next Duke Nukem game for Unreal, rather than scrap the entire thing - hell, even if it wasn't the best thing around, junking that much work is insane.

What I don't really get is the striving for being the 'best' by developing on other peoples engines. That will never work, surely? Sure, Unreal might have looked better than QII but once you've remade your game on UE, Unreal itself is out and you're not likely to look substantially better than that. I can't think of any game that has looked groundbreakingly good using someone elses engine bar perhaps MOHAA...

Really though, anything in the life is the same - you need a cut off point. You can continually perfect anything but there has to come a point where enough is enough and you stop, otherwise you never finish, as there is always something else to be done.

Gerard · 22 Dec 2009 at 14:35

On one hand you have to admire Broussard for wanting the game to be as good as it possibly could, theres far too many games on the marketplace that have segments that just seem like they were phoned in compared to the rest of the game.

On the other hand its clear that he really didn't know when to stop pushing, he was too obsessed with it being the best ever and his mentality just held development back.

I reckon it'll still see the light of day eventually, maybe sometime next year if they reach some kind of settlement with take 2.

Frenzy · 22 Dec 2009 at 14:39

Good read. Broussard is basically what made it fail and at the same time made it worth something. He had no self control if he had set milestones im sure the game would have been out by now and one of the biggest sellers of the decade.
One of the things i dont understand is, if he had so much money why did he not hire 50+ developers at the start so he could have everything he requested but also get all the work done on time =/ It makes no sense to me why he only stuck with an 18 man team for so long!!!!
Having no management was also a big fail. Telling a bunch of programmers to do something and expect them to get it done relatively quickly without setting a deadline is absurd. Its very easy to lose time when programming.

arc@css · 22 Dec 2009 at 16:17

Very interesting reading.

MeMeMeMe · 22 Dec 2009 at 16:31

clv101 said:
The value is in the IP, the brand. Let's hope Take-Two can grab it, spend a few months to polish it into something that can be released then move on with the Duke Nukem brand.

If Take Two win, they are most likely to dump all the existing work, and use the Duke Nukem brand on completely new games. Whether that will be better (they might actually get made!) or worse (they might not have the same spirit, and so notreally be Duke Nukem) is hard to say.

Calneon · 22 Dec 2009 at 16:36

That’s why it’s a good thing to have a producer pressuring you to release. Ironically, Broussard was constantly saying how much he hates producers and how games should be released when they’re ready, however not having a producer is why they failed.

bledd · 22 Dec 2009 at 16:38

I'm still calling BS on this, it's all a marketing ploy, we'll see the game in 2012

Or hopefully someone else will make a Duke Nukem mod on the source engine

Calneon · 22 Dec 2009 at 16:44

bledd. said:
I'm still calling BS on this, it's all a marketing ploy, we'll see the game in 2012

Or hopefully someone else will make a Duke Nukem mod on the source engine

BS? There's no denying that the game's been in production for over 12 years. The article isn't saying the game will never be released.