Take-Two sues over death of Duke Nukem Forever
'Nobody steals our checks... and lives!'
The abrupt meltdown of PC gaming's most infamous vapourware, Duke Nukem Forever, isn't going to pass without some legal fallout.
DNF's intended publisher, Take-Two Interactive, is accusing the defunct dev house 3D Realms of contract breach for failing to deliver the long-long-awaited game.
3D Realms was supposedly designing DNF since 1997 (way back before there was even such a thing as Google or the International Space Station), but terminated the project and shuttered its studio on May 6.
Take-Two is now pointing its lawyers towards Apogee Software, which created the 3D Realms label in 1994.
According to Bloomberg, Take-Two claims in a lawsuit filed May 13 that Apogee "continually delayed the completion date for the Duke Nukem Forever" and "repeatedly assured Take-Two and the video-gaming community that it was diligently working toward competing [sic] development of the PC Version of the Duke Nukem Forever."
The lawsuit alleges Take-Two acquired a $12m publishing rights agreement in 2000 to punt the game. The pact was extended again in 2007 for an unspecified amount.
ShackNews has reportedly got its hands on court documents for the case, which demand 3D Realms not alter or leak the game's assets while the lawsuit plays out. ®
COMMENTS
show must go on
Sue them, get the rights and sell them or have someone else to develop the game (less likely).
I think this lawsuit is spot on, there is tons of money in this franchise and the show must go on.
ALMOST EVERY GAMER WOULD BUY THE GAME RIGHT? I DEFINITELY WOULD.
Duke Nukem Whatever
Just give the DN rights to Valve and let them show 3DR how to finish the job properly!
DN3D was a great game but I never finished that either - always crashed my PC when i got to the space station... :-(
10+ years.....
....Isn't too long tbh, I mean look at Valve and Team Fortress 2, numerous times they said it was coming, people waited, some wrote it off as Vaporware but look at what we have! Ok granted 10 years WAS taking the jarate piss eversoslightly BUT it came out so just because it's taken this long doesn't mean it won't ever happen.....obviously when they find another publisher and such
Someone just get it done
Duke is a great character, and he makes a game just being in it. Especially in the current climate of ultra serious WW2 recreations etc. Duke would be a breath of fresh air. and it really doesn't matter if it's not on the latest engine, the HL2 engine was already outdated when portal and then TF2 were released and both were amazing. Portal has been considered pretty much the greatest game ever.
What's insane is that after starting the DNF project a different dev team started, finished and released Duke Nukem Manhatten Project, and that was years ago!
I'm getting older now but still I'd like to play DNF if it's ever finished. The best strategy at this point I think, would be to build the engine as quickly as possible (if it's not done) and then get a couple of levels done and start releasing it episodically on XBL.
If anyone is interested there is a High Res mod pack for the original Duke 3D, which updates the graphics to something close to modern, you can find it here http://hrp.duke4.net/
And of course I also have to link to the de-rez video on the subject. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/de-rez/46-The-Truth-About-3D-Realms
Obvious
Come on! How stupid do you have to be to carry on believing for 10 years that the game will ever be delivered? It's a commercial enterprise, not a government project. If they can't get *something* out the door in 12 months, they aren't ever going to get it out. They should have given up and moved on 8 years ago.
