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DuckReconMajor

Another "why DNF died" article

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Go ahead and get your groans out. Anyway, I read this Wired article and noticed how they seemed to focus a lot on how many times they had to update the engine.

And then I thought, how lucky are we? We can spend 20 years on a project

and the technology will never be outdated

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Confirms what I previously said - George Broussard is the main reason for the endless delays. I actually hope Take-Two win the lawsuit, get control of the DNF IP and hopefully even develop it into a full game.

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Yeah, the only way it'd be acceptable for DNF to be no longer in development is if DNFF or something was immediately announced after DNF's release and then sat on for the next 50 years.

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The Duke Nukem franchise is arguably worth much more than what 3D Realms owes Take-Two, and 3D Realms must still be making money out of it with game licenses and ports. I don't see the 3D Realms owners conceding to let it go unless they are by contract given juicy shares from any products.

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DuckReconMajor said:

And then I thought, how lucky are we? Mordeth is spending 20 years on a project

and the technology will never be outdated


Fix'd

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Actually, in Mordeth's case there has been some DNF-style tech delaying. The project has changed engines at least a couple of times and Mordeth has to keep up with Eternity development.

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I'm not convinced that the Duke franchise is worth the multi-million figures that get tossed around. I think long-time PC gaming nerds like us make a lot of noise about it online, and that gets mistaken by various suits and journalists for undying fever-pitch anticipation. Whereas in fact, the vast majority of the modern gaming market probably knows little and cares less about Duke Nukem. If a new game was finally released, I'm sure it would get plenty of press coverage due to its heritage, but I don't think it would be a sure fire hit at all.

What's funniest about that article is that it was only at the point that 3D Realms had apparently finally got their shit together, and had a decent team that actually looked like it was going to deliver, that they ran into money problems. It doesn't sound like they were far from shipping at all. Kind of makes me wonder if DNF is the Higgs boson of the gaming world. Perhaps its existence is so abhorrent to the universe that it is actually interfering in its own past to ensure it is never finished.

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Jonathan said:

I'm not convinced that the Duke franchise is worth the multi-million figures that get tossed around. I think long-time PC gaming nerds like us make a lot of noise about it online, and that gets mistaken by various suits and journalists for undying fever-pitch anticipation. Whereas in fact, the vast majority of the modern gaming market probably knows little and cares less about Duke Nukem. If a new game was finally released, I'm sure it would get plenty of press coverage due to its heritage, but I don't think it would be a sure fire hit at all.


Hey, it worked for Fallout...

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myk said:
Actually, in Mordeth's case there has been some DNF-style tech delaying. The project has changed engines at least a couple of times and Mordeth has to keep up with Eternity development.


This. It's not just a matter of 'finishing' it, but also a constant process of updating older material.

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Gez said:

Hey, it worked for Fallout...


Yeah, but I'd say at this point Bethesda has a bit more clout with today's gamers due to Oblivion. It's hard to drum up much fervor among the mainstream when you're greatest accomplishment was "We released a decent, albeit immature, violent, and misogynistic game 13 years ago".

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Damn, I friggin' called it. I had been convinced for years that constant engine changes were the biggest problem, and then this article comes along and confirms precisely what I'd been saying. Then again, it really wasn't that tough a call, it'd been pretty apparent to anyone who was even remotely following the game, but there you have it.

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Would n ot surprise me if there's a DooM 4, that there might be posters reading:

"Duke Nukem' Forver: COMING SOON!"
Then again, why would there be a shopping maul in the game? :)

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Georgef551 said:

Would n ot surprise me if there's a DooM 4, that there might be posters reading:

Get with the times, Doom4 was announced as being in the work last year.

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I get the feeling that REoL doesn't play games much anymore anyway. He's too busy getting his strange kicks riding in junky elevators and theorizing about the New World Order

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Jonathan said:

I'm not convinced that the Duke franchise is worth the multi-million figures that get tossed around. I think long-time PC gaming nerds like us make a lot of noise about it online, and that gets mistaken by various suits and journalists for undying fever-pitch anticipation. Whereas in fact, the vast majority of the modern gaming market probably knows little and cares less about Duke Nukem. If a new game was finally released, I'm sure it would get plenty of press coverage due to its heritage, but I don't think it would be a sure fire hit at all.


I think this is right. If DNF is ever released, it'll be the "Snakes on a Plane" of video games.

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My son-in-law is a buyer for Gamestop and I asked him about this; that is whether getting the IP would really benefit Take Two and he was doubtful it would be that big of a benefit and he thought it certainly isn't worth millions.

The FPS genre is on the decline in sales and just doesn't bring in the amount of cash now as it once did. The shelf life of these PC games can be as little as a month, and is usually less than three months. He said that it actually would probably do better as a console game than a PC game, since the return is better for console games.

I seriously doubt that even if 3D Realms had come out with the game they would have recovered what they spent on the game to develop it, especially after so many years.

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I can stop reading right at GameStop pretty much; those kinds of stores (and especially GameStop/EB Games, they are pretty much the most notorious) really control what is sold and what isn't. They tend to pick one game to focus on for a month, flooding the shelves with it, before finding a replacement. Only the very large multi-hundred million dollar titles (and Wii shovelware) tend to be show up in them, and typically only consoles (most GameStops don't even carry PC games in the first place, and of the ones I've seen that do, it's some puny rack in the middle of the floor with stuff like WoW and FF11). Smaller titles really don't make it there, and only in recent years has it really been practical to market smaller titles, with digital distribution where you don't need to worry about shelf life or anything like that.

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Wildman said:

The FPS genre is on the decline in sales and just doesn't bring in the amount of cash now as it once did.

What you talking about foo'? There's a shiny new FPS waiting for millions of young console whores every Tuesday.

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Technician said:
There's a shiny new FPS waiting for millions of young console whores every Tuesday.

Yeah, in a market that's continually demanding more expensive and profitable projects, hence any asset that may further that in a very competitive environment might as well get grabbed if the opportunity arises.

Wildman said:
My son-in-law is a buyer for Gamestop and I asked him about this; that is whether getting the IP would really benefit Take Two and he was doubtful it would be that big of a benefit and he thought it certainly isn't worth millions.

The title is iconic and hasn't been exploited much, and has left a "promise" to the public. How much it could be worth to them really depends on changing circumstances and what team they could bring together to make a product, but what's clear to them is that they want to make 3D Realms, which is weak after all the years of expenditure and the effort to maintain an image for so long, pay up for what they consider the offense of not delivering a publicized product, to regain losses and maintain a business reputation. What better strategy but to wrestle them down with greater corporate weight and threaten to take their baby away?

Note also that by far most of the money spent on Duke Nukem Forever development seems to have belonged to 3D Realm, not Take-Two. Not only does Take-Two not care about the 20 million lost by 3D Realms, but that loss is the reason they can effectively attack them.

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Nomad said:

I get the feeling that REoL doesn't play games much anymore anyway. He's too busy getting his strange kicks riding in junky elevators and theorizing about the New World Order


The Elevator Enthusiast Community is a LOT bigger than this one is, not to knock DooMheads (original name, BTW).

LUCKY YOU, NOMAD!! In a couple weeks, I KNOW you're DYING to see it, but I got a video of another very ratty Death Trap!
I hope you'll be able to sleep tonight!!!


:)

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Mr. Chris said:

Wow Fiffy, don't browse Doomworld much?


You know how I found out about Quake 4? Found it in stores. :)

Yes, things have changed, and ideas for new maps died out. I still plan on something for REoL TOUGH's 20'th anniversary. Don't know what, yet.

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Georgef551 said:

The Elevator Enthusiast Community is a LOT bigger than this one is, not to knock DooMheads (original name, BTW).

No it's not. You're fucking retarded. And that name is not original in the slightest.

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Georgef551 said:

I hope you'll be able to sleep tonight!!!


I won't be able to sleep with you around here.

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I hadn't read the article when posting before. Now that I have, what stands out for me is how quickly Broussard went from a mindset of innovation* (let's make a game that's not quite like any other games out there) to a mindset of repetition (let's do what we just did - again!). I'd blame part of his failure to produce another game on this change. If Broussard had left Duke Nukem behind after the success of 3D and instead came up with another not-quite-typical set of ideas to focus on, another good game would have left their studio.

*I know that a game based around 80's action hero tropes isn't the pinnacle of "innovation," but bear with me here.

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Georgef551 said:

The Elevator Enthusiast Community is a LOT bigger than this one is, not to knock DooMheads (original name, BTW).

Go trap yourself in some elevator in an abandoned parking lot.

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