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Duke Nukem Forever Due This Year?
nz17 writes "Under the original deal, 3D Realms was to receive some $6 million from Take-Two to develop the title. Now the Texas-based developer will receive only $4,250 for the oft-delayed game when it is completed. Just the same, 3D Realms has a fairly large incentive to get Duke Nukem Forever done by the end of the year; Take-Two has offered the studio $500,000 in the form of a promissory note if the game sees commercial release by December 31, 2006."
haha, $4,250 for it. Freakin' hilarious! I'm sure I'm not alone in the "like I even give a rat's ass about this supposed game anymore" club.
There are basically three positions you can have with respect to Duke Nukem
1: It will never be released, in which case no, not this year.
2: It is honestly being worked on, in which case maybe.
3: It's about to be done, any day now, in which case yes.
Obviously these positions are rather broad, and one might even say baseless, but that is just the point. We don't have any way to distinguish between them, we can only guess. All we know is that they keep saying that they are working on it and making progress, but honestly that is compatible with all three positions. Personally I hope Duke Nukem will never come out, for if it does I will have to re-write all my vaporware jokes.
Philosophy.
Prey went from vaporware to a title that people loved at E3. It is actually going to ship. 3DRealms has to make money to stick around.
DNF will ship. Who knows how good it will be, or what condition it will be in. They can make money after the fact with expansions.
The only thing that surprises me is that 3DRealms is making any money at all after how they have handled this. If I was the publisher, I would have canceled the project and taken it to another development house long ago.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Is it really a good idea to give a company this kind of an incentive? I mean, if they don't release it by the end of the year, they basically get nothing. If they release it by the end of the year they get a decent amount. Maybe not as much as the original deal but $500,000 compared to less than $5000 is a pretty decent incentive. Are there stipulations as to the quality of the software? I mean, they could just crank out some crappy version or one with way too many bugs, but they released it before the end of the year so they get their money. I'm hoping the contract specifies a few things like this.
But why is the rum gone?
Of course I would play a game with 5 year old gameplay. Think of some of your favorite games from 2001. Would you play them again with updated graphics? Absolutely! Let's see, Starcraft? Definitely. Total Annihilation, Sure. Half-Life, Yes, totally.
You are welcome on my lawn.
What are you talking about? Gameplay (sadly) hasn't changed a bit in 5 years!
I play Tetris or Super Mario Bros. 3 daily. And I enjoy it. So yeah, I'd play a 5 years old game, yes.
of when or why or how it ships. The gamers self-produced hype is just too much. There is no way that whoever is developing it now can live up to the expectations of peoples own imaginations. It doesn't matter how awesome the graphics or sound is, or how amazing the gameplay is. There is no way that they can live up to the expectations of pretty much anyone on planet Earth.
Had they managed to squeeze this one out a few years ago, then maybe. It would've been like Doom3, lots of talk and generally a fun game but nothing to lose sleep over. However, since DN3DF has been in development for like a decade it's gone from being a game and becoming some kind of mythic beast instead.
Sure, it might sell a few units, but it will be on novelty value alone.
I enjoy large posteriors and I cannot prevaricate.
3DR comments on this: http://forums.3drealms.com/vb/showthread.php?t=183 00.
Joe Siegler
Webmaster - 3D Realms & Black Sabbath Online
Tetris and SMBs are timeless classics. That ain't something I could say of any shooter. Shooters live by their graphics and their "new gadgets". Would you PAY full price for a game with the engine, graphics, options and gadgets of the original "Doom"?
Look at the NintendoDS and the game "Meteos". Pretty much a Tetris-line game (blocks fall from above and you gotta get rid of them). No really flashy graphics, not really that "new", but it's fun.
Shooters, on the other hand, rely heavily on their state-of-the-art-ness. Because, essentially, that's all they got.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm sure they will get a cut of game sales too. This and the promisary note is just a bonus for completion.
Yes - all of them.
This is how Electronic Arts grows. EA has cash, but it hasn't really innovated since 1984. As someone who's previously worked in the games industry and still has lots of friends at EA and other game companies, let me lay it out for you:
The games business is a hit driven business, with most innovative titles coming out of small publishers (with only one exception right now - Blizzard).
Step 1: Small publisher (Origin, Jane's, Crystal, etc...) comes out with a hot new title. It sells like gangbusters.
Step 2: The now 'successful' publisher, hires up more people to work on their next hot title. Founders become 'industry visionaries' and appear on many CGDC panels. One of three things happen with this next 'hot' title...
2a) The title ships in time for Christmas and is a big success. Great! Return to step 2 and try again. The odds of this happening is low.
2b) The title ships in time for Christmas but is a flop. Advance to step 3.
2c) The title misses the Christmas ship date and has to go out in the spring, where volumes are much smaller. Advance to step 3
Step 3: You now have a payroll crunch because of lots of employees/investors to feed and no new income (remember, this is a hit driven business). EA will come to you and say, "I'm going to write a number on a piece of paper - I think you'll agree it's fair." Hint: It's not fair. You'll say no, because you just need to get that second 'backup' title finished and you'll be okay again.
Step 4: If the backup title succeeds, you've dodged a bullet - go back to step 2 and try again. Otherwise, EA will come back to you and say "I'm going to write a number on a piece of paper. It's not going to be as large as last time, but I think you'll agree it's fair." Hint: It's still not fair - its going to be much lower than last time. Unfortunately, you'll have to take it because you are out of cash. Congrats: You are now an executive producer for a new division in EA. Most likely, you'll never be allowed to make an 'risky' game again.
The chances of repeately doing step 2 successfully are very low.
Yeah, you're quite right... Doom 3 and Halflife 2 sold a lot because they were totally different experience in regards to the previous titles of their series. Just like the gameplay of Final Fantasy is never the same.
Sorry for being sarcastic, but "brand new gameplay" actually means a rat's ass as far as sales go. The same, although we may not want to admit it, is true for what we call "gameplay". Look at Tetris: Lumines on PSP is a glorified Tetris clone, yet it sold quite well from what I know, and is thought of as one of the best current-gen puzzle games. And it actually is "Tetris-with-music-and-rotating-blocks"...
If they manage to put an involving story, nice cinematics, robust engine and game mechanics on the title, I don't see why it can't be succesful. Yes, it will be "another FPS", but each and every year we see a typical Quake with 2 or 3 small changes, nice graphics and sound and although at heart it isn't that much different, we slap on it a "most wanted title of the year" stamp and count the days 'till its release.
Whatever, I don't think we'll see it, at least not this year. And if we do, we should be prepared to hear stuff like "ofcourse its buggy, they rushed us to release it" or "well, if we had more time...".
Actually, gameplay has been getting progressively worse - it often seems to have an inverse relationship with graphics capabilities. Taito could create far more entertainment with a 6Mhz processor than software companies today with processor speeds of several GHz and dedicated 3D graphics cards