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."

Comments

Who saw that pig go by?

[Red Samurai]

Sorry folks, this is over 2 months late.

Re:Who saw that pig go by?

[Anonymous Coward]

.... and in other news, a weather update for Hell calls for frost warnings, wth possible freezing temperatures. Details at 10.

Re:Who saw that pig go by?

[Jugalator]

Flying pig?

By now it's a flying Bill Gates as a super hero praising open source and destroying proprietary software companies with fricking lasers from his head.

Windows Vista

[fph il quozientatore]

So you /do/ confirm that DNF will ship before Windows Vista?

quite the paycut

[_Shorty-dammit]

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.

Re:quite the paycut

[joe 155]

I bet it could be quite popular. There will be loads of people from places like this where it has become a standard joke who will want to see if it can ever live up to the years of hype... I'm predicting a success

Basically

[Umbral Blot]

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.

Re:Basically

[Enderandrew]

Do you know what would be interesting is a nice definitive interview explaining exactly what happened with the development of this game. I know it switched engines a few times, but come on! At some point don't you just rush it out the door?

Re:Basically

[menace3society]

Wikipedia has lots of interesting information on the subject, including a nice timeline.

I Believe It

[Enderandrew]

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.

Re:I Believe It

[Jim Hall]

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.

But will you have the system to handle DNF? I have a pre-market copy of the DNF box right here ... let's see .... MS-DOS 6.22 (Windows 3.11 users will need to exit to DOS), 32MB XMS memory (HIMEM), 100MB free space on hard drive.

$4250 ?

[GroeFaZ]

$1 for each day of development?

Re:$4250 ?

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

~11.6 years...sounds about right.

Re:$4250 ?

[MindStalker]

I'm sure they will get a cut of game sales too. This and the promisary note is just a bonus for completion.

Good Idea?

[fdiskne1]

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.

Re:Good Idea?

[jamesh]

C:\> dnf.exe

Welcome to Duke Nukem Forever! Would you like instructions?

You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully to the south.

> _

I'll have my $500,000 now thankyou.

Re:Good Idea?

[raehl]

compared to less than $5000 is a pretty decent incentive

You're forgetting one of the main slashdot rules - never ascribe to malace what can be explained by bad editing.

(The new amount isn't $4,250, it's 4.25 million.)

Re:Good Idea?

[RichardX]

There are more text adventures out there than you could probably play in a lifetime!
The really nice thing is, the vast majority of them are developed on either of two system - TADS, the Text Adventure Development System or Inform, Infocom's system. Both are free for anyone to develop their own games with, and there are interpreters for these systems (especially Inform) on just about any platform you care to use.

A good central 'hub' to start from is the IF archive with some beginners guides on how to get started, and a massive collection of games to download and play. and googling for 'interactive fiction' will turn up lots more sites.
Have fun :)

Re:Good Idea?

[Bambi Dee]

Hmm. I may be missing something, but I think you're confusing Choose Your Own Adventure type multiple choice games with the more simulationist, finer-grained parser-based text adventures; the grand-parent post quoted the very first of the latter - the venerable (if primitive) Adventure/Colossal Cave from 1975 (or one of its various, er, mods.)

Popular companies were Infocom, Magnetic Scrolls and Level 9, among others; these days, the form is kept alive by enthusiasts and frequently taken into directions more experimental and/or literary than throw the axe at the dwarf then pick up the gold.

Baf's Guide to the IF-Archive is a good place to start searching; as is the IF Review Conspiracy. Poke around and you'll notice most good games require either a "Z-Code" or "TADS" interpreter (VM); refer to the Inform homepage for a list of UNIX Z-Code interpreters or just go with Zoom right away (link has pretty picture). As for TADS games, here're the Linux TADS 2/3 Playkit and, alternatively, a QT-based TADS 2/3 interpreter.

TADS and Inform, incidentally, are the two most widely used Interactive Fiction programming languages. And although that's not their intended purpose, both have also been used for multiple choice games on occasion.

If you're interested, Brass Lantern has a collection of articles for beginners. If you're not, oh well ;)

Re:Good Idea?

[jdgeorge]

There appears to be some confusion, because the linked article doesn't quote the correct number.
There's a similar, but more accurate, version of the story here. This article describes the potential dollars thus:

The new terms had Take-Two pay 3D Realms $4.25 million up front along with the aforementioned $500,000 promissory note

The funniest response to this article EVER

[jacobw]

I am working on an amazing response to this article. Trust me, it'll be great--not just funny, but incredibly insightful. It will take your breath away. It is destined to be the most talked-about Slashdot posting of 2006. Unfortunately, it's not ready to post yet, but it will be ready within about 10 minutes. I just wanted to give everybody a heads up. Look for it here!

Re:The funniest response to this article EVER

[jacobw]

Sorry, 'm havng some problems wth one of the keys on my keyboard. Gve me another half hour or so, and the post wll be ready. Trust me, t's worth watng for. t'll be AMAZNG!

Re:The funniest response to this article EVER

[Gli7ch]

OMG I can't wait! It's going to be the best post since the last one you made!

Re:The funniest response to this article EVER

[jacobw]

OK, it turned out there was a little bit of Cheeto crumb stuck in my keyboard. I just shook it upside down for a minute, and now everything's working again. Fortunately, the slight delay has given me time to reconsider my development environment. I was writing the amazing response I have to the article in TextEdit, but I've decided to switch to TacoHTML. This will enable me to give you--the comment reader--the sort of impressive, modern HTML styles you've come to expect from a quality post. Unfortunately, I forgot to save when I quit TextEdit, so I've had to start my post from scratch. But it ought to be ready within an hour at most. Watch this space!

Re:The funniest response to this article EVER

[jacobw]

I've had to take a break from writing my post to go watch the England/Paraguay World Cup Game, but I will be back and have everything finished in three hours, TOPS.

Re:The funniest response to this article EVER

[natrius]

Look jacobw, your comment is way behind schedule. If you don't get it out soon, interest in your comment will have waned, and it probably won't be of the quality that people are used to by then. Comment writers have been using more advanced tools to write their posts that make them wittier and more insightful, and your comment was started before these tools were available. Here's the deal: If you get you post your comment within the next two hours, I will give you a +1, Insightful mod. Hurry up. Your fans are waiting.

Re:The funniest response to this article EVER

[jacobw]

I'm back! And I have my comment ready to go, and I could definitely post it, but here's the thing: While I was watching the World Cup game, I started thinking, "It's so much better to see a game then just to read about it." And then I started thinking, what if instead of just reading my post, you could see it, too? So I've decided that rather than put up a purely verbal post now, it's better to take the time to transform it into a really incredible visual post. So hang in there. My amazing response is coming, and it's going to be even better than before! I just need a day or two to learn Photoshop.

Re:The funniest response to this article EVER

[jacobw]

Actually, I'm taking a net karma loss on this. +1 funny doesn't give karma, as you say, but -1 Redundant takes it away. Fortunately, when my Amazing Comment is ready to ship, it's going to be SO amazing that they're going to invent a whole new category for it-- +1,000,000 BEST COMMENT EVER. At least, I hope so. If not, I'm facing karma bankruptcy.

More than $4,250

[NsinR8R]

It's more than just $4,250: on the 10-Q, all dollar figures (with the exception of per-share amounts) are listed in thousands. Quoting the financial statement notes, the "In March 2005, the Company renegotiated a $6,000 contingent obligation due upon delivery of the final PC version of Duke Nukem Forever through the payment of $4,250 and issuance of a promissory note in the principal amount of $500." That would actually, then, be four-and-a-quarter million dollars rather than a paltry 4K.

Duke Nukem Forever Due This Year.

[jkrise]

2006: Duke Nukem Forever Due This Year.
2007: Duke Nukem Forever Due This Year.
2008: Duke Nukem Forever Due This Year.
2009: Duke Nukem Forever Due This Year. .. .. ..
2020: Duke Nukem Forever Due This Year.

Unlike Microsoft, the DNF folks have been consistent. They haven't changed their stance over several years....

Don't you know why?

[Gli7ch]

Guys! Don't you know? The only reason they took so long developing it is because they had to recode the whole thing for its exclusive release for the Infinium Labs Phantom!

Duh!

Re:Stop holding your breath, it won't be worth it

[ichigo 2.0]

What are you talking about? Gameplay (sadly) hasn't changed a bit in 5 years!

It's a failure regardless...

[isecore]

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.

3DR Comments on this issue here:

[JSDopefish]

3DR comments on this: http://forums.3drealms.com/vb/showthread.php?t=183 00.

In related news....

[cyriustek]

In related news...

Windows Vista is to ship this year.

We will no longer have to wait for Godot.

The second coming of Christ will come this year.

The US will pull out of Iraq this year.

The US will find Osama.

Re:AO rating?

[gmenhorn]

You mean DOA?

Re:$4,250.00 ?

[jchawk]

I hate to be the buzz kill but all stock filings are posted in a short hand notation where you always divide all dollar amounts by 1,000. So $10,000,000 becomes - $10,000. So your post should read something like this -

In November 2005, the Company acquired all of the outstanding capital stock of Firaxis Games, Inc. ("Firaxis"), a developer of PC and strategy titles, including the Civilization franchise. The purchase price of approximately $15,442,000 consisted of $12,500,000 of unregistered common stock and $4,085,000 of development advances previously paid to Firaxis reduced by net cash acquired of $1,143,000.

In June 2005, the Company acquired all of the outstanding capital stock of Gaia Capital Group and its wholly-owned subsidiaries ("Gaia"), the developers of certain of the Company's titles for console and handheld platforms. The purchase price consisted of $5,748,000 in cash, $4,055,000 of development advances previously paid to Gaia and deferred consideration of $1,597,000.

In January 2005, the Company acquired from SEGA all of the outstanding capital stock of Visual Concepts Entertainment and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Kush Games, the developers of certain of the Company's sports titles, and certain intellectual property rights associated with these products. The purchase price consisted of $27,794,000 in cash, $1,866,000 of prepaid royalties previously advanced to SEGA and contingent consideration of $2,593,000 based on the release of certain titles.

the truth is in the punctuation

[elmarkitse]

Duke Nukem, Forever Due 'This Year'...