The whole EA/Take-Two almost became a joke (and a waste of ink) it got so drawn out. EA would try to buy Take-Two, Take-Two would reject them, EA would come back, Take-Two would reject them again. It finally all settled with EA giving up hope and Take-Two not being bought. It got a little tiring, really. Why are we bringing it up again? Because someone else has, so don't blame us. 3D Realms' Scott Miller says EA needs to try again.

"I’m actually impressed with some of EA’s recent tries at new IP, such as Dead Space, Army of Two, and Mirror’s Edge," he told Gamesauce. "I hope that the lukewarm sales of these games do not cause them to stop trying to take big swings with new properties. EA really does need to broaden the number of game brands it can rely on—big hitters like a Call of Duty, Gears of War, GTA, and so on. What’s the real shame for them is that they were vigorously pushing for new brands during their recent heyday of soaring stock and untold riches. Like so many other market leaders, they rested on their laurels while Activision—doing its best Avis impersonation (“We’re #2, but we try harder”)—out-EA’ed EA."

He continued, "EA’s only chance, in my opinion, is to acquire Take-Two and add GTA, Max Payne, Duke Nukem, Bioshock, and Civilization to it’s lineup. In fact, they tried acquiring Take-Two already last year. They need to try again."

I think we're all upset by EA's lack of sales for their new IPs since most of them were trying to do some new things and were also good games, but the sad truth is you need money to take risks like that. I'm not sure if EA can do it though, especially with Rockstar being part of the deal. We all know how hard it is to breach the gates of Mordor.

EA Needs to Try Buying Take-Two Again, says Scott Miller [IndustryGamers]

3D Realms -- the studio I'm convinced is nothing but an extravagant practical joke -- has teased "numerous" upcoming Duke Nukem projects over the coming years, with a "resurgence" planned for the notorious FPS hero. Apparently, the man with balls of steel could be going the way of the "casual" game as well. 

"There are numerous other Duke games in various stages of development, several due out this year," says 3D Realms CEO Scott Miller. "We are definitely looking to bring Duke into casual gaming spaces, plus there are other major Duke games in production. Almost all of these are unannounced."

Miller has also denied that the notorious Duke Nukem Forever is dead, and also claims that the Duke movie is "making steady progress." Furthermore, the CEO adds that 3D Realms will "continue to license and co-create games based upon the Duke Nukem franchise," and that the new focus on external development is something he should have made years ago. 

In any case, 3D Realms is hopeful that Duke is making his big comeback. I guess we'll have to believe it when we see it.

3D Realms Teases 'Numerous' Duke Nukem Games, 'Looking to Bring Duke into Casual Gaming' [Shacknews]

The studio behind the recently uncovered game Duke Begins is Gearbox Software.

Earlier this afternoon, Shacknews uncovered more court papers from the ongoing Take-Two versus 3D Realms legal proceedings. The fresh filings are from the Duke Nukem Forever publisher in response to 3D Realms countersuit. On the eighth page of counter-counter-claims Take-Two writes:

Under the 2007 Agreement, any modification to the development schedule for the Duke Begins game, following Final Concept Approval (as defined in the 2007 Agreement), is permitted without Apogee's consent provided that both 2K Games and Gearbox (as defined in the 2007 Agreement) consent to the change.

Before this document -- and even leading up to page seven in it -- the developer of Duke Begins has always been referred to as a “third-party developer” or a “well-known videogame developer.” Consider this great mystery solved.

Interestingly, it appears as though Duke Begins hasn’t been canned. In the filings, Take-Two claims it has merely been put on hold. We look forward to seeing it in action at some point in 2040.

[via Shacknews]

More Duke Nukem Forever images have surfaced. For whatever reason, two more screenshots take from the cancelled game were uploaded to the official Duke Nukem Facebook page, both featuring some huge pig monster thing reminiscent of the Goliath in Insomniac’s Resistance 2.

While the sudden appearance of more images tickles the brain, it’s best not to dwell on motivation: If anything can be learned from the Duke Nukem Forever decade-long ordeal, it’s that 3D Realms does whatever it wants, when it wants. Posting material from a game that is going to be the subject of a lawsuit not excluded.

[via Shacknews]

At least one person at id Software wasn’t buying the news that 3D Realms’ fabled Duke Nukem Forever project was canned. Speaking with VideoGamer, id’s director of business Steve Nix said he initially thought the announcement of the cancellation was a joke -- as did many familiar with 3D Realms -- before expressing sadness.

“For me it was personally sad,” Nix said. I know a lot of people at the studio (id) were really surprised and saddened for sure. We had originally moved to Dallas because Apogee, who morphed into 3D Realms, was our original publisher. So id might not even be in Dallas and a lot of us wouldn’t even be working in the games industry if it wasn’t for Apogee and 3D Realms.”

“So I know for me personally,” he continued, “I thought it was a joke when I heard the other day. So definitely, extremely saddened and surprising that those guys aren’t there and we may never see the game we were all looking forward to.”

Before a branding switch in 1994, 3D Realms was known as Apogee Software, Ltd. Apogee published three of id Software’s titles: Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons, Commander Keen: Goodbye Galaxy!, and Wolfenstein 3D.

Work on Duke Nukem Forever began in October 1948. Development on the title was stopped in May 2009 by 3D Realms due to “funding issues” and not by Thor's hammer as previously reported.

Everything is darker in Paris, or at least when the Nazis are around. Unless you consider the glow of their blood on the walls to be brightening. Pandemic's title has been buzzing about the office recently, what with the trailer we saw yesterday, as well as Husky's interviews with Christopher Hunt and Tom French.

I'm all for the game, mainly because getting to take on the Nazis someplace other than the frontlines of Europe is a venture that seems new and refreshing to me. So, what we've got here are another 11 screenshots from the game, all for your enjoyment. Hopefully we'll get a release date soon, I'd like to play this already.

George Broussard of 3D Realms issued a statement to clear up some misunderstandings in light of all the Duke Nukem Forever troubles.

First, 3D Realms isn't dead! They're still alive, but they did have to let go the Duke Nukem Forever development team on May 6 due to lack of funding. 3D Realms still owns the rights to the Duke Nukem franchise and Take-Two retains publishing rights for Duke Nukem Forever.

George then goes on to talk about Take-Two's lawsuit against them:

Take-Two never paid 3DR advances or any signing bonus or any other funds related to DNF, up until July 2008, at which time they paid $2.5m in connection with another agreement for an unannounced game.  This is the sum total Take-Two has paid 3DR in connection with DNF.  Take-Two claims that they paid $12m to GT Interactive/Infogrames to acquire the publishing rights for the DNF game. To be clear, 3DR was not a party to that transaction and did not receive any money from it.  When the DNF game was originally signed with GT Interactive in 1998, GT paid 3DR a $400,000 signing bonus. Up until July 2008, this was the only publisher money we received for the DNF game.  Meanwhile, 3DR put over $20m into the production of DNF.

It's amazing how George Broussard is so candid about the whole failed negotiation dealings amidst the lawsuit. Take-Two seemingly tried to bully 3D Realms into taking a really horrible deal. It's definitely worth your time to read the entire statement over on GameSlice. 

Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory, so here's some further credence to the idea that Duke Nukem Forever's death is merely a marketing ploy by 3D Realms. Apparently, the URL "savedukenukem.com" was registered on 05/07/09, the day before 3D Realms announced its closure.

Many people now believe we are being played, which is something I myself had considered briefly, since I'm convinced that everyone involved with Duke Nukem Forever has been laughing at us for the past ten years. Some suggest that the huge amounts of assets that have come flowing onto the Internet since 3D Realms' closure also hints that this is little more than a gimmick for PR purposes.

So, what do you think? Are we indeed to believe that 3D Realms has been sitting on all the hot Duke Nukem information that has suddenly come out? Has that information been made up after 3D Realms closed just to rub salt in the wound? Hell, does Duke Nukem Forever even exist, or was it all a big joke from the start? So many questions. 

Whether or not Duke Nukem Forever is officially dead, this story looks like it'll keep going for a while. A fitting tribute to the game that did nothing for a whole decade.

[Thanks, Reaprar]

Okay, I'm starting to hate posting all of these Duke Nukem Forever leaks. I keep forgetting it may not actually come out anymore and the more assets I see, the sadder I get.

So yeah, a bunch of new assets were leaked online again today. The leaks may come to an end though, as all of the personal blogs that have been leaking the assets have been shut down or hidden. Sites like NoFrag and ShackNews managed to snag all of the images, thankfully. The images are made up of environment pieces and character models, which include a couple of strippers making the gallery below Not Safe For Work!

That's not all! Act now and you can get the Duke Nukem Forever design documents detailing the entire game and some of the boss fights! The documents were supposedly leaked by Huenink Rick, lead designer on DNF, according to Duke4.net. Do we need to say this is a spoiler alert even if the game may never come out? 

[Thanks, jetsetlemming!]

Today I am celebrating my mother, as it is the day ordained by Hallmark to do such things, but I thought I'd take a moment to come by and depress everyone. 3D Realms has said its final goodbye. A post on their Web site has the above photo with the words, "Thanks for being fans and for all your support." Short and sweet, and a little disappointing. Luckily, they later updated the photo with the names of everyone in the photo, so the post looks a bit more robust. 

So where do we go from here? Seriously, what game will replace Duke Nukem Forever? Has any game that hasn't been released ever held such a high honor in the world of gaming? The real trick was that Forever never became vaporware; it was always there and now it's not. I, for one, feel a bit empty inside, and no amount of artwork or leaked footage is going to fill this hole. 

As you may already know, 3D Realms is dead. With them gone, the fate of Duke Nukem Forever is up in the air. We've been seeing some pictures from Duke Nukem Forever pop up around the Internet this past week, but what everyone has really been waiting for is for some gameplay footage. Thanks to Kfizz's quick blogging, we now have some awesome footage from the game.

First off, holy sh*t this looks great! The animation for the enemy Pigs and creatures looks great, the classic Duke humor is there (Duke freaking b*tch smacks the back of a giant bosses' head) and there's even a boss fight in a football stadium again! Sorry, there was going to be a boss fight in a football stadium. Wow. I think the shock of this possibly never coming out now is finally hitting me. 

Video is Not Safe For Work as there's a topless stripper showing off her goods at the 0:49 mark. Youtube usually takes done videos with nudity pretty fast, so here's a backup of the footage over on our Viddler. Otherwise, hit the break to see what could have been.

[Update: Youtube video was taken down. Viddler video now after the break.]

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The fine folks over at Team Blur, a PC map-making and modding community, have been collecting a whole bunch of images from the now-cancelled-for-real-this-time-I-swear-probably-unless-someone-else-gives-them-funding Duke Nukem Forever.  Surprisingly, the images actually look somewhat okay, making me wonder if DNF actually had a slim chance of being anything other than a massive abortion. Head on over to this thread and check it out - they've got a bunch of pictures, mostly weapon, enemy, and level designs, and there are more uncensored breasts. (Note - The pod chick kind of looks like a dude. A dude with huge boobs.)

My favorite is the triple-titted alien pictured above (what would Duke Nukem be without jugs?), but there's a lot of other cool stuff in the thread too. Go ahead and take a look (and we all know you will, thanks to that awesome teaser pic up there). It looks like it's being updated periodically, so keep checking back for any new alien erotica.

Do you think that, based on these pictures, Duke had potential, or do these not really change any of your opinions about the game?

(If you couldn't guess, some of the images in that thread are NSFW. Although, if your job requires you to be working at 4AM in the morning on a Saturday, I think you probably deserve to go ahead and click.)

With 3D Realms by all accounts down for the count, the chances of us actually ever seeing Duke Nuke Forever in a playable form are starting to look slimmer. While the fate of the project remains to be seen, the hope we've been losing for the past ten years is at an all-time low.

Fortunately, one of the artists that worked on the project, Chris Smith, has decided to share a few unreleased renders from the title on his personal blog.

“Two years, nine months,” he writes on his blog, “now it’s over. It was fun while it lasted. I worked with an extraordinary bunch of artists, designers, and programmers. You will all be missed.”

Smith is, of course, searching for a new work opportunity. Looking at the quality of these renders, we hope he (along with the other former 3D Realms folks) won’t have too much trouble.

[Thanks, Sam!]

Shacknews has learned from a reliable source that 3D Realms and Apogee have both been shut down. Their source stated that the companies have been shut down due to "funding issues." Employees from both companies are said to have already been let go. This news means that Duke Nukem Critical Mass, Chain Reaction, Proving Grounds, and more importantly, Duke Nukem Forever are now in limbo, if not completely canned.

Apogee was brought back to life last July and was working on the DS and PSP version of some new Duke Nukem games, which they showed off during GDC 09. As for Duke Nukem Forever, the last we saw of that was on the Jace Hall Show.

We're looking into the matter and we'll bring you more info as this develops.

[Via GiantBomb]

[Update: We got in touch with MMPR, the PR firm for Duke Nukem Triology. Here's what they had to say on the matter:

"Deep Silver and Apogee Software are not affected by the situation at 3D Realms. Development on the Duke Nukem Trilogy is continuing as planned."

So Apogee is still alive and kicking and no one from Apogee has been laid off.]