Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette, and
Speaker 1: I am an editor at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: sitting across from me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: Then let's head on down into that cellar and carve
Speaker 1: ourselves a witch. Okay, then today we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about something that's received a lot of press over the
Speaker 1: years and a lot of ridicule um, some of which
Speaker 1: I mean I couldn't argue. I think it was justified. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the saga of Duke Newcomb Forever. Ah. Yes,
Speaker 1: for those of you who are unfamiliar, Duke Newcomb is
Speaker 1: an h An action video game superstar. Yeah. Uh and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I would guess you would call it a
Speaker 1: first person shooter. Well, yeah, let's let's let's go back
Speaker 1: and set the scene a little bit before we get
Speaker 1: into the first person shooter apart, because lucle the history
Speaker 1: actually stretches back before the first person shooter genre. Really. Yes,
Speaker 1: all right, First of all, before we even go into
Speaker 1: this at all, Wired has reported that the typical development
Speaker 1: cycle for a video game is two to four years. Yes,
Speaker 1: so it can take between two and four years to
Speaker 1: develop a typical video game. And that's uh. That was
Speaker 1: a recent article, so I think that would go for
Speaker 1: today's video games. So keep that in mind. Two to
Speaker 1: four years, all right. This story starts really with a
Speaker 1: pair of friends, Scott Miller and George Brossard. Scott Miller
Speaker 1: was a are still is, and Scott Miller started programming
Speaker 1: back in building video games all the way back in.
Speaker 1: One of the first ones he wrote is called Beyond
Speaker 1: the Titanic, which is now freeware. You can actually go
Speaker 1: and download it. It's a text based game, sort of
Speaker 1: like the old Zorki games. I love those games me too,
Speaker 1: and I really enjoyed this as well. So Beyond the Titanic,
Speaker 1: if you do a search for it, you can actually
Speaker 1: play one of Scott Miller's first games. See. Miller came
Speaker 1: up with a brilliant idea. He thought, why not find
Speaker 1: a way to get people interested in a computer game
Speaker 1: by releasing part of the game for free and then
Speaker 1: in order to unlock the whole game, you have to pay,
Speaker 1: which is the shareware based model. Okay. So he came
Speaker 1: up with this idea and he founded a company called
Speaker 1: APAG Software Limited. So this was back in. Apage was
Speaker 1: kind of a part time business for for Scott and
Speaker 1: then in he quit his job and concentrated on Appa
Speaker 1: G full time. And uh and Bissard George Bissard was
Speaker 1: a a co founder. He was also interested in this
Speaker 1: and um he joined on with Scott Miller. So July one, nineteen,
Speaker 1: the first Duke Newcomb game came out. That's Duke Newcomb
Speaker 1: one point oh right. Back then it was a side
Speaker 1: scroller game. Yes, so so not a first person shooters,
Speaker 1: side schooler side scrollers like the old Super Mario Brothers games,
Speaker 1: you know, not like a platformer. A platform er exactly,
Speaker 1: it was. It was innovative because your character could go left, right, up,
Speaker 1: or down. The screen would scroll in all four directions,
Speaker 1: so you weren't forced in a single direction like you know,
Speaker 1: like the old Super Mario game. You start going to
Speaker 1: the right, you could never backtrack to the left. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a number of games I've played like that.
Speaker 1: It's very frustrating if you feel like you could catch
Speaker 1: that extra power up and you know it too late, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you ran a little too far and now you can't
Speaker 1: get that one up on the first level Super Mario Brothers.
Speaker 1: Not that I'm better anyway. So uh So that was
Speaker 1: the first game in the Duke Newcomb series and introduced
Speaker 1: this kind of Schwarzenegger type hero, although back then a
Speaker 1: very primitive. Again, it's just a side scroller in a
Speaker 1: white justice, very good side scroller, but it was not
Speaker 1: a first person shooter. I was gonna say. It was
Speaker 1: just sort of a two bit character, except he was
Speaker 1: more than two bits, like eight. He was definitely a
Speaker 1: two dimensional definitely. But the game had some cheat codes
Speaker 1: in it and other stuff they got built into later
Speaker 1: Duke nukemb games. So that was July first nine, and
Speaker 1: by November one, Duke Newcomb two point I was released. Um,
Speaker 1: and then we're going to skip ahead too. May five,
Speaker 1: a new game developed by i D Software hits. Do
Speaker 1: you know what this one was? It involved shooting Nazis.
Speaker 1: It's that wolf Stein. Yes, Wolfenstein. Um, Wolfenstein three D
Speaker 1: comes out. Now Appog wasn't just a game developer, they
Speaker 1: were also a game public sure. So this game was
Speaker 1: developed by i D software. I always said that was it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's probably it. I've always I you know what, I
Speaker 1: have always called it it. And I got to this
Speaker 1: and I was like, I'm just gonna say i D
Speaker 1: just in case it software, We'll go with it. So
Speaker 1: it created Wolfenstein three D. APPAG published it, and this
Speaker 1: started off the whole first person shooter craze. Really, I mean,
Speaker 1: it was the first one to really get attention on
Speaker 1: the BC. So December three Duke Newcomb two comes out
Speaker 1: and it's still a side scrolling game, but the property
Speaker 1: is still going strong, and in Appog creates a new
Speaker 1: brand called three D Realms. Now, the idea back then
Speaker 1: was that appog was publishing all these different styles of games,
Speaker 1: and they thought if they could create a brand specific
Speaker 1: to each style of game, it would make it easier
Speaker 1: to identify. So three D Realms would have gone with
Speaker 1: all the three D environment games, mostly first person shooters. Uh.
Speaker 1: It turned out that eventually three D Realms became the
Speaker 1: unofficial name for the company, that the legal name was
Speaker 1: still APAG Software Limited, where everyone knew of them as
Speaker 1: three D Realms, mostly because the first person shooter I
Speaker 1: think pretty much took off and the other honors kind
Speaker 1: of died down. So January twenty nine, nineteen n Duke
Speaker 1: Newcomb three D hits It Goes Gold. This was the
Speaker 1: game that that really took the world by storm. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was incredibly successful, so successful that it flooded three
Speaker 1: D realms coffers with filthy, filthy lucre. In other words,
Speaker 1: it made him rich. Yeah, they made that some money
Speaker 1: off Duke Newcomb three D. A lot of people just
Speaker 1: thought the game was a lot of fun as a
Speaker 1: first person shooter, had a lot of snarky comments, and
Speaker 1: it mostly culled from the Army of Darkness and evil
Speaker 1: ed movies. Uh, you could easily imagine Bruce Campbell. Actually
Speaker 1: is easy to imagine Bruce Cambell saying these things because
Speaker 1: he has said them. But your character would say things
Speaker 1: like come get some and groovy and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, which pretty much came straight from those movies. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll have to take your word for it because I'm
Speaker 1: not much into the first person shooter top games. I
Speaker 1: played played it so many hours of Nukem three D. Now.
Speaker 1: It was based off a The The engine that used
Speaker 1: was called build it was It was developed in House
Speaker 1: by three D Realms. Yeah, and there were very very
Speaker 1: few people I I understand who built the original game,
Speaker 1: very very small team of people who created it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This was back before you had to have enormous teams
Speaker 1: to build a video game. I mean, today you'll hear
Speaker 1: weird reports of I think I once heard that Grand
Speaker 1: Theft Auto four cost an insane amount of money to develop,
Speaker 1: Like we're talking like a hundred million dollars to develop.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that necessarily, but it's kind of indicative
Speaker 1: of how video game development has has spiraled into this
Speaker 1: enormous thing when back in the day it was a
Speaker 1: much smaller uh task. So uh yeah. So the game
Speaker 1: comes out in ninety six, it's a huge success. Three
Speaker 1: D Realms ends up getting really really rich off of it,
Speaker 1: um Brossard and Miller in particular, and they weren't doing
Speaker 1: poorly too before that. It's just that Duke NUKEMB really Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then um some patches and mods come out over
Speaker 1: the next few years for Duke NUKEMB three D which
Speaker 1: allow you to alter the game. I've actually played a few.
Speaker 1: I remember getting a mod for Duke NUKEMB three D
Speaker 1: that created a whole new levels that were not designed
Speaker 1: by three D Realms. Other people have designed these and
Speaker 1: then uploaded them, and then you could download them and
Speaker 1: as long as you had the basic game, you could
Speaker 1: play the moded levels. Um. You also could play on
Speaker 1: a local area network against other players, which to me
Speaker 1: was phenomenal. I remember the first two games I ever
Speaker 1: did that with were Duke Nukemb three D and Descent,
Speaker 1: which was the three dimensional spaceship game where you you
Speaker 1: could move in three different planes right, you could go up, down, left, right,
Speaker 1: actually you know you do the X, y and z
Speaker 1: axes anyway, So really popular game. Three D Realms diad
Speaker 1: what would come back to hunt them multiple times over
Speaker 1: the next few years. They announced officially the development of
Speaker 1: a game called Duke Newcombe Forever. It was at this
Speaker 1: point where Brossard had decided that because the first Duke
Speaker 1: Newcomb game three D game was such a huge success, uh,
Speaker 1: he was not going to cut any corners in developing
Speaker 1: Duke Nukem Forever. And that was a decision that would
Speaker 1: hunt many people for many years. Yep um. Both Jonathan
Speaker 1: and I had consulted an article that ran and wired
Speaker 1: um in December two thousand nine by Clive Thompson. It's
Speaker 1: a really, really awesome article. If you're interested in this topic,
Speaker 1: you should definitely go check it out. But from from
Speaker 1: everything I read, especially in that article, UM, it appears
Speaker 1: that he is the consummate perfectionist. He wants everything to
Speaker 1: be just so um and to a fault. And the
Speaker 1: problem with that in the video game world is that
Speaker 1: as you're developing a game, other companies are developing new engines,
Speaker 1: and a new engine will come out that will make
Speaker 1: your game look primitive in comparison. And so Broussard hated this.
Speaker 1: Like back back when they were developing Duke Nukem three D,
Speaker 1: they were on the cutting edge, right, And then what
Speaker 1: happened was when they went to Duke Nukem Forever, Broussard
Speaker 1: made a judgment call. He decided that it would be
Speaker 1: faster and more efficient and more cost effective if they
Speaker 1: licensed the game engine uh instead of trying to build
Speaker 1: a brand new one. Because the build game engine was
Speaker 1: showing signs of being out of date renew they were
Speaker 1: gonna have to go with a new game engine. I
Speaker 1: think we should point out to what a game engine
Speaker 1: actually is. Um. Yeah, it's like the chassis. I would
Speaker 1: guess if you use a car metaphor for it, it's
Speaker 1: it's the software on which the world can be built
Speaker 1: for a first person shooter game, especially, I would I
Speaker 1: think if an engine as being a first person or
Speaker 1: three D type construct, not like a side scroller platform
Speaker 1: or something like that. Yeah, and often it'll have elements
Speaker 1: to it. It may or may not involve a physics engine,
Speaker 1: because sometimes you can have a physics engine that's separate
Speaker 1: from the game engine, um that gets incorporated later. It's
Speaker 1: built on top of that chassis if you will. I shouldn't.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't mix engine and chassis. But yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's the if you used engine strictly as the metaphor, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's what powers the game or and the physics engine
Speaker 1: powers how the physics run in the game right exactly,
Speaker 1: So you may have everything from how the game renders
Speaker 1: to just just what happens when you do this, What
Speaker 1: is the result, like when you shoot a monster? What
Speaker 1: is the result. All of the stuff depends upon the
Speaker 1: game engine. And uh, and we're most mostly talking about
Speaker 1: the way the game engine rendered graphics, especially graphics in motion,
Speaker 1: and so Brizard made the decision to to uh least
Speaker 1: the Quake two engine um and of course Quake two
Speaker 1: was that this engine was designed by by a completely
Speaker 1: different company. UM, so three D Realms had you know,
Speaker 1: they had to pay in order to use it, but
Speaker 1: they decided that would be faster than developing their own. Uh.
Speaker 1: This same year, which was again uh, that was when
Speaker 1: Miller announced that the villain from the very first Duke
Speaker 1: Newcomb game, Newkemb one point oh the side score one
Speaker 1: Dr Proton would be returning in some form newkemb forever.
Speaker 1: All right, so when they announced it, they start to
Speaker 1: lease the Quake two engine. Uh and uh. In May,
Speaker 1: trailer came out for this game for E three Right three,
Speaker 1: which is the Electronic Entertainment Expert. Yeah. Yeah, it's all
Speaker 1: about video games and I've been a couple of times.
Speaker 1: It is amazing and intimidating. So this trailer came out
Speaker 1: and people thought it was pretty impressive. It showed some
Speaker 1: new gameplay elements, including Duke firing guns at aircraft as
Speaker 1: he's on a moving truck. So it had like a
Speaker 1: part where you're playing in a turret. You know, you
Speaker 1: were manning a turret and firing at at planes pretty
Speaker 1: cool stop a big jump from Duke Newcomb three d uh.
Speaker 1: And there was also an introduction of a female character
Speaker 1: called Bombshell, who the less said about the better. Anyway,
Speaker 1: she did not look like she was a Saying that
Speaker 1: she wasn't a fully developed character is probably going to
Speaker 1: be the wrong way of putting it. Um, I'll just
Speaker 1: leave it at that. Let's just say that a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of Duke nukelem is based off juvenile fantasies. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So then, and that was one month later, three D
Speaker 1: Realms announces that it's dropped the Quake to license. It's
Speaker 1: switching instead to the Unreal engine, which is was from
Speaker 1: Epic Mega Games. Yeah. I remember when Unreal came out,
Speaker 1: and so many people who loved the first person shooter
Speaker 1: genre really really enjoyed Unreal and Unreal tournament. Um and
Speaker 1: I do remember that being a great big deal at
Speaker 1: the time because it was basically it's Quake versus Epic
Speaker 1: Mega Games Unreal and which one was the best. And Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think most people did think that Unreal
Speaker 1: was provided faster, smoother graphics than Quake. They may not
Speaker 1: have liked the gameplay as much. But they thought that
Speaker 1: the graphics themselves were better, which is kind of what
Speaker 1: Broussard thought, so they decided to go with the Unreal
Speaker 1: engine instead of the Quake two engines. So at that time,
Speaker 1: Broussard says, hey, don't worry, this won't really delay us
Speaker 1: that much. Expect the game next year, which would be
Speaker 1: and how long is this after the initial announcement? Two years?
Speaker 1: So we're now two years in because ninety seven was
Speaker 1: the official announcement um and nine would uh, you still
Speaker 1: have seen nothing of the game. And two years after
Speaker 1: they first started working, actually two years after they first
Speaker 1: announced it. Going to keep in mind it companies work
Speaker 1: on these things before they announced them, right right, So
Speaker 1: it's it's at least two years into a two to
Speaker 1: four year average developments, and they've just scrapped their game
Speaker 1: engine entirely, which means they're going to have to recode
Speaker 1: every much everything from scratch. You might keep the level
Speaker 1: designed the same, and you might keep the same sort
Speaker 1: of monsters and everything. You may want to try and
Speaker 1: maintain the same look but in a more sophisticated way,
Speaker 1: but you still have to recode all that. So October
Speaker 1: twenty second, n that's when Miller says that they're tweaking
Speaker 1: the engine again to take advantage of new Unreal uh
Speaker 1: engine improvements that were developed for Unreal Tournament. Mostly this
Speaker 1: would be the multiplayer stuff, but just engine improvements in general.
Speaker 1: So November they say, Okay, these engine changes are causing
Speaker 1: more delays than we thought. We're having to patch the
Speaker 1: engine a lot, and so it's slowing us down a bit.
Speaker 1: Uh And at that point, a company called Info Grames
Speaker 1: purchased a majority stake and another company called GT Interactive.
Speaker 1: Al Right, GT Interactive was the retail distributor for Duke
Speaker 1: newkembe Forever, so now those rights revert to Info Grames.
Speaker 1: Info Grames announces expect Duke Nukem Forever in the year
Speaker 1: two thousand, three years after the initial announcement. Uh So,
Speaker 1: that year two thousand was the first time Wired gave
Speaker 1: Duke Nukem Forever a special award. Well that would be
Speaker 1: more of an infamous infamous award. Yeah, it gave it
Speaker 1: the second place for the Vaporware of the Year awards.
Speaker 1: We've we've mentioned vaporware a few times on the podcast.
Speaker 1: I don't think we've mentioned it recently at all um. Basically,
Speaker 1: when there is a product this I've heard the chairman
Speaker 1: used more in tech than anything else, but it refers
Speaker 1: to a product or software that is announced people expected
Speaker 1: for a while, and then keep expecting it for a
Speaker 1: little while longer, and then after that they expected some
Speaker 1: morning it just never shows up. And sometimes the company folds.
Speaker 1: Other times, you know, they you know, end up scrapping
Speaker 1: the project, or it gets it gets somehow looped into
Speaker 1: some other project and so it's called something else when
Speaker 1: it finally comes out and people don't remember. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: in this case, the company was still very much around
Speaker 1: and they were still theoretically working on the project. Actually
Speaker 1: not theoretically, they were in fact working on the project,
Speaker 1: but it just hadn't shown up, And so Wired gives
Speaker 1: it the second place of the Vaporware of the Year
Speaker 1: awards in two thousand, two thousand one, it gets first place,
Speaker 1: and it gets it again in two thousand two, and
Speaker 1: in two thousand three they give it the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Speaker 1: So in two thousand four no Duke Knewcom forever listed
Speaker 1: in Wired Vaporware of the Year, but two thousand five,
Speaker 1: two thousand six, two thousand seven, two thousand eight, it's listed.
Speaker 1: They skipped it. In two thousand nine they acknowledged two
Speaker 1: do comb Forever, but they did not include it in
Speaker 1: the list. So vaporware all those years, and again that's
Speaker 1: much longer than a two to four year life cycle.
Speaker 1: But but jumping back a little bit, I'm sorry you're
Speaker 1: gonna say something. Well, no, I was going to jump
Speaker 1: back a little bit because you know, at this point
Speaker 1: in in uh Clive Thompson's article back in two thousand three,
Speaker 1: UM he said only eighteen people were working on developing
Speaker 1: the software UM which again talking in today's terms at
Speaker 1: two to four year development cycle. UM, that's relying on
Speaker 1: a staff of fifty or even more people depending on
Speaker 1: the title. And a game as ambitious as Duke Nukem Forever,
Speaker 1: you would expect lots of people to be working on this,
Speaker 1: especially because well honestly, they expected to make a lot
Speaker 1: of money on it, so you could afford to hire
Speaker 1: more programmers and get more people involved with the project
Speaker 1: because you'd be able to pay off in the end
Speaker 1: even with that added expense. Yeah, here's here's the thing,
Speaker 1: is that because they made so much money with Duke
Speaker 1: Nukem three D and because and other projects, they had
Speaker 1: a lot of money they could pour into this development project. Yes,
Speaker 1: so it's we should we should clear this up to
Speaker 1: uh and we'll back in back in two thousand, December
Speaker 1: two thousand, to jump back just a little further, Infogrames
Speaker 1: sold those those retail distribution rights to someone else. Do
Speaker 1: you remember who that was? No, I don't take two.
Speaker 1: Oh yes I did. Take two. Interactive just didn't want
Speaker 1: to be wrong. Same distributors who who publish out games
Speaker 1: like Red Dead, Redemption, the Offee games, Grand Theft, Auto
Speaker 1: Civilization five, Take two. Indeed, so take two that's going
Speaker 1: to be important in a little bit when we get
Speaker 1: to the explosion of three D realms in the Duke
Speaker 1: Nukem Forever project. So now now jumping back ahead, yeah,
Speaker 1: you you started to see problems more than more than
Speaker 1: just delays. I mean the in two thousand two they
Speaker 1: scrapped all the work they had done on Duke Nukem
Speaker 1: Forever and decided to dump the unreal engine and go
Speaker 1: with an in house engine after all, right, you know, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: I think it's fascinating, Just as a side note here
Speaker 1: um that there are if you're interested in evidence of
Speaker 1: these different builds of the game. There are trailers that
Speaker 1: they would show at E three every so often to
Speaker 1: show what they were working on, and you can actually
Speaker 1: see evidence of the different builds of the game running
Speaker 1: on different engines. Yeah, there's there's aating, there's a trailer
Speaker 1: for the one that they showed a d three. There's
Speaker 1: a trailer for the unreal engine version, which was shown
Speaker 1: I think in UM Yeah, two thousand one at E three. Again. Uh,
Speaker 1: the Inhalse stuff is sort of what we're seeing now,
Speaker 1: although it's been heavily modified of course since that time
Speaker 1: at any rate. So so they've gone through three different
Speaker 1: game engines they went. They also switched their physics engine
Speaker 1: at one point, so that there's another change there. Um.
Speaker 1: At one point, take To, a CEO for Take two,
Speaker 1: said that they were actually using the Doom three engine,
Speaker 1: but Broussard refuted Dad said that was not true. And
Speaker 1: Um and Broussard and take To have had a very
Speaker 1: contentious history. Yeah, it seemed like it from the from
Speaker 1: the Thompson article especially. Yeah, there was a point where
Speaker 1: the CEO for Take two said that the game would
Speaker 1: definitely not be out before a certain time and Broussard said, Hey,
Speaker 1: you have no right to say when and win a
Speaker 1: game will or will not be ready, because you're just
Speaker 1: publishing it, you're not building it, So shut up. You
Speaker 1: don't know anythink I've actually used much worse language than that,
Speaker 1: but at any rate, So Brissard was not shy about
Speaker 1: this at all, and during the around two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: three D Realms had a severe morale problem with especially
Speaker 1: with the development team for Duke Newcomb Forever, because this
Speaker 1: is two thousand six. They've been developing this game for
Speaker 1: almost a decade. Now, well, think about it. If you're
Speaker 1: one of the programmers, you would be able to say
Speaker 1: that you had this massive, super duper cool title on
Speaker 1: your resume and go, look what I worked on. Except
Speaker 1: if it never shows up, then you get to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just wasted the last five years in my life
Speaker 1: on something that never got released. More than that, it
Speaker 1: also became a monetary thing because, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: three D Realms apparently was was paying their developers less
Speaker 1: money than compete competing developers. But the promise of three
Speaker 1: D Realms was that hey, look at Duke newkemb three
Speaker 1: D that game was phenomenal. It made us rich. This
Speaker 1: game is going to make you rich because we're going
Speaker 1: to give you these profits sharing uh bonuses. So but
Speaker 1: here's the problem is that you can't share in a
Speaker 1: profit if the game never comes out. So one of
Speaker 1: those little tricky things about profits, you can't make them
Speaker 1: till you're selling something. Um. So, the profit sharing promise
Speaker 1: was starting to get a bit stale, actually very stale
Speaker 1: by two thousand six, and several employees left Three D
Speaker 1: Realms during that period. Um Duke Nukem forever look like
Speaker 1: it was in danger of being put on the shelf
Speaker 1: because a lot of the people who were carrying that
Speaker 1: knowledge had left the company. And then, uh, they decided.
Speaker 1: Broussard's like, no, I am not going to let this die,
Speaker 1: And he went on to the three D Realms web
Speaker 1: page and put out job openings and they put a
Speaker 1: big picture of Duke Nukem on the job openings. One
Speaker 1: of the people that Broussard hired was a man by
Speaker 1: the name of Brian Hook, and Brian Hook brought with
Speaker 1: him a certain quality that was much needed at three
Speaker 1: D Realms. He had the ability to look at Broussard
Speaker 1: in the eye and say no, because here was the
Speaker 1: thing was that again, like you said, Brissard was a
Speaker 1: perfectionist still is a perfectionist who wants the absolute best
Speaker 1: for his game, which is an admirable quality, but it
Speaker 1: means that you never let go, which we can see
Speaker 1: there's evidence of that by the fact that this game
Speaker 1: has yet to come out. Brian Hook was the first
Speaker 1: person to actually stand up to Brissard and say, you
Speaker 1: know what, that's a great idea, but we can't put
Speaker 1: it in this game. We'll put it in the next one.
Speaker 1: This game has to go out. We can't keep changing
Speaker 1: things this late in the development cycle. It wasn't quite
Speaker 1: enough to save the company. If that had happened. If
Speaker 1: Hook had come on earlier, this game would have been out.
Speaker 1: In fact, this game and sequels would have been out
Speaker 1: by now. I fully believe that. But because Bisard is
Speaker 1: a very powerful personality, um, you know, no one else
Speaker 1: really did that, and so things just kept changing. And
Speaker 1: I'm not really criticizing Broussard because I think I'd probably
Speaker 1: be the same way if I saw a superior engine
Speaker 1: come out while I'm working on this game, and I
Speaker 1: had made my reputation on a game a few years earlier,
Speaker 1: I would also be tempted to switch, so I can't
Speaker 1: really criticize him. Over the next couple of years, more
Speaker 1: screenshots get leaked to various websites and magazines. Uh. And
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine, Broussard took a demo of the
Speaker 1: game to Take two and he was asking them for
Speaker 1: six million dollars additional funding to finish the game. Yes,
Speaker 1: they had, They had run out of a lot of
Speaker 1: their funding. And that's even with the co founders of
Speaker 1: the company starting to put forth some of their own cash.
Speaker 1: I read that according to the Thompson article. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: read that. The the the head of Gearbox Software. And
Speaker 1: we'll talk about them a little bit in a second.
Speaker 1: Randy Pitchford. Randy Pitchford said that he leaves Broussard put
Speaker 1: twenty to thirty million dollars of his own money into
Speaker 1: developing this game. I mean, now, that's a story of
Speaker 1: a man who is absolutely determined to get this thing out.
Speaker 1: I mean, clearly, you don't. You don't put that money
Speaker 1: into any sort of project and just consider it like
Speaker 1: a vanity project or something that's a ton of cash. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So he Takes takes the game to Take two, and
Speaker 1: they asked for six million dollars. Now, what happens next
Speaker 1: depends upon whom you ask. According to Brossard and Miller,
Speaker 1: they say that Take to initially agreed to the six
Speaker 1: million and then said, you know what, never mind, here's
Speaker 1: two point five million instead. What Take two says is no,
Speaker 1: they said the six million figure was unrealistic, and so
Speaker 1: they offered two point five million to start and an
Speaker 1: additional two point five million once the game was finished,
Speaker 1: but that they had rejected the six million dollar um
Speaker 1: uh proposal in either case, Uh, three D Realms left
Speaker 1: without the money. So then on May six, two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: very very sad day at three D Realms, they dismissed
Speaker 1: the development team for Duke Newcam Forever. And we're immediately
Speaker 1: hit with a lawsuit. Yeah immediately being a week later,
Speaker 1: but yes, well almost immediately when you're talking about a
Speaker 1: game that's been in development for twelve years. Yeah, three
Speaker 1: times the maximum length for a typical video game. UM
Speaker 1: so yeah, they they released the team, They essentially fire
Speaker 1: the development team. Now three D Realms exists to this day, Yes,
Speaker 1: that company itself has not gone away. But that entire
Speaker 1: division of their company is gone apart from Brossard and Miller.
Speaker 1: Um So, then Take two does file a lawsuit against
Speaker 1: Three D Realms, saying that they failed to deliver upon
Speaker 1: a promise deliverable. Uh So, some people began to conjecture
Speaker 1: the reason Take two did this was not to get
Speaker 1: any money back from Three D Realms, but in order
Speaker 1: to bleed the company dry so that they could get
Speaker 1: hold of the I p of Duke Newcomb. So that
Speaker 1: way Take two would own the distribution rights and the
Speaker 1: actual intellectual property of Duke Nukem, and they could develop
Speaker 1: the game anyway they want and make money in perpetuity.
Speaker 1: That's not exactly what happened. What did happen was Randy
Speaker 1: came along. Yeah. Now, um, I'd like to say, for
Speaker 1: the in defense of the Thompson article, if you go
Speaker 1: read it, you're going to go wait, this is it ends.
Speaker 1: It ends here, The game is over, it will never
Speaker 1: come out. There's there are lawsuits. Well, it was written
Speaker 1: in December two thousand nine, and that really did seem
Speaker 1: like the final word until Randy stepped in. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: turns I was I was just gonna say that he
Speaker 1: was a developer on Duke nukemb Three D Yes, so
Speaker 1: he liked Duke nukembe he had some history with whom
Speaker 1: he knew, Mr Bruce Hard. He credited a lot of
Speaker 1: his own personal success with the lessons he learned back
Speaker 1: when he was working on that initial project. And he uh,
Speaker 1: he's also a very passionate guy. It turns out these
Speaker 1: guys are not shy, no, and they're they're very driven people. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They are also not afraid to use colorful metaphors, as
Speaker 1: Spock would say, okay um, because in every quote I read,
Speaker 1: I was like, I can't say that one on the podcast,
Speaker 1: not without some beeping anyway. So yeah. Randy Pitchford heads
Speaker 1: a company called Gearbox Software, and Gearbox Software according well,
Speaker 1: according to Randy, three D Realms sold the intellectual property
Speaker 1: to Gearbox Software. Some people say Gearbox Software, I went
Speaker 1: out and bought the intellectual property, and Randy says, no,
Speaker 1: they sold it to me. And it really is just
Speaker 1: a matter of perspective, saying that what that means is
Speaker 1: the people at three Realms felt that Gearbox Software, out
Speaker 1: of all the companies in the world, would be the
Speaker 1: one that would preserve their vision for the game and
Speaker 1: keep it true what they had been working on for
Speaker 1: more than a decade. Right, Well, yeah, that that what
Speaker 1: I read was the article that you sent me, Jonathan
Speaker 1: from Nick Cowen in a telegraph um and from from
Speaker 1: what it it sounds like from reading that article, it's
Speaker 1: important to Mr Pitchford that it stays. He said, Honestly,
Speaker 1: it could the company could go in a different direction.
Speaker 1: A lot of companies would take Duke Newcomb and throw
Speaker 1: the old game out and build a new game with
Speaker 1: him as the lead character. But they're trying to preserve
Speaker 1: as much as they can, not to mention what Three
Speaker 1: D Realms had done. It also falls into the danger
Speaker 1: that Bissard fell into that, you know, you try and
Speaker 1: change everything, you may keep this lingering in development instead
Speaker 1: of actually coming out as a game. Right. So, Randy
Speaker 1: decided that he wanted to just put the finishing touches
Speaker 1: on this game, which included lots of stuff. He said
Speaker 1: that the game was not not close to being finished,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, it wasn't gonna make any
Speaker 1: fundamental changes. He was just going to complete the work
Speaker 1: that already been started and then polish it. So he
Speaker 1: announced at Penny Arcade Expo UH September two thousand ten
Speaker 1: that Gearbox Software was bringing the Duke back, and this
Speaker 1: was the first public announcement of Gearbox Software being involved
Speaker 1: in Duke newkemb forever. And he said, the game's coming
Speaker 1: out and you'll have it in your hands in two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, and I brought demos. He let the crowd
Speaker 1: come in. Anyone who is seventeen or older could play
Speaker 1: the demo because it has some objectionable material in it
Speaker 1: um but the which I will not go into, but
Speaker 1: at any rate, they they allowed. He allowed players to
Speaker 1: line up and try out the demo and it got
Speaker 1: a lot of positive reviews, saying that it brought back
Speaker 1: the spirit of the old Duke Newcomb games that has
Speaker 1: that same sort of cheesy since of humor. Um. Some
Speaker 1: people question whether or not that's even relevant today, because
Speaker 1: you know, Duke Newcombe came to prominence during the whole
Speaker 1: like the real big beefy action hero movie craze like
Speaker 1: die Hard, Predator and all of those movies Rambo, and
Speaker 1: then we kind of went through a period where that
Speaker 1: sort of fell out of style, although you could argue
Speaker 1: that with movies like the latest Rambo movie and the Expendables,
Speaker 1: that there's a bit of a throwback that's coming into
Speaker 1: vogue right now, and maybe a good time for the man.
Speaker 1: It might became perfect for them to jump, and maybe
Speaker 1: it'll spiral into a whole new era of us making terrible,
Speaker 1: terrible cliche quotes and and then walking away in slow motion.
Speaker 1: At any rate, So two thousand and eleven is when
Speaker 1: we expect to see this game, and um, I'll probably
Speaker 1: play it. I played the first Duke NUKEMB, well, the
Speaker 1: Duke NUKEMB three D. I didn't play the side scroller.
Speaker 1: I have to say, though, it's um Whereas a lot
Speaker 1: of other types of games, UH might falter after a
Speaker 1: development cycle this long. One thing that three D Realms
Speaker 1: did right is to create a personality um that's driven serious,
Speaker 1: heavy duty fan base. I mean there there are lots
Speaker 1: and lots of fans other than just Jonathan here who
Speaker 1: really want to play this game because they loved the
Speaker 1: kind of game it was, and they love the character
Speaker 1: behind it. I mean you've got people like Mario and
Speaker 1: Sonic and Lara Croft and some of the others, um,
Speaker 1: you know, other other lesser characters probably would not have
Speaker 1: been supported through this long, long period of vaporware for
Speaker 1: this game. But I honestly think that they certainly did
Speaker 1: something right by creating such a memorable action hero for
Speaker 1: this game. Definitely, and we'll have to I'll have to
Speaker 1: see how the public reacts to this this game coming out.
Speaker 1: It's um, it's been a long time coming, and really,
Speaker 1: at this point, I think it's impossible to say that
Speaker 1: any game could live up to the expectations of a
Speaker 1: thirteen year development cycle. But um, hopefully it won't just
Speaker 1: crash and burn right all the gate. I would love
Speaker 1: to actually see it succeed. For one thing, I anytime
Speaker 1: you can add more variety to the first person shooter genre,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm happy to see it. Uh. You know, there's
Speaker 1: some great examples out there, and there's some, but it's
Speaker 1: always nice to have another entry into there, especially if
Speaker 1: it's if it's one that's got, you know, some history
Speaker 1: behind it. So we'll keep our eyes open. We'll let
Speaker 1: you guys know what we think, or at least I'll
Speaker 1: let you know what I think when I get my
Speaker 1: hot little hands on it. And uh, that wraps up
Speaker 1: this discussion about Duke Nukem Forever it's something that I honestly,
Speaker 1: for a while there I wasn't expecting to see it ever. Ever, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think out yet, so I shouldn't. I shouldn't
Speaker 1: count my chickens or anything. But at any rate, if
Speaker 1: you guys have any suggestions for topics we should tackle,
Speaker 1: or you have any other like the story of pac
Speaker 1: Man or something that you really want us to to
Speaker 1: sit down and have a detailed discussion over, let us know.
Speaker 1: You can let us know on Facebook or Twitter. Are
Speaker 1: handled there is tech Stuff hs W, or you can
Speaker 1: email us at tech stuff at health stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com and Chris and I will talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon if you're a tech stuff and be sure
Speaker 1: to check us out on Twitter Text Stuff hs wsr
Speaker 1: handle and you can also find us on Facebook at
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash tech Stuff h s W. For
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com and be sure to check out
Speaker 1: the new tech stuff blog now on the house stuff
Speaker 1: Works homepage. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand
Speaker 1: twelve camera. It's ready, are you