WEBVTT - The Duke Nukem Forever Saga 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.960 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:09.000 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:18.120 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:20.759 Welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette, and 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:23.160 I am an editor at how stuff works dot com, 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:26.520 sitting across from me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:29.160 Then let's head on down into that cellar and carve 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:34.960 ourselves a witch. Okay, then today we're going to talk 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:39.600 about something that's received a lot of press over the 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.640 years and a lot of ridicule um, some of which 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:46.440 I mean I couldn't argue. I think it was justified. Uh, 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:52.240 we're going to talk about the saga of Duke Newcomb Forever. Ah. Yes, 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:55.840 for those of you who are unfamiliar, Duke Newcomb is 0:00:55.920 --> 0:01:01.760 an h An action video game superstar. Yeah. Uh and uh, 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:03.560 you know, I would guess you would call it a 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:07.800 first person shooter. Well, yeah, let's let's let's go back 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:09.280 and set the scene a little bit before we get 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:11.920 into the first person shooter apart, because lucle the history 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:16.160 actually stretches back before the first person shooter genre. Really. Yes, 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:21.200 all right, First of all, before we even go into 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:26.280 this at all, Wired has reported that the typical development 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:31.040 cycle for a video game is two to four years. Yes, 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:33.120 so it can take between two and four years to 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.720 develop a typical video game. And that's uh. That was 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:39.240 a recent article, so I think that would go for 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:43.760 today's video games. So keep that in mind. Two to 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:47.760 four years, all right. This story starts really with a 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:53.840 pair of friends, Scott Miller and George Brossard. Scott Miller 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:57.280 was a are still is, and Scott Miller started programming 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:00.600 back in building video games all the way back in. 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:04.600 One of the first ones he wrote is called Beyond 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:07.360 the Titanic, which is now freeware. You can actually go 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:09.720 and download it. It's a text based game, sort of 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:13.359 like the old Zorki games. I love those games me too, 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:16.000 and I really enjoyed this as well. So Beyond the Titanic, 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:17.360 if you do a search for it, you can actually 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:21.880 play one of Scott Miller's first games. See. Miller came 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:25.880 up with a brilliant idea. He thought, why not find 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:28.960 a way to get people interested in a computer game 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:32.560 by releasing part of the game for free and then 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:35.480 in order to unlock the whole game, you have to pay, 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:39.680 which is the shareware based model. Okay. So he came 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.640 up with this idea and he founded a company called 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:48.880 APAG Software Limited. So this was back in. Apage was 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:51.840 kind of a part time business for for Scott and 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.560 then in he quit his job and concentrated on Appa 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:59.720 G full time. And uh and Bissard George Bissard was 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:02.560 a a co founder. He was also interested in this 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:09.080 and um he joined on with Scott Miller. So July one, nineteen, 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:14.040 the first Duke Newcomb game came out. That's Duke Newcomb 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:17.360 one point oh right. Back then it was a side 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.919 scroller game. Yes, so so not a first person shooters, 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:24.239 side schooler side scrollers like the old Super Mario Brothers games, 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:27.160 you know, not like a platformer. A platform er exactly, 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:32.040 it was. It was innovative because your character could go left, right, up, 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.320 or down. The screen would scroll in all four directions, 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:39.000 so you weren't forced in a single direction like you know, 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:40.960 like the old Super Mario game. You start going to 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.480 the right, you could never backtrack to the left. Yeah, 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:45.080 there are a number of games I've played like that. 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:47.920 It's very frustrating if you feel like you could catch 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:51.760 that extra power up and you know it too late, right, Yeah, 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:53.280 you ran a little too far and now you can't 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:56.960 get that one up on the first level Super Mario Brothers. 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:00.680 Not that I'm better anyway. So uh So that was 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:03.600 the first game in the Duke Newcomb series and introduced 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:07.040 this kind of Schwarzenegger type hero, although back then a 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:09.560 very primitive. Again, it's just a side scroller in a 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:12.560 white justice, very good side scroller, but it was not 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:14.600 a first person shooter. I was gonna say. It was 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:16.880 just sort of a two bit character, except he was 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:20.000 more than two bits, like eight. He was definitely a 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:24.560 two dimensional definitely. But the game had some cheat codes 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:26.760 in it and other stuff they got built into later 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:30.599 Duke nukemb games. So that was July first nine, and 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:34.599 by November one, Duke Newcomb two point I was released. Um, 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:37.840 and then we're going to skip ahead too. May five, 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:43.000 a new game developed by i D Software hits. Do 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:47.240 you know what this one was? It involved shooting Nazis. 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:55.400 It's that wolf Stein. Yes, Wolfenstein. Um, Wolfenstein three D 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:59.040 comes out. Now Appog wasn't just a game developer, they 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:01.839 were also a game public sure. So this game was 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:06.440 developed by i D software. I always said that was it. Yeah, 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.440 it's probably it. I've always I you know what, I 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:11.440 have always called it it. And I got to this 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:13.159 and I was like, I'm just gonna say i D 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:16.680 just in case it software, We'll go with it. So 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:20.760 it created Wolfenstein three D. APPAG published it, and this 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:24.760 started off the whole first person shooter craze. Really, I mean, 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:27.600 it was the first one to really get attention on 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:33.720 the BC. So December three Duke Newcomb two comes out 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:36.600 and it's still a side scrolling game, but the property 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:41.479 is still going strong, and in Appog creates a new 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:45.560 brand called three D Realms. Now, the idea back then 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:49.160 was that appog was publishing all these different styles of games, 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:51.919 and they thought if they could create a brand specific 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:54.840 to each style of game, it would make it easier 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:57.599 to identify. So three D Realms would have gone with 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:02.200 all the three D environment games, mostly first person shooters. Uh. 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:04.680 It turned out that eventually three D Realms became the 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:08.080 unofficial name for the company, that the legal name was 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:11.479 still APAG Software Limited, where everyone knew of them as 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:14.560 three D Realms, mostly because the first person shooter I 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.240 think pretty much took off and the other honors kind 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:25.440 of died down. So January twenty nine, nineteen n Duke 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:31.160 Newcomb three D hits It Goes Gold. This was the 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:35.440 game that that really took the world by storm. Uh. 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:41.120 It was incredibly successful, so successful that it flooded three 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:46.160 D realms coffers with filthy, filthy lucre. In other words, 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:48.559 it made him rich. Yeah, they made that some money 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:51.200 off Duke Newcomb three D. A lot of people just 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:52.600 thought the game was a lot of fun as a 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:56.680 first person shooter, had a lot of snarky comments, and 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:59.880 it mostly culled from the Army of Darkness and evil 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.960 ed movies. Uh, you could easily imagine Bruce Campbell. Actually 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:06.400 is easy to imagine Bruce Cambell saying these things because 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:09.279 he has said them. But your character would say things 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:12.160 like come get some and groovy and all that kind 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:15.840 of stuff, which pretty much came straight from those movies. Um. Yeah, 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:17.240 I'll have to take your word for it because I'm 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:20.200 not much into the first person shooter top games. I 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:24.360 played played it so many hours of Nukem three D. Now. 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:27.240 It was based off a The The engine that used 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:30.560 was called build it was It was developed in House 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:33.480 by three D Realms. Yeah, and there were very very 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:37.360 few people I I understand who built the original game, 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:40.200 very very small team of people who created it. Yeah. 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:43.640 This was back before you had to have enormous teams 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.600 to build a video game. I mean, today you'll hear 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:50.120 weird reports of I think I once heard that Grand 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:54.640 Theft Auto four cost an insane amount of money to develop, 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:57.600 Like we're talking like a hundred million dollars to develop. 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:01.640 I don't believe that necessarily, but it's kind of indicative 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:05.640 of how video game development has has spiraled into this 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:08.200 enormous thing when back in the day it was a 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:14.080 much smaller uh task. So uh yeah. So the game 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:16.400 comes out in ninety six, it's a huge success. Three 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:20.080 D Realms ends up getting really really rich off of it, 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:23.840 um Brossard and Miller in particular, and they weren't doing 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:28.840 poorly too before that. It's just that Duke NUKEMB really Yeah. 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.920 And then um some patches and mods come out over 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:35.880 the next few years for Duke NUKEMB three D which 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:38.800 allow you to alter the game. I've actually played a few. 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:41.400 I remember getting a mod for Duke NUKEMB three D 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:44.400 that created a whole new levels that were not designed 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:46.960 by three D Realms. Other people have designed these and 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:48.920 then uploaded them, and then you could download them and 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:51.120 as long as you had the basic game, you could 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:55.000 play the moded levels. Um. You also could play on 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:58.240 a local area network against other players, which to me 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.440 was phenomenal. I remember the first two games I ever 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:05.079 did that with were Duke Nukemb three D and Descent, 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.640 which was the three dimensional spaceship game where you you 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:13.439 could move in three different planes right, you could go up, down, left, right, 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:15.599 actually you know you do the X, y and z 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:25.200 axes anyway, So really popular game. Three D Realms diad 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:29.960 what would come back to hunt them multiple times over 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:33.840 the next few years. They announced officially the development of 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:38.679 a game called Duke Newcombe Forever. It was at this 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:42.360 point where Brossard had decided that because the first Duke 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:46.920 Newcomb game three D game was such a huge success, uh, 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:50.120 he was not going to cut any corners in developing 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:53.280 Duke Nukem Forever. And that was a decision that would 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:58.480 hunt many people for many years. Yep um. Both Jonathan 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:00.840 and I had consulted an article that ran and wired 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:05.199 um in December two thousand nine by Clive Thompson. It's 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:07.600 a really, really awesome article. If you're interested in this topic, 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.400 you should definitely go check it out. But from from 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:14.480 everything I read, especially in that article, UM, it appears 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:19.200 that he is the consummate perfectionist. He wants everything to 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:23.840 be just so um and to a fault. And the 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:26.160 problem with that in the video game world is that 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:31.280 as you're developing a game, other companies are developing new engines, 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:34.040 and a new engine will come out that will make 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:38.040 your game look primitive in comparison. And so Broussard hated this. 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:40.920 Like back back when they were developing Duke Nukem three D, 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:44.240 they were on the cutting edge, right, And then what 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:47.400 happened was when they went to Duke Nukem Forever, Broussard 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.280 made a judgment call. He decided that it would be 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:54.160 faster and more efficient and more cost effective if they 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:58.840 licensed the game engine uh instead of trying to build 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.320 a brand new one. Because the build game engine was 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:04.760 showing signs of being out of date renew they were 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:06.760 gonna have to go with a new game engine. I 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:08.640 think we should point out to what a game engine 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:12.960 actually is. Um. Yeah, it's like the chassis. I would 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:15.240 guess if you use a car metaphor for it, it's 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.520 it's the software on which the world can be built 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:21.719 for a first person shooter game, especially, I would I 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:24.599 think if an engine as being a first person or 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:28.480 three D type construct, not like a side scroller platform 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:31.560 or something like that. Yeah, and often it'll have elements 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.280 to it. It may or may not involve a physics engine, 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:37.320 because sometimes you can have a physics engine that's separate 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:40.280 from the game engine, um that gets incorporated later. It's 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:44.160 built on top of that chassis if you will. I shouldn't. 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:46.760 I shouldn't mix engine and chassis. But yeah, I mean 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:50.160 it's the if you used engine strictly as the metaphor, Yeah, 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:53.320 it's what powers the game or and the physics engine 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:56.800 powers how the physics run in the game right exactly, 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:59.640 So you may have everything from how the game renders 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:03.720 to just just what happens when you do this, What 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:08.000 is the result, like when you shoot a monster? What 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:10.000 is the result. All of the stuff depends upon the 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:13.920 game engine. And uh, and we're most mostly talking about 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:17.840 the way the game engine rendered graphics, especially graphics in motion, 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:23.760 and so Brizard made the decision to to uh least 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:29.240 the Quake two engine um and of course Quake two 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:32.200 was that this engine was designed by by a completely 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.439 different company. UM, so three D Realms had you know, 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.000 they had to pay in order to use it, but 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:42.440 they decided that would be faster than developing their own. Uh. 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:46.840 This same year, which was again uh, that was when 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.480 Miller announced that the villain from the very first Duke 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:53.959 Newcomb game, Newkemb one point oh the side score one 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:58.040 Dr Proton would be returning in some form newkemb forever. 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:01.880 All right, so when they announced it, they start to 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:06.240 lease the Quake two engine. Uh and uh. In May, 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:10.920 trailer came out for this game for E three Right three, 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:16.360 which is the Electronic Entertainment Expert. Yeah. Yeah, it's all 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:18.480 about video games and I've been a couple of times. 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:23.440 It is amazing and intimidating. So this trailer came out 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:26.080 and people thought it was pretty impressive. It showed some 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:30.680 new gameplay elements, including Duke firing guns at aircraft as 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:34.760 he's on a moving truck. So it had like a 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:37.000 part where you're playing in a turret. You know, you 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:41.080 were manning a turret and firing at at planes pretty 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:45.520 cool stop a big jump from Duke Newcomb three d uh. 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.120 And there was also an introduction of a female character 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:51.560 called Bombshell, who the less said about the better. Anyway, 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:54.960 she did not look like she was a Saying that 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:57.120 she wasn't a fully developed character is probably going to 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:00.360 be the wrong way of putting it. Um, I'll just 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:03.080 leave it at that. Let's just say that a lot 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:07.560 of a lot of Duke nukelem is based off juvenile fantasies. Yeah. 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:12.640 So then, and that was one month later, three D 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:16.199 Realms announces that it's dropped the Quake to license. It's 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:20.480 switching instead to the Unreal engine, which is was from 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:24.040 Epic Mega Games. Yeah. I remember when Unreal came out, 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:27.640 and so many people who loved the first person shooter 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:33.520 genre really really enjoyed Unreal and Unreal tournament. Um and 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:36.040 I do remember that being a great big deal at 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:40.240 the time because it was basically it's Quake versus Epic 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:44.440 Mega Games Unreal and which one was the best. And Yeah, 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:46.880 I think I think most people did think that Unreal 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:52.160 was provided faster, smoother graphics than Quake. They may not 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:54.320 have liked the gameplay as much. But they thought that 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:56.520 the graphics themselves were better, which is kind of what 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.600 Broussard thought, so they decided to go with the Unreal 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.600 engine instead of the Quake two engines. So at that time, 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.800 Broussard says, hey, don't worry, this won't really delay us 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:08.200 that much. Expect the game next year, which would be 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:12.720 and how long is this after the initial announcement? Two years? 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:15.120 So we're now two years in because ninety seven was 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:19.080 the official announcement um and nine would uh, you still 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:21.760 have seen nothing of the game. And two years after 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:25.280 they first started working, actually two years after they first 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:28.080 announced it. Going to keep in mind it companies work 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:30.920 on these things before they announced them, right right, So 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:33.200 it's it's at least two years into a two to 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:36.880 four year average developments, and they've just scrapped their game 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:39.400 engine entirely, which means they're going to have to recode 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:42.960 every much everything from scratch. You might keep the level 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:45.400 designed the same, and you might keep the same sort 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:48.080 of monsters and everything. You may want to try and 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:51.320 maintain the same look but in a more sophisticated way, 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:55.800 but you still have to recode all that. So October 0:15:55.840 --> 0:16:00.440 twenty second, n that's when Miller says that they're tweaking 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.840 the engine again to take advantage of new Unreal uh 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:09.080 engine improvements that were developed for Unreal Tournament. Mostly this 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.280 would be the multiplayer stuff, but just engine improvements in general. 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:19.560 So November they say, Okay, these engine changes are causing 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:22.120 more delays than we thought. We're having to patch the 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.680 engine a lot, and so it's slowing us down a bit. 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:30.040 Uh And at that point, a company called Info Grames 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:34.160 purchased a majority stake and another company called GT Interactive. 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:38.400 Al Right, GT Interactive was the retail distributor for Duke 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:42.880 newkembe Forever, so now those rights revert to Info Grames. 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:47.640 Info Grames announces expect Duke Nukem Forever in the year 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:53.360 two thousand, three years after the initial announcement. Uh So, 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:58.200 that year two thousand was the first time Wired gave 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:02.680 Duke Nukem Forever a special award. Well that would be 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:06.000 more of an infamous infamous award. Yeah, it gave it 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:10.719 the second place for the Vaporware of the Year awards. 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:14.520 We've we've mentioned vaporware a few times on the podcast. 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:18.720 I don't think we've mentioned it recently at all um. Basically, 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.439 when there is a product this I've heard the chairman 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:24.760 used more in tech than anything else, but it refers 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:28.960 to a product or software that is announced people expected 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:32.439 for a while, and then keep expecting it for a 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:35.080 little while longer, and then after that they expected some 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:38.880 morning it just never shows up. And sometimes the company folds. 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:42.320 Other times, you know, they you know, end up scrapping 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:45.359 the project, or it gets it gets somehow looped into 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:47.960 some other project and so it's called something else when 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:51.120 it finally comes out and people don't remember. Yeah. But 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:53.359 in this case, the company was still very much around 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:55.760 and they were still theoretically working on the project. Actually 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:58.040 not theoretically, they were in fact working on the project, 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:01.240 but it just hadn't shown up, And so Wired gives 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:03.200 it the second place of the Vaporware of the Year 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:07.000 awards in two thousand, two thousand one, it gets first place, 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.040 and it gets it again in two thousand two, and 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:12.880 in two thousand three they give it the Lifetime Achievement Award. 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:16.520 So in two thousand four no Duke Knewcom forever listed 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:19.600 in Wired Vaporware of the Year, but two thousand five, 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:25.240 two thousand six, two thousand seven, two thousand eight, it's listed. 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:28.959 They skipped it. In two thousand nine they acknowledged two 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:30.919 do comb Forever, but they did not include it in 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:35.720 the list. So vaporware all those years, and again that's 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:37.600 much longer than a two to four year life cycle. 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:40.280 But but jumping back a little bit, I'm sorry you're 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:42.160 gonna say something. Well, no, I was going to jump 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:44.520 back a little bit because you know, at this point 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:49.200 in in uh Clive Thompson's article back in two thousand three, 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:53.720 UM he said only eighteen people were working on developing 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:58.679 the software UM which again talking in today's terms at 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:02.760 two to four year development cycle. UM, that's relying on 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:05.960 a staff of fifty or even more people depending on 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:10.280 the title. And a game as ambitious as Duke Nukem Forever, 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:12.960 you would expect lots of people to be working on this, 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.880 especially because well honestly, they expected to make a lot 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:19.399 of money on it, so you could afford to hire 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.160 more programmers and get more people involved with the project 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.240 because you'd be able to pay off in the end 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:27.640 even with that added expense. Yeah, here's here's the thing, 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:30.320 is that because they made so much money with Duke 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:33.399 Nukem three D and because and other projects, they had 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.400 a lot of money they could pour into this development project. Yes, 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:38.720 so it's we should we should clear this up to 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:42.600 uh and we'll back in back in two thousand, December 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:46.080 two thousand, to jump back just a little further, Infogrames 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:49.800 sold those those retail distribution rights to someone else. Do 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:52.359 you remember who that was? No, I don't take two. 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:54.959 Oh yes I did. Take two. Interactive just didn't want 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:58.560 to be wrong. Same distributors who who publish out games 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:01.240 like Red Dead, Redemption, the Offee games, Grand Theft, Auto 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:05.639 Civilization five, Take two. Indeed, so take two that's going 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:07.240 to be important in a little bit when we get 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:11.080 to the explosion of three D realms in the Duke 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:16.640 Nukem Forever project. So now now jumping back ahead, yeah, 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:20.240 you you started to see problems more than more than 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:23.560 just delays. I mean the in two thousand two they 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:25.760 scrapped all the work they had done on Duke Nukem 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:29.240 Forever and decided to dump the unreal engine and go 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:33.680 with an in house engine after all, right, you know, Jonathan, 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:36.520 I think it's fascinating, Just as a side note here 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:40.000 um that there are if you're interested in evidence of 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:42.520 these different builds of the game. There are trailers that 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:46.080 they would show at E three every so often to 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:48.719 show what they were working on, and you can actually 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:51.000 see evidence of the different builds of the game running 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:54.560 on different engines. Yeah, there's there's aating, there's a trailer 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:56.760 for the one that they showed a d three. There's 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:01.320 a trailer for the unreal engine version, which was shown 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:05.080 I think in UM Yeah, two thousand one at E three. Again. Uh, 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:07.600 the Inhalse stuff is sort of what we're seeing now, 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:11.200 although it's been heavily modified of course since that time 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:16.200 at any rate. So so they've gone through three different 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:19.119 game engines they went. They also switched their physics engine 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:23.120 at one point, so that there's another change there. Um. 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:25.640 At one point, take To, a CEO for Take two, 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:28.879 said that they were actually using the Doom three engine, 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:32.840 but Broussard refuted Dad said that was not true. And 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:35.920 Um and Broussard and take To have had a very 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:39.720 contentious history. Yeah, it seemed like it from the from 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:42.320 the Thompson article especially. Yeah, there was a point where 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:46.200 the CEO for Take two said that the game would 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:50.520 definitely not be out before a certain time and Broussard said, Hey, 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:53.480 you have no right to say when and win a 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:55.919 game will or will not be ready, because you're just 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:59.560 publishing it, you're not building it, So shut up. You 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:02.119 don't know anythink I've actually used much worse language than that, 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:06.679 but at any rate, So Brissard was not shy about 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:11.879 this at all, and during the around two thousand and six, 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:17.240 three D Realms had a severe morale problem with especially 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:20.560 with the development team for Duke Newcomb Forever, because this 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:22.919 is two thousand six. They've been developing this game for 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:26.280 almost a decade. Now, well, think about it. If you're 0:22:26.320 --> 0:22:28.960 one of the programmers, you would be able to say 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:33.040 that you had this massive, super duper cool title on 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:35.360 your resume and go, look what I worked on. Except 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:39.560 if it never shows up, then you get to say, yeah, 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:41.320 I just wasted the last five years in my life 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:43.280 on something that never got released. More than that, it 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:46.560 also became a monetary thing because, as it turns out, 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:50.840 three D Realms apparently was was paying their developers less 0:22:50.880 --> 0:22:56.720 money than compete competing developers. But the promise of three 0:22:56.800 --> 0:23:00.280 D Realms was that hey, look at Duke newkemb three 0:23:00.359 --> 0:23:03.800 D that game was phenomenal. It made us rich. This 0:23:03.840 --> 0:23:05.840 game is going to make you rich because we're going 0:23:05.880 --> 0:23:11.160 to give you these profits sharing uh bonuses. So but 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:12.800 here's the problem is that you can't share in a 0:23:12.880 --> 0:23:16.119 profit if the game never comes out. So one of 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:18.960 those little tricky things about profits, you can't make them 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:23.960 till you're selling something. Um. So, the profit sharing promise 0:23:24.080 --> 0:23:26.359 was starting to get a bit stale, actually very stale 0:23:26.359 --> 0:23:30.359 by two thousand six, and several employees left Three D 0:23:30.400 --> 0:23:34.199 Realms during that period. Um Duke Nukem forever look like 0:23:34.200 --> 0:23:36.159 it was in danger of being put on the shelf 0:23:36.240 --> 0:23:38.119