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3D Realms: We're Not Dead, Take-Two's Lawsuit Baseless
by Staff
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May 19, 2009
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Responding to a just-filed Take-Two lawsuit over Duke Nukem Forever, creator 3D Realms is claiming that it will continue as "a much smaller studio", and rebutting several of T2's lawsuit claims.
In an official press release sent to the game media, un-named 3D Realms company representatives have debuted the following update on the company's plight.
As previously documented, development on the long in-development Duke Nukem Forever recently ceased, with the vast majority of the team being laid off.
As recently noted, the official 3D Realms website currently has a 'Goodbye' post with a picture of the full Duke Nukem Forever team inside the company's Texas offices.
However, 3DR representatives have made the following statement regarding the developer and the lawsuit circumstances, claiming the developer will continue to exist as a much smaller entity:
"In light of recent press articles and statements by Take-Two (to the media and in a lawsuit), we want to set the record straight on some issues.
Despite rumors and statements to the contrary, 3D Realms (3DR) has not closed and is not closing. 3DR retains ownership of the Duke Nukem franchise. Due to lack of funding, however, we are saddened to confirm that we let the Duke Nukem Forever (DNF) development team go on May 6th, while we regroup as a company. While 3DR is a much smaller studio now, we will continue to operate as a company and continue to license and co-create games based upon the Duke Nukem franchise.
As some of you may know, Take-Two filed a lawsuit last week containing various accusations and claims against 3DR and the uncompleted DNF game. 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.
Take-Two retains publishing rights for the DNF game, although 3DR retains certain rights to sell the game directly to the public. Late last year, 3DR began negotiations with Take-Two to provide funding to complete the DNF game. In the meantime, 3DR was hitting mutually-agreed milestones, despite not having a new agreement finalized.
Take-Two was well aware that 3DR needed the funding to continue the DNF game development. Suddenly, after months of negotiations, Take-Two materially changed the parameters of the proposed funding agreement. 3DR informed Take-Two that it could not financially afford the changes Take-Two was suggesting and would be forced to release the team if an agreement was not reached.
Take-Two made a last minute proposal to acquire the Duke Nukem franchise and the 3DR development team. Take-Two's proposal was unacceptable to 3DR for many reasons, including no upfront money, no guarantee minimum payment, and no guarantee to complete the DNF game. From 3DR's perspective, we viewed Take-Two as trying to acquire the Duke Nukem franchise in a "fire sale." Those negotiations fell through on May 4th, a deal never materialized, and the DNF team was sadly released a few days later.
Less than a week after the DNF team was released, Take-Two filed its lawsuit in New York, seeking immediate temporary injunctive relief. The court denied Take-Two's request for a temporary restraining order. While we cannot comment on the details of the ongoing lawsuit, we believe Take-Two's lawsuit is without merit and merely a bully tactic to obtain ownership of the Duke Nukem franchise. We will vigorously defend ourselves against this publisher."
Gamasutra will have more details on the lawsuit and Take-Two's position regarding Duke Nukem Forever as public statements are made.
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I cannot agree with your statement.
Based on the Leak footage and all the internal production images that were on the net from last week, I would say Duke Nukem Forever was looking fantastic and amazing.
I am curious as to the prospect of an internal Development Timeline.
It seems like its been started from scratch several times in the past few years.
Personally I think that they should just bow down and use either the Unreal 3 engine or the Cry2 engine. The game IS a FPS after all. Just pump out the art assets, modify the engine code as needed, import assets, test for bugs, get to Gold, and sell the damn game.
Serious now, I always feel bad when I see stuff like that translate in company lay-offs. Hope those guys get a new job asap.
but seriously this story has just become sad. The only thing more sad is the continued support for a studio that is completely incompetent and has no idea how to make one game in over a decade. If only the production staff could lay itself off instead of the dev team.
Technically, it is impossible to 3DR close without Apogee itself closing, 3DR is a brand, not a studio or a company (Apogee, that people think that is a "ressurected company" is the actual company, that only use that name for 2D games, something that they did not made for a loooong time...)
Most likely everyone tought: "Ohhh my god! 3DR is closing! Apogee died!!!!" And people ignroed the part: "Apogee still exists and still is making the NDS Duke games..." the only part that they were clear and now they are being unclear is if they cancelled DNF or not ("closing" 3DR mean no 3D game, DNF is 3D, thus no DNF... but dunno, maybe they want to break their own traditions and make a Apogee branded DNF... Or a shareware DNF? I love sharewares!!!)
Yes, DNF == Did Not Finish O.O
Whats T2 being so mean about? T2 should have been nicer and helped 3dr with the cash and then made bucket loads of money when DNF would have released instead of this stuff going on.
Wow, that's 20M for a lot of booze and drugs.
I love DN - but seriously, finish the game or move on. This is embarrassing to see.
3DR have been leaking footage of DNF for the last 10 years. They have changed engines at least 3 times that I know of and somehow still had nothing to show for it. The game is vapourware pure and simply. It's the reason T2 refused to fund 3DR after they took stock of where the project was at after 14 years. It's rumoured that 3DR only started seriously working on the project when T2 first threatened to pull the plug a few months ago.
I say almost cruel, because anyone entertaining this hope likely has the inevitable dissapointment (or, worse, the eternal limbo) coming to them. Even if the game were to be released (unlikey) the odds of it being good are equal to the odds of any game being good (small, as most are entirely disposable) multiplied by a decades worth of problems.