Developers close up shop all the time. We know the story. Lots of money changes hands, differences between the developer and the publisher come and go, stockholders get nervous, people quit, funding dries up, the studio closes, the game goes away, fans variously gloat and wail. In the annals of common stories, it's right up there with boy meets girl.
But it's not quite going to play out that way in the case of Duke Nukem Forever, which looked like it was just going to go away when 3D Realms supposedly closed up shop recently. According to an official announcement, Duke developer 3D Realms is still in business.
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.It's almost endearing how the announcement starts out as a press release, complete with a dateline, and then quickly devolves into a blog post and then a rant. Also cute are the three-letter abbreviations where you normally put the stock ticker symbols for a publicly traded company. Instead, 3D Realms (3DR) is just helpfully alerting you to the fact that they're going to reference themselves and their game in short-hand later on in the press release.
The bottom line is that no one's going to see a Duke Nukem game anytime soon. For all intents and purposes, Duke Nukem Forever has left the hands of game developers and is now in the hands of lawyers. In a sad way, it's a very American fate.
Duke Nukem Forever decides it's better to litigate out than fade away | Fidgit
