When 3DRealims finally bit the dust, Randy Pitchford of Gearbox stepped in to make sure it kept going and convinced 2K his studio was the one.
”At first, they didn’t know what to do, and then they were like, ‘You know, why do we have to let it die? What if we just kept going?’,” said Gearbox boss Pitchford, talking about staff taking DNF home and still working on it.
”So they started working out of their houses, with all the stuff they brought home. They did a deal with Scott Miller, one of the owners of 3D Realms, and I think Scott and George Broussard were still trying to figure it out with the legal part going on.”
”So, I got wind of this, and I had seen what existed, and I know Alan, and I had worked with Alan, and I knew it was possible. I decided then that I was going to help – in Duke’s time of need,” he added, referring to senior level designer Alan Blum.
”I believed I could be the one to help this. I offered to fund them, and it got to the point where they needed it, so I started to fund them and I started talking to George and Scott about the business to see what we could fix it to make this possible.”
Duke Nukem’s very own savoir was Gearbox and Randy Pitchford’s determination to see his old IP stomping ground finally get a release date. The final phase in the plan was to now convince rights holder 2K Games that Gearbox was more than ready.
”I brought all of this to Take-Two. Since Take-Two owns all the publishing rights to Duke Nukem Forever, it’s obvious they want nothing more than for this game to be great,” said Pitchford, warming up 2K president Christoph Hartmann to the idea.
”So, with Christoph seeing that I was able to fix the situation and enable that, he got behind it; me and my studio and this approach just allowed all of the business to work out.”
”That’s the long story. The short story, is, yeah, we’ve had to be really secretive for over a year about this; this isn’t the game you want to make promises about.”
”This isn’t a game where I could come out and say, ‘Hey, we’re gonna make it all right,’ after the business was settled, because, let’s face it, we’ve heard that story before.” Duke Nukem Forever started development way back in 1997 - 13 years ago. Now the Duke is set to return next year as a multiplatform release with multiplayer.
Is it time yet to start believing we’ll actually see Duke Nukem Forever?
