Duke Nukem Creator Drops Lawsuit Against Gearbox

[Andy Chalk]

Duke Nukem Creator Drops Lawsuit Against Gearbox

3D Realms has dropped its Duke Nukem Forever lawsuit against Gearbox for unpaid royalties and actually apologized for the "misunderstanding."

3D Realms filed a lawsuit [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/124995-Duke-Nukem-Creator-Sues-Gearbox-For-Unpaid-Royalties] against Gearbox back in June, claiming that it was owed more than $2 million in royalty payments on Duke Nukem Forever. Gearbox, of course, denied the claim and went so far as to state that 3D Realms was "the only beneficiary of the deal," noting that the disastrously-bad game cost Gearbox money and did harm to its credibility.

And now, in a surprising twist, 3D Realms has very suddenly dropped the suit and actually admitted that it was wrong to file it in the first place. "After reviewing evidence regarding our business affairs, and without any money exchanging hands, we have satisfactorily resolved any and all differences that we perceived against Gearbox," co-founder Scott Miller wrote in an email sent to Kotaku. "In all sincerity, we regret the misunderstanding that instigated our lawsuit. Now that we better understand - and appreciate - the actual nature of our business matters, we have voluntarily withdrawn our claims against Gearbox, with genuine apologies to Randy for any damage that our lawsuit may have caused to the relationship."

That's not the sort of thing you hear every day, eh? I do have to wonder how any respectable company could file a multi-million-dollar lawsuit without "understanding the actual nature of its business matters," but I'm not a high-flying game development executive, so I probably just don't know how these things work. In any event, I guess that's that. Onward to the sequel!

Source: Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/duke-nukem-creators-drop-lawsuit-over-unpaid-royalties-1309368855]


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[WanderingFool]

... wait, this was the only thing holding back a DN sequal? Not the obvious mess that was DNF, killing any and all hopes for the franchise (which, thinking back to it, may actually be a good thing...)

 

[erbkaiser]

Is 3Drealms being run by escapees from the nut house? First they kill themselves by such absurd mismanagement of the DNF project that it is a joke to this day, and now they realise that they started a lawsuit without even understanding the contracts they signed?

Weird and weirder.

---

Ah well. If this clears the path for Gearbox to create a true new Duke Nukem game, and not having to pick up the scraps of one of the biggest disasters in gaming, yay I guess?
Gearbox clearly has talented people (Borderlands!) so they might actually pull it off if they can start from scratch, and don't need to try to polish up garbage.

 

[Weaver]

I liked DNF and I thought it was a fun game for what it was. I'd be happy with a sequel.
Teh Cookie, ASSEMBLEEEE!!!!!

 

[Shadowem]

Two things.

One, how sad is it that a company acting like a mature adult and owning up to a mistake using language that isn't full of weasel words is a rare thing in this day and age?

Two, how weird is it that it's 3DRealms acting like an adult?

 

[Falterfire]

... wait, this was the only thing holding back a DN sequal? Not the obvious mess that was DNF, killing any and all hopes for the franchise (which, thinking back to it, may actually be a good thing...)

To be fair, the Call of Juarez franchise managed to put out an excellent entry in the form of Gunslinger after the debacle that was The Cartel.

 

[The Random One]

Translation: "We fucked up this game so badly even we didn't know how badly we had fucked up, so we thought someone else was fucking us up. So we checked the numbers. Nope. All us."

To be fair, the Call of Juarez franchise managed to put out an excellent entry in the form of Gunslinger after the debacle that was The Cartel.

This is true. If you want to create a sequel to a franchise with an awful last entry, maybe start by not doing what the awful last entry did.

 

[WanderingFool]

... wait, this was the only thing holding back a DN sequal? Not the obvious mess that was DNF, killing any and all hopes for the franchise (which, thinking back to it, may actually be a good thing...)

To be fair, the Call of Juarez franchise managed to put out an excellent entry in the form of Gunslinger after the debacle that was The Cartel.

Point made.

But really, what could be done with Duke now?

 

[William Dickbringer]

... wait, this was the only thing holding back a DN sequal? Not the obvious mess that was DNF, killing any and all hopes for the franchise (which, thinking back to it, may actually be a good thing...)

To be fair, the Call of Juarez franchise managed to put out an excellent entry in the form of Gunslinger after the debacle that was The Cartel.

Point made.

But really, what could be done with Duke now?

honestly I think something could be done I mean looking through the art book and comic that came with the balls of steel edition (I paid only $20 for it because dat bust) and reading through there were some interesting ideas like female version duke nukem frickin mutated sharks with frickin laser beams it can't be too hard to think of something with duke nukem with all the assets that were scrapped from forever I think if they can get the writers of borderlands to work on it they could put something good together that's as close to next gen duke nukem as we can get (because it would be sad for duke nukem series to just end with it shitting the bed)

 

[2xDouble]

Translation: "We realized there really wasn't any money to be made, in spite of our best guesses, and we don't want to be even partially responsible for the massive losses our project generated when it flopped after we tried to kill it. We're sorry; our bad."

If I didn't already know it was a colossal waste of time and money, I'd suggest Gearbox countersue for the damage to both its corporate image and its related brands caused by this whole debacle.

...Seriously, Gearbox, don't do that. There's no point now.

I loved you guys, 3D Realms. You were on top of the world in the early 90's. What the hell happened?

 

[Callate]

I envision something like this:

3DRealms: And we are just disgusted by the way you've abused our relationship! We put years of our hard work- our blood, sweat, and tears- into your hands, and what do we get for it-

Gearbox hands 3DRealms a thick file

3DRealms: What is this? Some bunch of charts, and spreadsheets, and... OH! Oh my... What- My GOD...! Holy--- Can a game actually do that? It doesn't- oh, that's how, I guess it can... But... Okay, yeah, I guess some advertising was necessary after the closure and the... No, I guess we never did actually complete that part in the third engine... But the character is so- okay, that review was unkind, sure, but... All right, that was one of the kinder ones, yes, I get it now... Oh. Oh no. Oh, no no no. I- Uh...

Um, we're sorry?

No, please. Don't make me keep reading.

We're sorry.

Please, dear merciful God, we're sorry! Make it stop! MAKE IT STOP---!

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Or... major or here though, Gearbox paid them off, and part of the whole deal was for 3D Realms to "apologize" for the "misunderstanding".

Um... no. If Gearbox did indeed owe money, they wouldn't have the bargaining power to say "We'll pay, but only if you take a dive and look like the ass in this exchange".

The more likely scenario is that they looked at their books, and realized that "Oh shit, there's the record of the payment right there." Given how disorganized they were in getting DNF out, I have no doubt that their accounting is also a sloppy mess.

 

[Monsterfurby]

Or 3d Realms were hoping for Gearbox to blindly settle. When that didn't happen, they realized they didn't stand a chance in court and withdrew.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

Is 3Drealms being run by escapees from the nut house?

I'll let my esteemed colleague field this question

http://www.catster.com/files/20130426-lil-bub-zen-yes.jpg

3D Realms is, in fact, just as big a joke as the interwebz makes them out to be

& that's a shame, not just because I shelled out for the Balls of Steel Edition of DNF at release (call it a nostalia tax), but because they had a lot of potential with great ol' IP's