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Gearbox suing 3D Realms, Interceptor for unauthorized Duke Nukem use

They fired the development team, but they kept the brand alive.

3D realms is nothing more than a licensing holder at this point. Though to be honest, I'm not really sure what licenses they have left. They used to have Prey before it was transferred over to Scott Millers "Radar Group", then the rights was transferred over to Zenimax. I'm just as confused about the Duke Nukem rights, though I would assume that anything that was published under the 3D Realms brand they retained the rights too. Also 3D Realms still owns the rights to some Apogee games, though back then, most of the games that were published (and not developed) by Apogee were retained ownership by the original creators. Commander Keen for example is owned by id Software (now Zenimax).

This might be 'we had designs for this on a dirty napkin' so it was actually in development.

They had a lot of Duke games in development behind the scenes, but so many of them never materialized. Duke Nuke: Endangered Species for one, Duke Nukem D-Day was another, and then there was the mysterious "Duke Nukem: Begins" that has been talked about from time to time. . For all we know they had the name for "Mass Destruction" in some early design document that never made it past initial planning stages, and just marked that as "in development".

They also gave sunglasses to Duke in Duke Nukem II for Steam.

I hadn't noticed.
 
Gearbox are terrible, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day. If I pay for exclusive use of a toilet then walk in and find shit smeared all over the walls which definitely isn't mine, I'd feel pretty ripped off.
 
Completely right to sue.

If I sold you my car, you wouldn't want me randomly showing up to take it for a spin. That's called theft.
 

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
I was ready to come in here and say something along the lines of "Randy Pitchford is an idiot, and he's a lawyer, so why is he doing something so stupid?" But... he's right.

Dammit.


It's a shame we have the concept of "copyright" at all; let the two companies compete to see who can make the better "Duke" game.

Apart from the fact that this is ridiculous (copyrights really do exist for a valid reason, even if they're sometimes subject to abuse these days), the issue here is trademarks. Copyright would refer to ideas, like the Duke Nukem character, level designs, artwork, etc. Trademark involves the Duke Nukem brand name.
 

Takao

Banned
Does 3D Realms not have the money to settle out of court? If they know they're wrong, why is this even a lawsuit?
 
What I saw when I heard these guys were making a Duke Nukem game = Business opportunity.

What Randy Pitchford saw when he heard these guys were making a Duke Nukem game = OMGWTF $$$$

Gearbox could have let them do it and taken a cut. They make money, everyone profits.

Here gearbox I'd throwing its weight around like it's the big boy in the yard but SEGA could have easily made life VERY difficult for them indeed.

I think you need to go back to school to get an understanding of how situations like this work in the real world.
 

Sciz

Member
Here gearbox I'd throwing its weight around like it's the big boy in the yard but SEGA could have easily made life VERY difficult for them indeed.

Gearbox ultimately delivered the product Sega paid for. Without knowing the details of the contract, we have no idea if it was breached or not.
 

Sciz

Member
SEGA could have requested a financial audit and found out if their money went towards the funding of BL2 and the Duke Nukem acquisition which it probably did and sue them over breach of contract and misuse of funds. I highly suspect contract was breached.

Assuming the contract specified how the money had to be used in the first place. Sega of America was run by monkeys at the time and seems to have been blindly paying money for delivered milestones. I really wouldn't put it past them to have written up language that wasn't ironclad. Maybe they weren't that stupid and it's just taking a while to gather evidence, or Gearbox actually did burn it all on the project and this whole debacle is an even more colossal management disaster than we think. Dunno.

Borderlands 1 sold pretty well in any case, so I've never been clear on where the assumption that Gearbox wasn't self-funding their own projects after that came from.
 

Shard

XBLAnnoyance
Interceptor needs to step away from Duke. Their remake got the go ahead from Gearbox before being axed suddenly. Now theyre caught in legal limbo between Gearbox and zombie 3DR. Time to move on from this IP.

It is probably too late for that in the sense of not getting sued.
 

Mr. Tibbs

Member
2015 update: The case was settled in mediation.

MnQaBrH.png

Bonus: Some in-game images of Mass Destruction before it became Bombshell.
9T4vQOs.jpg

7NhpwOz.jpg

Reveal trailer:
WGT6Sdb.jpg

Ryke8p8.jpg

CH8xk4j.jpg

Duke IP buy-back:
wmT7zEY.png

https://www.scribd.com/doc/26452006...oftware-Ltd-and-Interceptor-Entertainment-ApS
 

PaulloDEC

Member
I'm glad it's resolved, whatever that ends up meaning. The worst thing for IP is getting stuck in legal limbo.

As for Duke... well, it's no worse than half a dozen other iterations of the character I could name. Actually kinda glad we're getting a game with this lady instead:

uIvb.gif


Duke needs a long rest.
 
Holy shit this thread is sad. A lot of grey names in the first page.

I'm actually glad this happened, Bombshell looked nice in the gameplay trailer we got back in March.
 
Thanks for the update. Obviously there were the financial ramifications but hopefully the lawsuit was initiated because they (gearbox) still intend to do something with the IP
 

Orayn

Member
While 3DRealms is probably doing pretty well right now, it's hard to say if they'd actually have the money to buy back Duke Nukem after all the money Gearbox put into it. This could go either way, but I'd be very happy to see it return to Interceptor.
 

Mr. Tibbs

Member
Thanks for the update. Obviously there were the financial ramifications but hopefully the lawsuit was initiated because they (gearbox) still intend to do something with the IP

I would love it if that happened, but I can't see 2K publishing another Duke game. Even though they have an amazing relationship with Gearbox, 2K president Christoph Hartman said publishing DNF was one of his few regrets.

We've had precious few flops. And at least, of the few I can think of - and I can think of a few, sadly - at least one of them was just a misguided decision on my part, which was Duke Nukem.

If they won't publish a Duke game, who would?

Maybe if Interceptor's parent company SDN Invest is willing to shell out millions and millions they could acquire the rights?
 

Orayn

Member
I would love it if that happened, but I can't see 2K publishing another Duke game. Even though they have an amazing relationship with Gearbox, 2K president Christoph Hartman said publishing DNF was one of his few regrets.



If they won't publish a Duke game, who would?

Maybe if Interceptor's parent company SDN Invest is willing to shell out millions and millions they could acquire the rights?

Couldn't Devolver also pitch in since they've been working pretty closely with Interceptor/SDN lately? I remember Fork Parker saying (regretfully) that they couldn't buy the Blood IP because it was too expensive, but they might consider Duke more worth the investment.
 

Mr. Tibbs

Member
Couldn't Devolver also pitch in since they've been working pretty closely with Interceptor/SDN lately? I remember Fork Parker saying (regretfully) that they couldn't buy the Blood IP because it was too expensive, but they might consider Duke more worth the investment.

I really think a publisher like Devolver would be the best home for Duke. If they managed to acquire the series I would be a happy chappy.
 
I really think a publisher like Devolver would be the best home for Duke. If they managed to acquire the series I would be a happy chappy.

It would be cool, but seriously does anyone think Gearbox is going to do the right thing.

Gearbox generally speaking has been all over the place especially on IP's that are not Borderlands.
 

Nuke Soda

Member
3D Realms are totally in the wrong, and they had 8 years to make a Duke Nukem game before Gearbox finally bought the rights and shoved their piece of crap out the door. Gearbox is just as shameful for claiming they "care" about Duken Nukem as a property, nobody who cared would have shipped that abortion called Duke Nukem Forever...

But nobody loves Duke more than Randy Pitchford.
 
I really hope we eventually get a true return to form with Duke, something closer to a Duke 3d - 2. Hopefully Interceptor get to continue with Duke Reloaded.

I also wanna say I'd be totally down for Devolver Digital to get the rights or to see a Duke game by the Shadow Warrior people.
 

Shard

XBLAnnoyance
While 3DRealms is probably doing pretty well right now, it's hard to say if they'd actually have the money to buy back Duke Nukem after all the money Gearbox put into it. This could go either way, but I'd be very happy to see it return to Interceptor.

Well, the terms of the buyback are actually laid out in the update.3D Realms is buying back the IP at price they sold it at plus a amount going to Take 2 plus expenses incurred by Gearbox that can't be recouped any other way plus a royalty payment related to 3 AAA Duke games. Also that last paragraph has everything to do with certain situations relating to the royalty payments. Looks like it is going to cost tens of millions of dollars over a protracted length of time basically.
 

Mr. Tibbs

Member
Hopefully Interceptor get to continue with Duke Reloaded.

I don't think you would want that. Was Rise of the Triad an amazing shooter? That game had a budget and a full time team. Reloaded had none of that and was being developed by a less experienced team.

It's worth pointing out that Gearbox was apparently really happy with DNF, at least according to a Triptych team member:

A lot of people played it, Gearbox ran it through their in-house feedback system extensively. Truckloads of gamers brought in over weeks and weeks to play it and give their opinions. A quote I actually heard: "it's testing better than the first Borderlands game!"

Dozens of people way higher up the chain were apparently perfectly happy with it.

Just goes to show that you never know what the fuck.
 

BlackRock

Member
Duke needs the Machinegames treatment.

^^This. The best thing that could happen would be for Bethedsa to buy the IP and give it to Machinegames. Would that ever be possible? I'd love to see what they could do. Nothing will come of letting 3D Reams get it back, and I don't have confidence in Gearbox either.
 
I don't think you would want that. Was Rise of the Triad an amazing shooter? That game had a budget and a full time team. Reloaded had none of that and was being developed by a less experienced team.

It's worth pointing out that Gearbox was apparently really happy with DNF, at least according to a Triptych team member:

That's very strange that more than a single person play tested that and didn't pass on all the feedback about the issues with the game.

Perhaps they did and the higher ups didn't listen. I'm a big fan of DNF because I'm a big fan of Duke but there was certainly alot of room for improvement and polish even if only in the gunplay department.

But about interceptor I think Rise Of The Triad was a decent game, but I agree that I'd prefer Duke reloaded to be held to a higher standard, especially knowing all the backlash they'd get based on the negative image surrounding the IP after DNF.

One of my personal issues with ROTT was the way they handled movement but that has more to do with the series it's based on.

If I had to decide who would ultimately develop the next Duke game I think I would prefer Flying Wild Hog. Those people are incredibly talented when it comes to making good FPS games.

I'd love to live in a world with both a new Duke game as well as a competent remake of Duke 3d.
 
I hope interceptor gets it, since they have early DNF builds.

This is what needs more attention.

They have the old builds.

They've played the build from the 2002 trailer.

I would put a ton of money into a product that came with that- a way to "cross that part of my childhood off my to-do list".

There's a lot of potential left in Duke. It just needs the right people to take what is there and run with it!
 
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