Wired article on why Duke Nukem Forever failed...

[IndyColtsFan]

***Official*** response from 3DRealms on this article.



Other response relating to this article.

You mean the development team was released but George Broussard is still there? WTF!

 

[JoshGuru7]

I think the article author does have some good points to make but at the same time it's important to recognize how easy it is to play monday morning quarterback and fall into a narrative fallacy. What seems so obvious in retrospect was not obvious at the time - consider that Avatar technically spent 12 years in development and would have the exact same remarks made about it if it had not been successful. A successful release would have vindicated Broussard and led to quite a different article...

I think it's worth bringing up Nassim Taleb's rule of cost overruns from The Black Swan. He argues that project delays lead to geometrically increased expectations of when the project will be finished. In other words, knowing that project is currently delayed by 1 week may lead you to believe that it will be finished in approximately 1 more week. However, knowing that a project is currently delayed by three weeks should cause you to estimate that it may take longer than three additional weeks to finish (indeed, much longer in the case of development projects like DNF). What seems so suprising from an informed position is much less surprising when you step back and consider it as simply one of many projects.

No computer gaming industry analyst considered the eventual DNF result as a possibility in 1995 and I think it's a mistake to put too much information into our ability to narrate the past to retroactively breakdown exactly what made the difference between success and failure.

 

[gszx1337]

Am I the only one who thinks Take Two will get it, and develop it?!

They fucking better get DNF.

Forgot to mention that group picture, Wow. Sausage Party X9000. I wonder if a woman ever set foot in that place the whole 12 years. I bet it was a socially dysfunctional nerd disaster inside.

Did you notice that there also only one black guy?

My God, this Broussard guy's Twitter is full of fail.

'Sup 2010! Glad to see you. Fuck you 2009, you sucked. GTFO.

Saw Avatar in IMAX 3D Monday night. Amazing movie. Not quite this generation's Star Wars, but great GO SEE IT IN 3D! It's the future.

Fuck Avatar.

Tiger Woods' wife is a 19. Why? She's a 10 with a 9 iron

Ugh. -_-

Wouldn't have been better to code an engine from scratch instead of using the Unreal 2 engine? The game was already in development for so lon, they might as well have their own engine (it'd probably make it easier to deal with Broussard's constant demands).

 

[SteelyKen]

Dear George,

We are sorry to hear of your unfortunate circumstances concerning your failure to release
your product. Most people do not understand how much work and sacrifice
it takes to make an awesome game.
You should have contacted me sooner. Stevie and I would have loved to help you out.

Sincerely Yours,
John Romero