How Success Killed The Duke
The latest issue of Wired revolves around a fascinating theme. How do we deal with failure? How has failure been a force to drive technology forward?
The gaming industry is no stranger to failure – it’s a messy, expensive business. It’s hard to fathom, but many of our favorite games have been utter commercial failures. Some games, like Okami, have failed twice. Still, if you ask any gamer to think of the biggest disaster in the past decade, they’ll almost inevitably give you one answer. This answer, this damning phrase, is Duke Nukem Forever.
Duke Nukem Forever’s failure to materialize became a running joke five years before the game’s cancellation, which came just after we finally were presented evidence to suggest that it actually existed. This is a game that should have set the world on fire, coming from a talented team with the money to back up their ambition. The problem – that very ambition. Clive Thompson’s feature gives us the most detailed look to date at what actually happened behind 3DRealm’s closed doors.
Sit back and grab a mug of tea, it’s a pretty damn compelling look at the gaming industry’s Titanic .
Learn to Let Go: How Success Killed Duke Nukem
(Illustration by Olly Moss)
Gregory Gay - December 22nd, 2009 - 
the.maverickk on December 22, 2009 at 4:19 am
It’s a very obvious mistake that occurred. Every artist knows you have to have a product to show eventually.
Essentially the hype surrounding the game has far surpassed what the product is capable of being. It can happen to a lot of games.
The longer gamers wait for a game, the greater the hype… and success or failure can be determined to just how much hype there is. In reality there is no possible way Duke Nukem Forever could live up to the hype ever, it’s legacy is set to become legend and a cautionary tale to developers everywhere to make sure not to take too much time.
Even if DNF was released today I think people who have been waiting and waiting would not have their hype satisfied. It would just be a major disappointment from the high. It may be a phenomenal game but the level of hype in the players mind may have expecations that are unreasonable.
The sadder fact is that Take Two is likely gambling on the hope of snagging the IP right from it’s owners for later cash grabbing. It’s a franchise which could garner lots of money for Take Two… a lot more then the measly nearly 3 mill it paid for the game (did they actually pay that 2 million they asked for? cause it seemed like they turned down that offer… so in the end they only paid 400 thousand then right?).
In any case I think this game will go down as legend fro mhere on in.
Joe on December 22, 2009 at 2:26 pm
I read the artical and its very interesting. I think I heard of Duke Nukem Forever but never pay much attention to it, only playing the original once at a friends house. Anyway let this be a lesson to you kids.
Eddard Stark on December 22, 2009 at 3:32 pm
20 million dollars out of pocket. That’s a lot of money. It took me a minute to realize how much that was in those days…
DarkTide on December 23, 2009 at 6:26 am
poor Duke.
tehub on December 24, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Its nice to finally have a compiled history of the Duke Nukem phenomenon.
Nick on January 4, 2010 at 1:13 am
Wonderful article.