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Did Gearbox secretly sell the Duke Nukem IP?

#1

I just searched the status of the Duke Nukem trademark on TESS, and I found out that it's been transfered from Gearbox to a company called Balls of Steel LLC.
This article states that Balls of Steel LLC is registered at the same address as Gearbox.
So what's the deal? Did Randy actually found another company and transfer the Duke Nukem rights to it? Is it a way for Randy to tell the fans "Sorry, Gearbox doesn't have the right to distribute the original Duke Nukem games / the 2001 version of DNF" without actually lying?
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User is online   Danukem 

  • Duke Plus Developer

#2

What surprises me is that the company name Balls of Steel hadn't already been taken.
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User is offline   Hendricks266 

  • Weaponized Autism

  #3

LLCs are used to shield the company's flagship corporation from legal trouble should any claims be successfully levied. With what has been rumored regarding cancelled and pulled products, not to mention accusations from 20 years ago, can you blame them?
9

User is offline   stumppy84 

#4

Yeah, as Hendricks said, that's pretty normal and a smart thing to do..
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#5

View PostHendricks266, on 04 May 2018 - 12:06 PM, said:

...not to mention accusations from 20 years ago, can you blame them?

I seem to be severely out of the loop. What is this?

As to the OP... setting up a shell is more or less modus operandi and as much as I love Duke were I to own the IP I would certainly want a shell between the IP and me.

Gearbox wanting a Duke shell within the Gearbox shell makes perfectly normal sense given the way the rules are set.
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User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#6

View PostHendricks266, on 04 May 2018 - 12:06 PM, said:

LLCs are used to shield the company's flagship corporation from legal trouble should any claims be successfully levied. With what has been rumored regarding cancelled and pulled products, not to mention accusations from 20 years ago, can you blame them?


I must be out of the loop. What's been going on?
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#7

View PostNinety-Six, on 04 May 2018 - 05:10 PM, said:

I must be out of the loop. What's been going on?

You and me both.
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User is offline   Hendricks266 

  • Weaponized Autism

  #8

View PostHendricks266, on 04 May 2018 - 12:06 PM, said:

cancelled

HTTKC

View PostHendricks266, on 04 May 2018 - 12:06 PM, said:

pulled

Megaton

View PostHendricks266, on 04 May 2018 - 12:06 PM, said:

accusations from 20 years ago

Read the whole article.
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#9

View PostHendricks266, on 04 May 2018 - 07:40 PM, said:

Read the whole article.

Ahh... accusations about 20 years ago. The shuffling off Hornback describes was definitely awkward from every single direction.

The business issues (percentages, etc) sound like the sort of thing that were all the documents on the public table everyone would agree the documents "state clearly" but everyone would also go "yeah that's kinda shitty". For better and worse... the documents have to state clearly and when they don't... you're gonna have a bad time. I don't run a business specifically because I reached a point in my potential development at a certain Dallas Mafia Company where I formally accepted I didn't abandon all the other computer science paths in front of me to live a life caring about my ability to meet payroll for my friends. I would have followed an entirely different path were that the case.

However it does mean I'm forever in a position of handing over/trusting other folks to manage that aspect of making game development skills employable at all. If you get my awkward drift.

This post has been edited by JumpJaneJump: 04 May 2018 - 11:36 PM

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User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#10

I feel dumb for not connecting the pieces to Megaton and HTTKC. That article is new, though (well, new to me).
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#11

View PostNinety-Six, on 04 May 2018 - 11:09 PM, said:

I feel dumb for not connecting the pieces...

Posted Image
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User is offline   Hank 

#12

View Poststumppy84, on 04 May 2018 - 04:30 PM, said:

Yeah, as Hendricks said, that's pretty normal and a smart thing to do..

I checked, an LLC is not allowed for Canadian Business people. If you are the sole owner of a business, you need to form a Sole Proprietorship, or pay the little extra and make it a normal business.

And so far, the laws in the US about the statue of an LLC varies from State to State. So it may be the thing to do right now, but laws can change. What may look smart now may turn out to burn you later.

This post has been edited by Hank: 05 May 2018 - 10:23 AM

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#13

I noticed Balls of Steel, LLC back in 2016 when the countdown site for World Tour appeared. In the film industry, a production company or studio will form an LLC for each film project. Maybe it works the same for games? I'm not sure. The Duke license was so complicated for a while that I think it's a smart thing to do in case copyrights are accidentally broken or some zealot wants to blame Duke for an incident. I don't think this means a new game is coming since this was formed a couple years ago and I don't see how it means the license was transferred. It's just a sub-branch of Gearbox.
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User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#14

Until Gearbox randomly throws him into another remaster, at least.
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#15

View PostNinety-Six, on 06 May 2018 - 04:08 PM, said:

Until Gearbox randomly throws him into another remaster, at least.


I think we can all agree that Duke would work well in a dlc for Doom. :P
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#16

View PostNever Forgotten, on 06 May 2018 - 06:47 PM, said:

I think we can all agree that Duke would work well in a dlc for Doom. :P

I would love to pay for the Duke 3D weapons to be ported to the most recent Doom.
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User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#17

View PostNever Forgotten, on 06 May 2018 - 06:47 PM, said:

I think we can all agree that Duke would work well in a dlc for Doom. :P


Actually that would be the one place he would fit. Therefore it's the least likely to happen.
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User is offline   Tea Monster 

  • Polymancer

#18

I don't see Duke ripping entrails out. JMHO. Maybe a toned-down "Bar-room brawl" mode where Duke can kick ass in a more non-demonic fashion, while still laying the hurt onto the enemy.
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User is offline   MusicallyInspired 

  • The Sarien Encounter

#19

Doesn't matter. I'd love to have Duke's weapons and one-liner's in Doom 2016.
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User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#20

View PostTea Monster, on 09 May 2018 - 05:01 AM, said:

I don't see Duke ripping entrails out. JMHO. Maybe a toned-down "Bar-room brawl" mode where Duke can kick ass in a more non-demonic fashion, while still laying the hurt onto the enemy.


Duke always did strike me as more of a combat pragmatist. Even in DNF he didn't really do more than was required to kill something, including the executions (most of the "flair" come from desecrating the corpse in most games). So I agree; he probably wouldn't be ripping and tearing with that special brand of brutality the Slayer brings.

That being said I wonder what he would do instead.
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User is offline   HulkNukem 

#21

I'm still curious to see what Duke Begins would've looked like
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User is offline   necroslut 

#22

View PostHulkNukem, on 12 May 2018 - 07:54 PM, said:

I'm still curious to see what Duke Begins would've looked like

I still think it was an awful idea. What made Duke great wasn't his backstory. It's not interesting, and not good material for a game.
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#23

Dunno, I always kinda liked not knowing much about where Duke came from, but without seeing the game I can't judge what it would have been like. Maybe it would have worked, maybe it wouldn't, we'll probably never know.

On the LLC thing, you can most commonly see this kind of thing in movies, here's a typical one;
Posted Image
In this case {Film company}-{Name of movie} Limited was registered as a separate entity. Some books also have the same type of corporate legal gymnastics on their first pages.

This post has been edited by High Treason: 14 May 2018 - 02:10 AM

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User is offline   HulkNukem 

#24

I'm more curious about how Duke Begins actually looked and less about the story; I'm assuming it would be a more up to date Unreal Engine than DNF was with higher fidelity assets. Say what you will about Gearbox, when they put their full effort in they can make good stuff.
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#25

There could be leaks of some kind for that game like Duke Nukem D Day
0

User is offline   oasiz 

  • Dr. Effector

#26

I swear this thread title always reads like a tabloid headline when I visit these forums. :(
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