[Putrid Pete]

So by now I believe many in the Duke community have heard of the Zoom Platform Store that has Duke Nukem, Duke Nukem 2, Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition and The Manhattan Project for sale. The site has been discussed in passing on this forum as well as in some messages on Duke4's discord server, but I couldn't find any dedicated thread to the subject.

I've seen talk of a 'perpetual license' that they supposedly have. I was wondering if anybody with the knowledge here can shed some light on the licensing and legal situation of their store and if it's safe to buy the games over there.

[MusicallyInspired]

I've never heard of this platform. So it's still legally possible to acquire the original Atomic Edition duke3d.grp file after all? Perpetual licenses for digital platforms are certainly not a common thing. I wonder how legit it is...

[Kyanos]

It looks just legit enough to not be worth Randys trouble.

[DisgustedGrunt]

https://boards.3drea...orm-legally/896

found this, still no answer.

[MusicallyInspired]

Apparently someone in that thread said that Scott Miller is involved with Zoom in some capacity.

[Putrid Pete]

The person who commented that he is involved said in his post that it listed him in Zoom's about page. I just read through it and there's no mention of Scott Miller. Maybe he was involved with them at some point but now no longer is?

[Steve 64]

I never heard of this site before, how long has the games been theres?

[Kristian Joensen]

3D Realms was at one point working with Zoom on a game but they are no longer involved with that project. So this might well be a case of a license granted while 3D Realms still had the right to do that. If that was a valid, perpetual(or yet to expire) license there is really nothing GBX can do about that...

[Hendricks266]

The Zoom Platform staff explained that they have a perpetual license to sell the Duke games that Gearbox cannot revoke.

In other news, Duke DC, Caribbean, Nuclear Winter, and Duke!ZONE II are now available on ZOOM Platform, bundled with their Duke 3D store entry and available as "Duke-Nukem-3D-DLC-Pack-1-Setup-1.0.exe".

They are the same GRPs as the ones I provided for the 3DR Anthology and Kill-a-ton 2015 Collection on Steam. I will be adding registry path detection for the installer shortly.

https://www.zoom-pla...-atomic-edition

[Jimmy]

Hahahahah. Wow.

[Radar]

This should be listed somewhere as the recommended place to purchase the game.

[Kristian Joensen]

Hendricks266, on 11 June 2020 - 10:38 AM, said:

The Zoom Platform staff explained that they have a perpetual license to sell the Duke games that Gearbox cannot revoke.

In other news, Duke DC, Caribbean, Nuclear Winter, and Duke!ZONE II are now available on ZOOM Platform, bundled with their Duke 3D store entry and available as "Duke-Nukem-3D-DLC-Pack-1-Setup-1.0.exe".

They are the same GRPs as the ones I provided for the 3DR Anthology and Kill-a-ton 2015 Collection on Steam. I will be adding registry path detection for the installer shortly.

https://www.zoom-pla...-atomic-edition

Very interesting!

Presumably a perpetual license granted not by Gearbox, but by 3D Realms while they still could.

[Steve 64]

That a better deal then World Tour, now I have to make an Zoom Account ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Edit: I have spread the word on Steam to help it grow if that ok with ya

[MusicallyInspired]

Hendricks266, on 11 June 2020 - 10:38 AM, said:

The Zoom Platform staff explained that they have a perpetual license to sell the Duke games that Gearbox cannot revoke.

In other news, Duke DC, Caribbean, Nuclear Winter, and Duke!ZONE II are now available on ZOOM Platform, bundled with their Duke 3D store entry and available as "Duke-Nukem-3D-DLC-Pack-1-Setup-1.0.exe".

They are the same GRPs as the ones I provided for the 3DR Anthology and Kill-a-ton 2015 Collection on Steam. I will be adding registry path detection for the installer shortly.

https://www.zoom-pla...-atomic-edition

So it DOES contain the expansions! The description for it says that the expansions will be added but it was never updated so it's not obvious. This is excellent. Time to spread the word!

[MusicallyInspired]

That's even better than the GOG version because that version doesn't come with the expansions.

[Putrid Pete]

It's nice to know that there's a viable, legal alternative to WT, as well as for some of the other Duke games. I want to get Manhattan Project as well as Duke 1 and 2, but had some reservations considering I knew very little about the site.

[MrFlibble]

* checks Zoom out *

Killing Time for free, wut?

[cybdmn]

MrFlibble, on 17 July 2020 - 05:37 AM, said:

* checks Zoom out *

Killing Time for free, wut?

Yea, that's free for a while now.

[MrFlibble]

I had no idea

[Dan]

Hendricks266, on 11 June 2020 - 10:38 AM, said:

In other news, Duke DC, Caribbean, Nuclear Winter, and Duke!ZONE II are now available on ZOOM Platform, bundled with their Duke 3D store entry and available as "Duke-Nukem-3D-DLC-Pack-1-Setup-1.0.exe".

They are the same GRPs as the ones I provided for the 3DR Anthology and Kill-a-ton 2015 Collection on Steam. I will be adding registry path detection for the installer shortly.

What about Duke Xtreme, is that going to be added?

[Sanek]

@Dan Duke Xtreme have some user-made content so I doubt they're going to add it. Other addons is DOS-compatible while Xtreme request both DOS and vintage Windows, and it's not that easy to get it work on modern system. Unless they remaster/reverse-engineer the whole thing.
They also didn't include Duke!Zone part 1 so there's no chance there's going to be Xtreme.


Off: I was baffled by the Zoom too. I discovered them a couple of years earlier but didn't write about it here since I assumed you guys know about the store. I wonder how profitable this store is, as they still operate somehow.

[Jimmy]

Duke!Zone and Xtreme are basically abandoned software so you know what to do....

[Ninety-Six]

It's funny since I think Xtreme's levels are better than DZ2's... I know that's not a high bar, but the point remains. Whatever little DZ2 had going for it completely collapses by the third episode, where it becomes random ugly nonsense that plays about as good as it looks. Xtreme's no spring chicken either but there's only one level that reaches those sorts of depths. The rest are sub-par at worst and average at best, which is better than even DZ2's "good" half.

[Lunick]

Xtreme Remix project when

[duke3d.exe]

Ninety-Six, on 22 August 2020 - 07:02 PM, said:

It's funny since I think Xtreme's levels are better than DZ2's... I know that's not a high bar, but the point remains. Whatever little DZ2 had going for it completely collapses by the third episode, where it becomes random ugly nonsense that plays about as good as it looks. Xtreme's no spring chicken either but there's only one level that reaches those sorts of depths. The rest are sub-par at worst and average at best, which is better than even DZ2's "good" half.

I remember playing the basketball court map as a kid, I thought that map was cool as fuck.

[Ninety-Six]

Yeah that one was probably a highlight for me, too.