[MusicallyInspired]

Everything 3DR does is PR.

[jkas789]

Smikes, on 04 February 2021 - 06:42 PM, said:

I think this is a bigger deal than others in this thread. Randy Pitchford has a new boss, just made a billion dollars, and was promised another billion dollars to make "riskier games." Completely changes the playing field for the Duke Nukem franchise (even if nothing comes of this), and 3D Realms knows this.

My though as well.

To be clear. I still expect nothing. But I can't help that little wrinkle in my brain that tells me there is maybe, just maybe a one in a gajillion chance something goods comes of it for Duke Nukem.

Duke Nukem has ben getting an un usual amount of attention, what with the Vice articles, this acquisition, the 3d realms tweet and the tease of Jon St John (that was a FUCKING nothing burger again and only made for his duke quotes show), I can't help but put my tinfoil hat.

I apparently am not as jaded as I had though. I may have to correct it by playing more DNF. Without futuretime's mod to be able to better feel the pain, of course.

[Ninety-Six]

jkas789, on 05 February 2021 - 02:24 AM, said:

Duke Nukem has ben getting an un usual amount of attention, what with the Vice articles, this acquisition, the 3d realms tweet and the tease of Jon St John

This is honestly the reason I'm more worried than anything. This is the worst climate for Duke to come back in.


Well let me rephrase that. Worst climate for Duke to come back in *if handled by bottom-dollars. We currently live in a world where even Doom 4 got attacked for "toxic masculinity", to say nothing of Eternal and the various -isms hurled at it. Difference is, modern id has the balls to not care. I have no faith in Gearbox, Randy, or his new bosses to bring Duke back in a way that even resembles justice.


If he comes back under these circumstances, then I worry we'll find ourselves wishing we had Douche Nukem back, over the incoming Bitch Nukem.

[jkas789]

I would agree, except there is one dev and one way that I can see doing justice to the Duke Nukem legacy. And this is not me licking anyone's boots.

Let Voidpoint do another Duke Nukem game on the build engine. The retro shooter fad is still in vogue, and IF was by all accounts a success AFAIK. They managed to maintain themselves on the great ogay debacle AFAIK. Heck, even the fucking promotional material writes itself:

Quote

A new Duke Nukem game, by Duke Nukem fans.

I don't expect it to happen (it would be too good to be true) but if 3D Realms could managed to engage with Embracer and got Voidpoint on foot...

[ETPC]

flying wild hog could probably do an admirable job. sw 2013 was really good

[necroslut]

ETPC, on 05 February 2021 - 11:52 AM, said:

flying wild hog could probably do an admirable job. sw 2013 was really good

I would have thought so before SW2.

[Ninety-Six]

jkas789, on 05 February 2021 - 11:00 AM, said:

if 3D Realms could managed to engage with Embracer and got Voidpoint on foot...

That's kind of the kicker though. As much as I love the resurgence of this type of FPS, and as established as it is by now (it's probably fair to call it a legitimate subgenre at this point), it's still rather niche. New-3DR may be leading the charge on this, and IF might have been a success, but it's a success in its own bracket. Gearbox and Embracer are massive corporations to which niche audiences are less than cockroaches. If they can't have all of the money, every last cent, then they won't bother, no matter if they would still get some money.


I think that's another big problem with the Duke IP in general. It's in the hands of a AAA company. But 3DR, even back then, are what I would consider to be the video game equivalent of a B-Movie studio. That's not to insult any of the work they've done or the achievements Duke 3D made in the growing FPS genre, but what I'm trying to say is that even at his peak of popularity, he was still no Mario or Sonic, or even Master Chief.

That was a good thing, in my opinion. Since he was in that sweet spot of having brand recognition but not so much that it had to be protected, it allowed the developers to be more experimental. This is even more true in the case of the various spinoffs, where different devs took cracks at making a Duke game, with some good results and some not so good results. But they were all interesting and tried different things. They were free to experiment.


I'm rambling a bit, but the main point I'm trying to get across here is that Duke Nukem as a brand just isn't fit for AAA companies. Experimental iteration is in his blood. I mean, Duke 3D couldn't have been further from its predecessors but it was just as genuine as the game it iterated on (Doom), standing out amongst the sea of Doom clones.

These days a total genre shift like that only happens if they're reviving an ancient IP to fit modern trends no matter how much it doesn't fit. But ironically, those same companies hate to risk experimentation. But experimentation is what Duke had been from the beginning.


I realize I'm talking in circles but I'm having a difficult time trying to say what I mean here for some reason.

[ck3D]

^ You make very good points, one thing I do ponder when it comes to marketing to certain audiences though (not just here, I'm confronted to the question a lot via work in a different field) is while the genre is indeed niche, the concept of a good game really isn't, and that's the really only thing the franchise needs right now if you know what I mean. I might have said it before I think but the franchise has been mishandled for ages because the people in charge of its direction seem to think they're stuck in between two boxes, trying to cater to both modern gamers (with the game mechanics) and classic FPS enthusiasts (with the Duke Nukem facade) as though they have a super serious legacy to handle and shouldn't fuck with the chicken that once laid gold - whereas that's really mostly in their heads and instead of dealing with imaginary expectations, they should just put energy into making a quality game that stands on its own two feet much like Duke 3D did at the time. That game had its gimmicks too (thinking of the strippers for instance) but would have been just as good without them, whereas it seems nowadays there's less focus on substance and more on sweeping lack of effort under the rug. I know that's one other example I like to use regularly but just how World Tour had a broken final boss says so much; how does a company release something like this? That's Guru Larry video material. I really wish I ethically could buy World Tour but I never did and most likely never will because no one should be purchasing something that doesn't work. Such basic malfunctioning going unnoticed says a lot about the supervision and kind of shits on all the level designers' work and everyone on board who actually tried for that game, too. I think what's really niche is not so much the genre, but the type of quality games used to bear at one time where maybe you had to try a little harder as it wasn't easy to disguise laziness or lack of talent with cosmetics. There's this trend of games, mostly indie stuff bringing back the style and as long as it's well-crafted and not just once again gimmicky I actually really like it, it offers an alternative and the more diversity the better, but before it really catches on, good game design as we like it (some might say 'traditional') is just kind of on the verge of becoming a lost art... Is what I would say if I didn't look at indie and user content. At this point I barely even understand expectations from anything just because it's supposedly 'official' when I'm certain there is tons of quality stuff out there getting zero attention. Threads on imaginary projects get ten times more replies than works like Woudrichem War or Fallout Freeze, in a way the community is a bit disorganized (jkas wasn't wrong to point that out a while back). One other difference I can spot with, say, a franchise such as Doom that's still successful to this day is Doom accepted the idea that it would belong to the community first and foremost from the start, which makes sense to embrace as once you put artwork out there it becomes open to interpretation whether you like it or not, in the 2020's expecting to retain some kind of exclusive control over your publicized digital creations is really a bit delusional. In comparison it feels like Duke had much colder feet, sure Duke 3D was bundled with all the tools because I guess that was the thing to do but that was it and there was no real dialog with the fans after that (that fallible me knows of) when you think about it. One thing I also find kind of funny is I'm reading a lot of Gearbox hate for how they've been handling the franchise, and yet if they put out another 'bad' Duke game many would still be shooting their dollars at them out of curiosity but in a way, also contributing to the problem. The whole video game industry (and many others) seems to be at a turn right now where many long-standing formats are getting outdated (very much in the same vein as online purchasing vs. mom and pop shops), and franchises the direction of which used to stand singlehandedly are getting reappropriated by the people who will spontaneously turn them into what they really want to play, so there is a strong dichotomy between corporate expectations vs. reality. The future really should be more about supporting the product that counts, with a realignment of the economic flow (and less stupid taboo) towards independent developers who try instead of just a select few self-appointed entities who don't. I was going to say ideally but I kind of feel like we're naturally getting there anyway, and not just in video games - we might even be slowly getting there already but I feel like it's going to take decades for the masses to rethink their ways if, in the end, they ever really do.

[jkas789]

Quote

flying wild hog could probably do an admirable job. sw 2013 was really good

Yeah I agree with necroslut. SW2 was a fucking disappointment. Fuck I would argue SW1 was a disapointment.

In regards to Ninety-Six's post, I agree with that, and also lament the fact that videogames have gotten so big that it has limited the way devs used to be able to experiment back in the day. In some regards the video game industry ahs advanced leaps and bounds, however in other it seems to have regressed, alarmingly so IMO.

That is not to say that Duke Nukem could never go AAA, however I think that for that to happen iteration and experimentation would have to be relegated to spin offs, to be later picked apart and incorporated into the main series. Kinda like the Monster Hunter series.

ck3D, on 05 February 2021 - 04:05 PM, said:

The future really should be more about supporting the product that counts, with a realignment of the economic flow (and less stupid taboo) towards independent developers who try instead of just a select few self-appointed entities who don't. I was going to say ideally but I kind of feel like we're naturally getting there anyway, and not just in video games - we might even be slowly getting there already but I feel like it's going to take decades for the masses to rethink their ways if, in the end, they ever really do.

I also believe we will get to there eventually. We are already seeing this in the comic book industry and in the book industry, were instead of going corporate people are directly buying from comicbook creators/writers and authors. I hope people can get the ball rolling again with videogames, even though the well was poisoned by the Kickstarter craze. Mighty Number 9 and Star Citizen, never forget.

Quote

Threads on imaginary projects get ten times more replies than works like Woudrichem War or Fallout Freeze, in a way the community is a bit disorganized (jkas wasn't wrong to point that out a while back).

Let us let sleeping dogs lie.

[ck3D]

jkas789, on 05 February 2021 - 05:09 PM, said:

In regards to Ninety-Six's post, I agree with that, and also lament the fact that videogames have gotten so big that it has limited the way devs used to be able to experiment back in the day. In some regards the video game industry ahs advanced leaps and bounds, however in other it seems to have regressed, alarmingly so IMO.

That's the thing though, how video games have become so big (they already were quite big around the time of Duke 3D, actually) I don't think ever really prevented quality from existing. I'm sure history is punctuated with quality indie games and general content that's traditionally been more or less slept on because the focus is (again more or less) kept on the big names that used to have a monopoly on distributing this type of entertainment, but now they're really dinosaurs in this generation. On the opposite side of the coin, Ion Fury is an example of a good video game that came out rather contemporarily too, so in an era where video gaming was comparably big and that context never prevented it from existing either - and going even further, I'm sure it's just one example that got traction out of many that never do, too. It only takes opening one's eyes, in a way, to realize that the hand that used to feed now no longer really provides and actually just tries to take sometimes, and start thinking alternatively and, well, logically.

jkas789, on 05 February 2021 - 05:09 PM, said:

I also believe we will get to there eventually. We are already seeing this in the comic book industry and in the book industry, were instead of going corporate people are directly buying from comicbook creators/writers and authors. I hope people can get the ball rolling again with videogames, even though the well was poisoned by the Kickstarter craze. Mighty Number 9 and Star Citizen, never forget.

Yes, I'm seeing it happen (to varying degrees of success and advancement) in every artistic field too pretty much, so the demand appears to be universal and that's why I'm talking about sensing a complete change of format on a large scale, overall no matter the industry it feels the people played along for a while but, naturally, they're now getting fed up with the bullshit and it's hard to blame them.

Overall I think what we're really lamenting in a nutshell is how little place (if any) there is left for art in business (and yet it has to exist for said business to be of any interest).

Also the remark on feedback wasn't a judgment, merely an observation (and an easy one, too). It genuinely makes little sense to me (in the grand scheme of things) to see so much focus on interesting content that does not exist in comparison to so little appreciation for the interesting content that does exist. I'm also not blaming anyone for being wired that way, if anything given the circumstances it's almost logical and probably justified by how the power of branding really is damn strong.

[The Battlelord]

Ninety-Six, on 05 February 2021 - 05:38 AM, said:

We currently live in a world where even Doom 4 got attacked for "toxic masculinity".

Well, the truth hurt i guess, what you expect from too many people that in videogames choose Pink clothes for their characters and to paint their: cars, guns, hairs etc... as... Pink!? lol

jkas789, on 05 February 2021 - 11:00 AM, said:

Let Voidpoint do another Duke Nukem game on the build engine. The retro shooter fad is still in vogue, and IF was by all accounts a success AFAIK. They managed to maintain themselves on the great ogay debacle AFAIK. Heck, even the fucking promotional material writes itself:


I don't expect it to happen (it would be too good to be true) but if 3D Realms could managed to engage with Embracer and got Voidpoint on foot...

Yeah, let them do this in the old school ways please, Duke Nukem Five Strives!
We can only dream/hope about it.

[Sledgehammer]

This gives me a little bit of hope.

Quote

Embracer specifically mention Duke Nukem as one of the "critically acclaimed IP's" that "will stand out in Embracer's vast IP portfolio".

https://www.rockpape...s-of-thq-nordic

Also, lol

Quote

Are they threatening to make a sequel to Duke Nukem Forever? Did that not kill Duke stone-dead forever? Police, help, they're threatening me.

[hismasterplan]

That's encouraging knowing Embracer mentioned Duke, but hope's not enough. Still holding my breath. There sure are a few Duke Nukem hit pieces lately. Not sure why someone like that Vice writer goes out of their way to write something like that, especially when there hasn't been any news regarding the franchise. DNF made an understandably bad impression but I don't understand the hate for older games when modern AAA games are guilty of the same tropes like GTA. I'm speaking more about the use of women and humor.

I think keeping the tone of Zero Hour or Duke 64 would help with the knee-jerk reactions, but you'll never get rid of overly sensitive reviewers. Duke's always been satirical masculinity from 80s/90s action films, but I don't see him as toxic like I've read in recent articles. It's almost like they didn't play the same game we did.

[Ninety-Six]

Make no mistake in that GTA has suffered just as many hitpieces.

[hismasterplan]

Ninety-Six, on 06 February 2021 - 06:33 PM, said:

Make no mistake in that GTA has suffered just as many hitpieces.

True but with the kind of money that franchise generates, nothing is stopping them from making another. Well, besides the success of GTA Online.

Writing a hit piece on Duke is like kicking a guy who is already down.

[Jimmy]

ETPC, on 04 February 2021 - 08:08 PM, said:

but they hate each other.

They love money more than they hate each other. I still don't expect anything from it, though.

jkas789, on 05 February 2021 - 11:00 AM, said:

I would agree, except there is one dev and one way that I can see doing justice to the Duke Nukem legacy. And this is not me licking anyone's boots.

Let Voidpoint do another Duke Nukem game on the build engine. The retro shooter fad is still in vogue, and IF was by all accounts a success AFAIK. They managed to maintain themselves on the great ogay debacle AFAIK. Heck, even the fucking promotional material writes itself:



I don't expect it to happen (it would be too good to be true) but if 3D Realms could managed to engage with Embracer and got Voidpoint on foot...

Voidpoint made a great game but has backed down from the games urinalism media mob before already. (Although I suspect 3DR forced that.) Love the guys behind the scenes, but after Ion Fury's issues if they were attached to a new Duke Nukem game the games urinalists would have a field day resulting in a PR bloodbath. ("Problematic Developer of Homophobic Ion Fury to Develop New Duke Nukem Game: Hail to the King of Toxic Masculinity") 3DR and GBX care more about PR than serving customers with edgy content. I still fully maintain that Duke is dead. The best way forward for Voidpoint, in my opinion, is to go full indie with their next endeavor.

GTA avoids a lot of issues, despite the media mob, because the nature of the game allows you to be who you want to be and do what you want to do. There's lots of people who never even play the campaign, they just enable cheats and enjoy the sandbox. Some of the players never encounter the "problematic" aspects of the games. Making shit tons of fucking money helps too. That's all the industry cares about. Social Justice and all that shit is just marketing.

[Ninety-Six]

i really hate how that sounds like a non-exaggerated real headline

[jkas789]

Quote

"Problematic Developer of Homophobic Ion Fury to Develop New Duke Nukem Game: Hail to the King of Toxic Masculinity"

Jesus Christ! I mean, yeah, i could see that happening. Still...

Quote

Are they threatening to make a sequel to Duke Nukem Forever? Did that not kill Duke stone-dead forever? Police, help, they're threatening me.

I'm keeping that one in my funny depressing quotes mental box.

[Player Lin]

*sigh* This f***ing world sucks.

Still, I'm just chill...stay calm. And...maybe very little of hope, but I will be fine if still nothing going to happen.

[Balls of Steel Forever]

Jimmy, on 06 February 2021 - 09:26 PM, said:

GTA avoids a lot of issues, despite the media mob, because the nature of the game allows you to be who you want to be and do what you want to do. There's lots of people who never even play the campaign, they just enable cheats and enjoy the sandbox. Some of the players never encounter the "problematic" aspects of the games. Making shit tons of fucking money helps too. That's all the industry cares about. Social Justice and all that shit is just marketing.

Postal survived lol

I remember in the suffering I killed little girls who were on fire

Phantasmagoria 2 had a graphic rape scene
And both games were murderporn.

I feel like a suffering remake,
And a Phantasmagoria reboot
(House of velez was that in my opinion)
Would do fine.

God,
Hatred made money
Those devs are a publisher now

I seriously doubt Duke Nukem would be cancelled.
Maybe they do something like up the violence alot,
Embrace the controversy, bad publicity is still publicity
And I can remove the rectum of some pigmen a la splatterhouse.

Lollipop chainsaw
Bayonetta
Nier: automata
All made it with oversexualized titular female characters.

House of velez isn't even campy
It's just hardcore murderporn
Didn't get much publicity afaik.

I don't think duke is dead.
Campy action movies still exist,
Why can't duke?

[Jimmy]

Because you can't be apologetic about who you are and the art that you create. Gearbox pre-emptively apologized for DNF's "edge" and kept on doubling down on that apologism. Postal, Carmageddon, GTA... They've never apologized, except for when the game sucked.

Curious that Randy won't apologize for DNF sucking, only that it was misogynist.

The media mob only attacks those that show weakness. You can't cancel someone who knows who they are.

[Balls of Steel Forever]

Jimmy, on 09 February 2021 - 07:15 AM, said:

Because you can't be apologetic about who you are and the art that you create. Gearbox pre-emptively apologized for DNF's "edge" and kept on doubling down on that apologism. Postal, Carmageddon, GTA... They've never apologized, except for when the game sucked.

Curious that Randy won't apologize for DNF sucking, only that it was misogynist.

The media mob only attacks those that show weakness. You can't cancel someone who knows who they are.

Well let's be honest it's mainly cause randy doesn't want to. He only backed down because he didn't want to make another one.

Look at what happened with the brothers in arms series, and i doubt he's going to do anything with homeworld. Bulletstorm getting a glorified rerelease.

He's just going to milk Borderlands all day.
And wants more money to milk borderlands.

If the rights slip out of his hands there's hope.

And IMO Rockstar did apologize,
By not making a manhunt 3
After the controversy.

And milking gta and western gta.
Revolver was so much better.

[Kristian Joensen]

Quote

GamesBeat: It did surprise me that you’ve had consistent profits for all 22 years. On the games you talked about, I wonder whether these were more publishing efforts, or there was something that a lot of the Gearbox staff is sinking their teeth into right now? Is Homeworld 3, for example, the one where you have a lot of people right now? Or is that in some way farmed out?

Pitchford: Homeworld is in production. We’re doing that game with a development partner, Blackbird Interactive. I wouldn’t call it farmed-out. Rob Cunningham was literally the founder of Relic. He created the Homeworld franchise. Blackbird is his latest company. We partnered with him and his team when they did the prequel to Homeworld, Deserts of Kharak, which Gearbox published and financed, of course. The Homeworld Remastered Collection, he had a part to play there. I’m just thrilled that the world that’s been waiting for Homeworld 3 is going to get it, and it’s amazing.

Honestly, that’s just scratching the surface of all our plans. The plans are a spectrum of internally developed games with Gearbox IP, internally developed games with original IP from Gearbox, external partners that are both publishing partners, where we’re publishing them in a second party relationship, and then there are also other developers working on Gearbox IP as well. That can expand, especially as we start interacting without friction with other members of the Embracer Group that have some interest. There are a lot of folks that would love to work on Gearbox IP, and Gearbox would love to help some of the Embracer Group games that might be stronger in other markets be published more effectively in North America.

Source: https://venturebeat....embracer-group/

So they have several games in development internally based on "Gearbox IP" and they have "other developers working on Gearbox IP as well.". What stands out to me in those statemetns are the plurals, two plurals even. That doesn't guarantee that any of them are Duke related, far from it. But it does leave room for that.

Edit:

"and i doubt he's going to do anything with homeworld."

https://en.wikipedia...iki/Homeworld_3

[Balls of Steel Forever]

Kristian Joensen, on 09 February 2021 - 01:35 PM, said:

Source: https://venturebeat....embracer-group/

So they have several games in development internally based on "Gearbox IP" and they have "other developers working on Gearbox IP as well.". What stands out to me in those statemetns are the plurals, two plurals even. That doesn't guarantee that any of them are Duke related, far from it. But it does leave room for that.

Edit:

"and i doubt he's going to do anything with homeworld."

https://en.wikipedia...iki/Homeworld_3

Im ok with talking out of my butt and being proven wrong.
I've done it many a time.
However I'll see it when it's finished

Plenty a time i've heard ressurecting old ip,
Creating new ideas,
And nothing comes of it.
Or we get shenmue III

Deserts of kharak wasn't much of a homeworld game imo.

[jkas789]

Jimmy, on 09 February 2021 - 07:15 AM, said:

Because you can't be apologetic about who you are and the art that you create. Gearbox pre-emptively apologized for DNF's "edge" and kept on doubling down on that apologism. Postal, Carmageddon, GTA... They've never apologized, except for when the game sucked.

Curious that Randy won't apologize for DNF sucking, only that it was misogynist.

The media mob only attacks those that show weakness. You can't cancel someone who knows who they are.

Agreed. Never apologize, never regret. Game devs and publishers should stand their ground and say fuck off. The recent debacle of the videogame Sense should be proof enough that not giving in to the hate/Karen/incel mobs is easy enough. Just do the game that you want, as a developer disconnect from social media and that's that. Have someone peruse the comments in social media to:

1.- find possible bugs
2.- maintain some semblance of communication with the public

but other wise the guy should just say yolo and have a very thick skin. Eventually the mob will lose interest and move on the latest controversy. Fuck, a anime:

Spoiler

were a guy who gets tortured and raped goes back in time to do the torture and the raping

Was just released and the usual suspects (resetera, twitter, reddit) have done shit because they were too busy canceling Tom Brady. Or look at the drama of Rise of the Shield Hero, a story of a man who gets falsely accused of rape and is written by a woman. She got "canceled" and the light novel is still going (on its 18th translated volume atm + a spin off) , it has a manga (and the spin off) and a anime. It's not high brow intellectual writing, but IMO it proves that if your product is good enough its audience will keep on supporting it. If the weebs and japanese can just don't give a fuck and buy what they want, gamers and game devs should really take a leaf from their book.

Also, Balls of Steel, are you pseudo writing in "prose" your posts? is this a new thing or something that my work addled brain has forgotten was a thing.

[Balls of Steel Forever]

jkas789, on 09 February 2021 - 02:54 PM, said:

.

I'm typing with my phone,
So it may look queer.

Idfk.
I think it's always been this way though.
Definitely not attempting to write in prose.
I save that for myself on v day.
The devil and I gotta have alone time.

[jkas789]

Coolio.

Anyways here is to hoping maybe someone throws us a bone and we actually get something. Even if it is updating World Tour with the rest of the expansions.

[Balls of Steel Forever]

jkas789, on 09 February 2021 - 05:35 PM, said:

Coolio.

Anyways here is to hoping maybe someone throws us a bone and we actually get something. Even if it is updating World Tour with the rest of the expansions.

Fingers crossed.

Might buy a goat and draw a pentagram.
Also, House of velez is by far worse then sense

[Jimmy]

jkas789, on 09 February 2021 - 02:54 PM, said:

Agreed. Never apologize, never regret. Game devs and publishers should stand their ground and say fuck off. The recent debacle of the videogame Sense should be proof enough that not giving in to the hate/Karen/incel mobs is easy enough. Just do the game that you want, as a developer disconnect from social media and that's that.

This problem goes beyond developers though. It's a problem at the high levels, not so much the low levels. The guys who call the shots are listening to publishers and investors and human resources people. It's about money.

[Sledgehammer]

Jimmy, on 06 February 2021 - 09:26 PM, said:

GTA avoids a lot of issues, despite the media mob, because the nature of the game allows you to be who you want to be and do what you want to do.

Pretty sure R* were responsible for some controversies themselves.