[Sinisterambo]

Q.

Raziel, on Jun 5 2009, 09:07 AM, said:

What do people think, should I suggest it to him?

A.

Lotan, on Jun 5 2009, 08:55 AM, said:

That's an interesting thought. But, I think, they have thought about this as a possible solution.

[kaisersoze]

Raziel, on Jun 5 2009, 04:07 AM, said:

It is true that we do not know the exact situation, but I don't think they would definitely have thought about this as a solution... And it is a proven way to go as demonstrated by Half-Life 2. I might pass this suggestion over to Scott Miller just in case. Of course, if the restraining order is in place now it would be pointless. What do people think, should I suggest it to him?

You honestly believe they haven't thought of that yet?

Besides, this is going on the assumption that they developed the game beginning to end. Most movies are shot out of order. It's not uncommon for directors to start off filming by starting in the middle or even filming the ending first. 3drealms may very well have done the same thing with DNF. They are broke and closed down. They'd still need to hire people to get the episode shippable and then what about Jon St. John? I'm pretty sure he never started voicework for the game so 3drealms would also have to pay him for his work. Again, they're broke. If I'm Jon St. John, I'm not working on DNF with a "promise" of being paid later either. Especially with it's history. This is the corner 3drealms has painted itself into.

The bottom line is, this "release DNF in episodic chapters" isn't realistic. We would have heard about this being done if it was possible at the beginning of this fiasco.

Really, the only way I actually see DNF in it's current form ever being released is if Take 2 actually wins the case/code and has a team they hire finish the game for release. I doubt 3drealms will ever get it done by themselves. 12 years and all that you know................

What you should probably ask Scott is why they simply don't have some of the developers he's working with finish the game or take the game to Humanhead or Remedy to get finished up. Also Scott seems like a very good business man. I'd like to think over the years he's banked substantial savings with the sale of the Max IP, etc. I honestly believe it's not out of line to think he's got at least $5 million saved in his bank accounts after all this time. If he's got at least that much saved, why not give that money to "3drealms" to finish the game? Those are more realistic options if you ask me.

[Sinisterambo]

Agreed.

[zchri9]

kaisersoze, on Jun 5 2009, 02:38 AM, said:

You honestly believe they haven't thought of that yet?

Besides, this is going on the assumption that they developed the game beginning to end. Most movies are shot out of order. It's not uncommon for directors to start off filming by starting in the middle or even filming the ending first. 3drealms may very well have done the same thing with DNF. They are broke and closed down. They'd still need to hire people to get the episode shippable and then what about Jon St. John? I'm pretty sure he never started voicework for the game so 3drealms would also have to pay him for his work. Again, they're broke. If I'm Jon St. John, I'm not working on DNF with a "promise" of being paid later either. Especially with it's history. This is the corner 3drealms has painted itself into.

The bottom line is, this "release DNF in episodic chapters" isn't realistic. We would have heard about this being done if it was possible at the beginning of this fiasco.

Really, the only way I actually see DNF in it's current form ever being released is if Take 2 actually wins the case/code and has a team they hire finish the game for release. I doubt 3drealms will ever get it done by themselves. 12 years and all that you know................

What you should probably ask Scott is why they simply don't have some of the developers he's working with finish the game or take the game to Humanhead or Remedy to get finished up. Also Scott seems like a very good business man. I'd like to think over the years he's banked substantial savings with the sale of the Max IP, etc. I honestly believe it's not out of line to think he's got at least $5 million saved in his bank accounts after all this time. If he's got at least that much saved, why not give that money to "3drealms" to finish the game? Those are more realistic options if you ask me.

Personally I don't think that Take-Two will win the court case.
As far as I know the only money 3D Realms has ever got from a publisher was $250,000 (or was it 25K?) advance from GT interactive.
GT Interactive got taken over by Take-Two for a sum of $12,000,000 none of which went to 3D Realms.
The above is my understanding. I may be wrong, if I am, my mistake.

[Raziel]

kaisersoze, on Jun 5 2009, 02:38 AM, said:

You honestly believe they haven't thought of that yet?

No, I honestly don't.

kaisersoze, on Jun 5 2009, 02:38 AM, said:

Besides, this is going on the assumption that they developed the game beginning to end.

No, it is going on the assumption that the game was built breadth-first, which appears to be a good assumption looking at their spreadsheet. No one builds a game from beginning to end these days in perfection, it goes through iterations with polish being added until it is done. But it is easy to switch to polishing parts in chunks now (as I stated in my original post which you clearly didn't read properly). And no, games are not made the way films are, they just go through iterations in breadth for various reasons I don't want to get in to right now since I'm not trying to teach people game development 101.

kaisersoze, on Jun 5 2009, 02:38 AM, said:

Really, the only way I actually see DNF in it's current form ever being released is if Take 2 actually wins the case/code and has a team they hire finish the game for release.

Sorry, but Take 2 has no interest in finishing the game. I seriously can't believe you actually believe this! Firstly, did they at any point say they are doing this court case to finish the game!? NO, because they don't care whether the game comes out or doesn't (and probably don't want it finished because it would mean they have to give 3DR 4.5 million). If they were interested in having the game see the light of day they wouldn't ask for a restraining order preventing the completion of the game for the next 2 years...

Even if we assume they really did want to finish the game, in 2 years there won't be anyone that can actually finish the game. If you work in the games industry you'd understand it really isn't that simple. Game engines are horribly complex, even something simple like the way the art is made is critical, if no one is around that understands it stylistically and technically it doesn't matter what you do, all the new art will look out of place. Also, if no one is around that really knows how the engine works, you're screwed. There also won't be one person that knows the engine really well, everyone will know their 'area' of the engine. Usually if someone wants to resign they would have to teach someone else in the team to take over for them... with everyone gone, this isn't possible. It would take a new team a year just to figure out the basics of the technology... Add 2 years of court time on to that and another year and a half (at least) of development time and 6 months of testing and you're looking at a release date of 2014-2015, sadly the tech will be outdated.

Whereas right now the 3DR team is up to speed and could possibly finish the game in half the development time of an inexperienced team and they won't have to learn how everything works. So I really hope you are wrong and that Take-Two doesn't get their way... If you knew anything about the games industry you'd know that is a dead end.

[EviL AnGeL]

kaisersoze, on Jun 5 2009, 11:38 AM, said:

I honestly believe it's not out of line to think he's got at least $5 million saved in his bank accounts after all this time. If he's got at least that much saved, why not give that money to "3drealms" to finish the game?

Because he can't stand over George cracking the whip 24/7 and he trusts George to get it done on his own about as much as everyone else?

But Kaiser's right. Why do people keep going on about finishing the game, releasing in episodes, winning the case and finishing the game etc. THEY HAVE NO MONEY TO DO ANY OF THOSE THINGS! Sorry but some people are just not getting it. And saying people don't understand the gaming industry is insulting. It's obvious some of you don't understand basic business. It's the lack of MONEY that is causing the problem. Just how can they polish or tweak anything to release in episodes? There are NO STAFF to do that and NO MONEY to hire staff. Not even for a few weeks or months.

Bank loans
External investors
Internal investors

All been tried *apparently* so that's a closed door. Please, please understand that nothing will solve this problem other than money. Worry about the money and the rest looks after itself.

[Raziel]

EviL AnGeL, on Jun 5 2009, 03:14 AM, said:

And saying people don't understand the gaming industry is insulting. It's obvious some of you don't understand basic business.

I would agree, I don't understand basic business, but I do understand how games are developed... as for my comment being insulting, I apologize, but it's true and I'm not going to change my comment. People should know their strong points and weak points and Kaiser clearly doesn't understand how games are developed. His best-case scenario of Take-Two wins the case, hires a random team in 2 years time to complete it and then releases it for all of us is completely unrealistic. It is just not going to happen, what am I supposed to do, just be quiet about it when I know that is not even a possibility? Even if they manage to get the original team back, in 2 years even they will have forgotten most of how it all works. It is a very long time for a project to just sit around, you can't just easily pick it back up after that.

I still stick with my original scenario of Take-Two settling out of court being the most realistic (assuming the game will actually come out - which I never said either, I only said there are a few possible ways it could still come out).

kaisersoze, on Jun 5 2009, 02:38 AM, said:

The bottom line is, this "release DNF in episodic chapters" isn't realistic.

And for the record, I never said the episodic approach was realistic, I just said it would solve all their problems, so don't put words in my mouth.

I just don't understand why there are so many people that truly believe Take-Two will finish the game if they win the court case... even if that is their intention (which so far I have seen absolutely zero evidence of) - at the end of the day a game's development team is not like a set of cogs you can just replace and expect it all to keep ticking, it just doesn't work that way...

[Kathy]

kaisersoze, on Jun 5 2009, 02:38 PM, said:

Also Scott seems like a very good business man. I'd like to think over the years he's banked substantial savings with the sale of the Max IP, etc. I honestly believe it's not out of line to think he's got at least $5 million saved in his bank accounts after all this time. If he's got at least that much saved, why not give that money to "3drealms" to finish the game? Those are more realistic options if you ask me.

That's why he won't risk his last money savings to do this kind of thing. Plus he's got other things, you know.

[hornoxe]

Raziel, on Jun 5 2009, 09:39 AM, said:

That is correct, they retain the rights to electronically distribute the title and it is possible they might go down this route which would solve the problem to #3. To be honest though, I don't think they would make it electronically exclusive permanently. What I CAN see them doing is making it exclusive electronically for 6 months to maximize their revenue before passing it to Take-Two for a boxed release... Why do I say this... simply put, a lot of people still aren't comfortable with electronic distribution, especially for a game of this size.

I would guess they can't exclusively sell it online. If they're selling something it means they have a (in some way) finished product to sell, at that point it's very likely they're not allowed to withhold said product from T2, or there would be another law suit coming their way faster than you can click "buy now" (which they absolutely would lose)

[Raziel]

hornoxe, on Jun 5 2009, 07:17 AM, said:

I would guess they can't exclusively sell it online. If they're selling something it means they have a (in some way) finished product to sell, at that point it's very likely they're not allowed to withhold said product from T2, or there would be another law suit coming their way faster than you can click "buy now" (which they absolutely would lose)

Unfortunately we don't know much about what the agreement is. Unless it explicitly states that an online version may only be made available at the same time or after a boxed release I suppose there wouldn't be anything really stopping them from initially selling it online-only... Most likely the agreement will be something along the lines of 'they are the only distributor allowed to sell the game in a box'... Except they'll be using more words and complicated phrases to say the same thing. If the contract doesn't have anything funny included in it, technically nothing stops them from skipping the retail (boxed) channel all together if they wanted to. Even if they didn't want to use Steam, a DVD-iso download is still an electronic sale. I do think this is very unlikely though.

IF the game does see the light of day, I do think it will be in a retail store at some point in time and most likely it would be released by Take-Two as the publisher, unless someone like Microsoft that actually has the cash decides to bail them out (in which case you can bet the box will have XBOX360 exclusive written all over it )

[Lt.Havoc]

I really would like to know what you guys make think that 3DR is like totally out of money when they still do exist as a company. Yes, it was said that there where financial problems and the team had to be relased and whatnot, but dosent bankrupcy means that you get a Crisis Manager and whatnot that takes care of the company so the emploeeys get thier payments etc.?

I also like how everyone is assuming that Gorge and Scott tried "everything" already up to this point. Did you guys maybe forgot that there is a lawsuit and that during such a thing you can simply go to another company and try to get funs to finish it because no one would risk giving you cash wehn you are with one leg in the court?

There are also other reasons why Scott didnt gave 3DR the 5 Million: as a privat man, he cant simply give cash to a company like 3DR. I am not sure what kind of form this company has, but if you put cash into Radar Group, you cant simply take some of that cash and put it in another company, even if you own that one. The olny way would be that Radar Group buys 3DR, wihch would mean a huge finacial effort and all kinds of problems, like taking over the dept etc.

Another thing: stop awith thew "thier reputation, thier reputation" bullshit. Rockstar Games has a similar attitude then 3DR has/had, where they told publishers to screw themslefs, doing things thier own way, delyaing the develoßment etc. and yet no one says something negative about them. Everyone says Rockstar are the Rebels of the Gaming industiry and how they should keep on with it and be indipendent and whatnot. A lot of people would love to work for a company like that.

Also, depsite the negative reputation people did joined 3DR and said they liked it, so why do you people think that things have changed?

Also, in the end, what does it matter if he get DNF or not? I mean, really, its not like the death of Duke, because the IP is still there and we will still play Duke Nukem games in the future, even if its not DNF. Its better then nothing I say.

[hornoxe]

Raziel, on Jun 5 2009, 05:48 PM, said:

Unfortunately we don't know much about what the agreement is. Unless it explicitly states that an online version may only be made available at the same time or after a boxed release I suppose there wouldn't be anything really stopping them from initially selling it online-only...

Of course it's all just speculation, but I still think it's very likely that the contract is done in a way that ensures that 3DR could not withhold the game from the publisher and sell it online, even for a limited amount of time. The retail/distributor chain frowns upon digital distribution, publisher have to (or at least had to back in the day) tread carefully not to piss them off and lose premium shelf space/life, remember how Valve didn't unlock HL2 until everyone retail and digital had it.

[Kathy]

Lt.Havoc, on Jun 5 2009, 09:52 PM, said:

I really would like to know what you guys make think that 3DR is like totally out of money when they still do exist as a company.

They are a private company. They can exist without making/having any money, I think.

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I also like how everyone is assuming that Gorge and Scott tried "everything" already up to this point. Did you guys maybe forgot that there is a lawsuit and that during such a thing you can simply go to another company and try to get funs to finish it because no one would risk giving you cash wehn you are with one leg in the court?

They've tried "everything" before laying people off. After that it doesn't really matter.

About people assuming that they've tried. Joe said about that numerous times when people began suggesting "why don't you go to id, valve, microsoft?". He said something like "why don't you think we've tried to save the situation?". So, we assume, they've tried all the possible solutions.

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There are also other reasons why Scott didnt gave 3DR the 5 Million: as a privat man, he cant simply give cash to a company like 3DR.

I doubt that. He cashed his own money when creating the company. Anyway, I don't know the rules.

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Also, in the end, what does it matter if he get DNF or not? I mean, really, its not like the death of Duke, because the IP is still there and we will still play Duke Nukem games in the future, even if its not DNF. Its better then nothing I say.

DNF was Duke's flagman title.

[Redcard]

Lt.Havoc, on Jun 5 2009, 10:52 AM, said:

There are also other reasons why Scott didnt gave 3DR the 5 Million: as a privat man, he cant simply give cash to a company like 3DR. I am not sure what kind of form this company has, but if you put cash into Radar Group, you cant simply take some of that cash and put it in another company, even if you own that one. The olny way would be that Radar Group buys 3DR, wihch would mean a huge finacial effort and all kinds of problems, like taking over the dept etc.

Uh.

As someone who owns a business.. YES.. You can put your own money into your own business. You can take your own money OUT of the business. You can shift money back and forth and back and forth all day long. If you're a sole proprietor or a partnership, you can spend money on whatever you want. You're not beholden to a board, to stockholders, to anything but the other partner.

[kaisersoze]

Lotan, on Jun 5 2009, 09:34 AM, said:

That's why he won't risk his last money savings to do this kind of thing. Plus he's got other things, you know.

Scott is on record saying something along the lines of "the game will be huge" in terms of success/sales. I say put your money where your mouth
is and back the game. Of course, it's always easy to spend someone else's money.

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Raziel wrote: Whereas right now the 3DR team is up to speed and could possibly finish the game in half the development time of an inexperienced team and they won't have to learn how everything works. So I really hope you are wrong and that Take-Two doesn't get their way... If you knew anything about the games industry you'd know that is a dead end.

Yeah, the *former* 3dr development team is up to speed on the game. As it seems most of the guys have already gotten job offers/started work somewhere else, them miraculously finishing the game is a pipe dream.

I have never claimed to have an intricate knowledge of how game development works but I can absolutely tell you that basic common sense says that Take 2 would
love to win the case. Especially when they stand to gain a huge amount of money from it's release via royalties. I'd bet my left arm if Take 2 wins the case(I don't think they will btw) they'd get a huge developer to look over the code, get up to speed and finish the game. I'd venture to say that if they didn't give a shit about the game they wouldn't have asked for a restraining order against 3drealms to lock the current build/code up.

The bottom line is, George doesn't ever have to release DNF and in the grand scheme of things, he's probably set for life right now.

Take 2 on the other hand has a huge interest in it(money ). You tell me at this point who has a better chance of finishing DNF right now. Take 2 or George(12 years and counting).

[PokeThePower]

Raziel, on Jun 4 2009, 11:10 PM, said:

and all of the current devs will have other jobs by then...

Many of them already do, especially some of the most vital.

[Danukem]

bah, ignore this post, I was replying to something from last month by mistake.

[Raziel]

kaisersoze, on Jun 5 2009, 03:19 PM, said:

I have never claimed to have an intricate knowledge of how game development works but I can absolutely tell you that basic common sense says that Take 2 would love to win the case. Especially when they stand to gain a huge amount of money from it's release via royalties. I'd bet my left arm if Take 2 wins the case(I don't think they will btw) they'd get a huge developer to look over the code, get up to speed and finish the game. I'd venture to say that if they didn't give a shit about the game they wouldn't have asked for a restraining order against 3drealms to lock the current build/code up.

Of course they would love to win the case, they are trying to acquire the Duke Nukem IP. That is easily worth 40 million+ and they intend to milk it like crazy and then sell it off when they are done with it.

And no, they don't care about Duke Nukem Forever as a release... Do you really think if they had any interest in seeing the game completed they would stop 3D Realms from working on the game for the next 2 years until the court case is over? Think about it, if 3DR was allowed to and did actually work on the game it would count in their favor if they acquire development rights (and intended to finish the game) because it will be closer to completion and hence cost them less and be easier to complete. Lets look at scenario 2, lets say they actually finish the game within that timeframe, you'd think that Take-Two would be happy since they'd have something they can release - but no, instead they completely intend to prevent development on the game until the case is over. Last scenario, they get no money and don't work on the game, then the whole restraining order seems a little pointless, doesn't it? So, IF Take-Two wanted to see DNF released, there is no way in hell they would file the restraining order because it doesn't matter how this plays out, the outcome could only have been favorable for them - unless of course they don't actually want it to be released. Unfortunately this lawsuit is not about getting the game completed, that much is clear.

If anything it looks like Take-Two is trying to prevent the game from coming out. Why? One possibility is the 4.5 million they have to give 3DR upon completion of the game... Or perhaps they see DNF as only being one release, while if they own the IP they can potentially make a lot more. So, no, they really don't care about DNF and won't complete it if they did win. And like I said, even if it was their intention to finish the game, you can't just hire a random team, give them the code and resources and say... 'cool, finish it off now' - if there is no one that knows the tech, it's just not going to happen and most of the Unreal code has been replaced with custom code, so it is not as simple as throwing someone with UE3 experience on it since it is basically an in-house engine built on very old Unreal technology. The only parts that is still Unreal on the current build is apparently the network code and scripting code, everything else is basically rewritten. And this isn't the Quake days where you can just easily mod things and there is a huge user community that can figure things out together. There is no community and no one that knows how it all works, engines are also a hell of a lot more complex these days. What do you think a random development team would say if they are given a partially complete game on custom tech with complexity rivaling Unreal Engine 3 - they'd be like, yeah, keep dreaming. Sorry, but that's just not going to happen. Even IF Take-Two wanted to complete the game, which as far as I've seen doesn't seem to be the case. Don't you think if it was their intention to complete it they would say "We're gonna win this case and have it completed!" all over the place rather than doing what is counter-productive and actually hinder the completion of the game?

Finally, if Take-Two wanted it completed, don't you think they would have funded the game to completion in the first place? 3D Realms were hitting agreed milestones with the game and it had a hard cut-off for development (reliable source, the person who's brother works at 3DR and so far everything that he has said turned out to be true so I don't see any reason to doubt him on this point). According to him, the game was going forward and being completed and would have been released April next year after testing is complete (dev cutoff was supposed to be something like November). Instead, Take-Two chose not to properly fund the title...
===========
p.s. I pulled these dates out of my ass since I can't be bothered going back and re-reading the dude's whole post but I think that was right, 11/2009 cutoff and 4/2010 release. And for the record, I think I'll take my chances with George finishing it if the options are to go with either Take-Two or George (this of course assumes he can quickly get his team re-assembled which seems difficult at this stage). And Kaiser, you're still not listening to me, you can't just take a game of that complexity and throw it at an entirely new team. If you purchase an engine from someone like Carmack, he actually flies to your HQ and teaches you how it all works, in addition to that you have a strong modding community, lots of good tutorials and excellent tech support, that is why licensing his engines are so attractive, there is a lot of information on working with it. Unfortunately DNF is basically a custom in-house engine... I mean, it is not even based on Unreal 2's tech, yet it looks to be just as complex (if not more-so) than Unreal 3 - only, Unreal 3 was written with 3rd party development in mind, this engine was written with in-house development in mind... You may not get it, but this makes a huge difference as far as usability of the tools and code is concerned.

[Kathy]

Raziel, on Jun 6 2009, 04:07 AM, said:

Of course they would love to win the case, they are trying to acquire the Duke Nukem IP. That is easily worth 40 million+ and they intend to milk it like crazy and then sell it off when they are done with it.

That's why they won't acquire DN IP. They are suing because of the 12 million they've lost.

[Raziel]

Lotan, on Jun 6 2009, 12:56 AM, said:

That's why they won't acquire DN IP. They are suing because of the 12 million they've lost.

If it is just about the 12 million I'm not sure they've got much of a foot to stand on. I mean, if GT promised them the game will be released and it wasn't, isn't it legally GT that has to refund the 12 million? Of course getting cash from GT would he kind of difficult, but I still don't think 3dr should be held responcible.

That aside, I'm sure you're right. They probably don't care about dnf at this point and just want to recover the money they paid gt for exclusive release access. Either way, everything points to them not wanting to finish the game so I seriously hope they get screwed over big time, even if the actual chances of seeing dnf completed is pretty unlikely. Besides, they tried to screw us over so it's revenge. Unfortunately there are lots of misguided people thinking "zomg tt will finish dnf they are l33t"

[Kathy]

We don't know the clauses in the contract about DNF not being released and whether or not 3dr could be held responsible for that.

[Raziel]

Lotan, on Jun 6 2009, 05:01 AM, said:

We don't know the clauses in the contract about DNF not being released and whether or not 3dr could be held responsible for that.

If you think about it though... lets say I have a CD you want and I offered to sell it to another friend instead of my best buddy Lotan . Then the other friend signs an agreement with Lotan for $10 saying 'instead of me buying the CD, I'm giving you permission to buy it from Raziel instead'. In the mean time, Raziel's CD breaks and is unable to sell it. At this point who do you go to to request your money back??? Lotan doesn't request a refund from Raziel, he requests a refund from the other person for selling him the rights to something useless. You can't at this point sue me for $10 because you signed a stupid deal with another person I offered the CD to.

It is the same in this case... Take-Two knew what they were paying for when they bought the publishing rights from GT interactive... It is a chance you take with anything that isn't released yet. On top of that I think they were bloody stupid for paying 12 million for something that wasn't even guaranteed to be released. Not to mention that GT only paid $400,000 for the publishing deal and if anything, I think Take-Two might be able to get only that $400,000 back since that was what 3DR originally signed the publishing deal for. They didn't participate or gain from the 12 million arrangement and I'd be pretty surprised if they even knew about it before the contracts were signed.

Besides, even if the contract clearly stated "3DR can be held accountable if they don't finish the game", it is still a third party contract and unless 3DR signed it as well that clause wouldn't hold any real ground from a legal standpoint anyway. My understanding from what 3DR posted a while back is that they had nothing to do with the contract and was an agreement between GT and Take-Two. What would make things a little more complicated is if the original contract with GT guaranteed it would be completed, in that case I'm not really sure where things stand with the contract being reissued by GT to Take-Two, but I would say it might be a bit of a grey area since 3DR can argue that they didn't agree to these terms with Take-Two. Furthermore, IF the original contract does not clearly state that it is transferrable to another publisher, 3DR could even push for them not being legally bound to Take-Two's contract with GT for the publishing rights. Anyway, I realize there is a lot of if's in here, it is just healthy speculation mixed with a little bit of sexual frustration, so don't bite my head off if I speculate past your comfort zone...

[Redcard]

Raziel, on Jun 6 2009, 05:30 AM, said:

Besides, even if the contract clearly stated "3DR can be held accountable if they don't finish the game", it is still a third party contract and unless 3DR signed it as well that clause wouldn't hold any real ground from a legal standpoint anyway. My understanding from what 3DR posted a while back is that they had nothing to do with the contract and was an agreement between GT and Take-Two. What would make things a little more complicated is if the original contract with GT guaranteed it would be completed, in that case I'm not really sure where things stand with the contract being reissued by GT to Take-Two, but I would say it might be a bit of a grey area since 3DR can argue that they didn't agree to these terms with Take-Two. Furthermore, IF the original contract does not clearly state that it is transferrable to another publisher, 3DR could even push for them not being legally bound to Take-Two's contract with GT for the publishing rights. Anyway, I realize there is a lot of if's in here, it is just healthy speculation mixed with a little bit of sexual frustration, so don't bite my head off if I speculate past your comfort zone...

Indications are they did sign something, though. Thats why we had the "previously agreed to milestones" and the late 200x agreement that was referred to.

We're all assuming that the breach of contract that T2 is alledging is from an early document in another sale. There might have been something far more current that we weren't told.

[Kathy]

Raziel, on Jun 6 2009, 05:30 PM, said:

If you think about it though... lets say I have a CD you want and I offered to sell it to another friend instead of my best buddy Lotan . Then the other friend signs an agreement with Lotan for $10 saying 'instead of me buying the CD, I'm giving you permission to buy it from Raziel instead'. In the mean time, Raziel's CD breaks and is unable to sell it. At this point who do you go to to request your money back??? Lotan doesn't request a refund from Raziel, he requests a refund from the other person for selling him the rights to something useless. You can't at this point sue me for $10 because you signed a stupid deal with another person I offered the CD to.

Well, that's the whole point of 3dr in their official statement. But... if Take-Two sues Atari then Atari(they've bought GT) can sue 3dr? Because GT originaly bought(?) rights to publish it.

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They didn't participate or gain from the 12 million arrangement and I'd be pretty surprised if they even knew about it before the contracts were signed.

I'm pretty sure they had a say when Take-Two was buying these rights.

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Anyway, I realize there is a lot of if's in here, it is just healthy speculation mixed with a little bit of sexual frustration, so don't bite my head off if I speculate past your comfort zone...

Wha?

[TJR]

Raziel, on Jun 6 2009, 06:30 AM, said:

My understanding from what 3DR posted a while back is that they had nothing to do with the contract and was an agreement between GT and Take-Two.

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I'd be pretty surprised if they even knew about it before the contracts were signed.

3D Realms was intimately involved with the transfer of publishing rights.

They wanted out of their contract with Infogrames and approached other publishers to buy the rights. Take-Two came sailing in as the highest bidder. Regardless of how money was exchanged, this deal didn't happen independently of Apogee (quite the opposite), who were rather enthusiastic about their new partner.

[Raziel]

Lotan, on Jun 6 2009, 11:18 AM, said:

Wha?

...at least I'm honest... no?

[theoneandonlylordofdeath]

Lotan, on Jun 6 2009, 11:18 AM, said:

Wha?

You have an admirer...

[Raziel]

theoneandonlylordofdeath, on Jun 7 2009, 09:55 AM, said:

You have an admirer...

I would like to point out that I am definately straight... That aside, Lotan is sorta cool

[spongefreddie]

Behold, you smugly all-knowing, surly pooh-poohers of the "conspiracy theories":

http://www.vg247.com/2009/06/16/take-two-d...-bank-accounts/

After reading that short article, ask yourself the following questions:

Why would 3DR close down production in the first place if they actually had the money that Take-Two is alleging?

They wouldn't, so of course they don't have the alleged hidden money.

Based on the above, why would a seasoned company like Take-Two make a ridiculous allegation they would know was surely false? What could be gained with that nonsense? Do you truly imagine it's a clever ploy to acquire the IP? They would already know the allegation couldn't stand up in court.

Lastly, how is it possible that so many people claim that the speculation of this being a publicity stunt is moronic, when many articles are being published and literally thousands* of people are getting wrapped up in the apparent "intrigue?" If the pooh-poohers are correct, yay for them, but they only look equally as deluded as the conspiracy theorists when they insist that the buzz around this subject is minor or insignificant.

Read between the lines.

*Yes, thousands - look not merely at the number of posts in the Duke forums regarding this debacle... look also at the number of views.

Nicolas
7162.com

[Kathy]

Wow. Duke Begins. I wonder what it would have been like...