Duke Nukem Finds God

Silly pun aside, the game Duke Nukem Forever has a new publisher. Formerly with Infogrames (who had purchased the original publisher GT Interactive), Duke Nukem Forever will now be published by Gathering of Developers. Yesterday, the Gathering released a press release about the situation, saying this:

Developer-driven computer and video game publisher Gathering of Developers (g.o.d.) announced today that the company has acquired the PC publishing rights for the highly anticipated Duke Nukem Forever game, as part of a broad reaching deal made by Gathering's parent company Take Two Interactive and former Duke Nukem publisher Infogrames. Duke Nukem Forever is being developed by 3D Realms and will be released by Gathering of Developers.

Shortly after this press release hit the net earlier yesterday, our own Scott Miller was interviewed over at Stomped, and had a few things to say about the situation.

Stomped: First, why the change in publishers? Did Infogrames want to get rid of the Duke Nukem franchise or did Take Two simply offer them a deal they couldn't refuse?

Miller: When Infogrames bought GT Interactive, they did seem to lean a little more toward family oriented games, and though that was a small concern for us it wasn�t the impetus for this deal. It was really just a case of both companies, through discussions that began near six months ago, realizing we were no longer the best fit for each other and that the best thing to do was find a new publisher. Take-Two was an obvious choice for us because of our existing relationship with them, including our other big production, Max Payne.

Stomped: How does this change in publishers affect the actual development of Duke Nukem Forever?

Miller: Other than an internal meeting that lasted about 10 minutes, there really is no delay or other effect related to this deal.

Today, there was a wire story that came over Yahoo news' service talking about the deal a little. They add this small tidbit to the fray:

Under the deal, The Gathering will publish Duke Nukem Forever for the PC and Take 2 will own the rights to the entire back catalog of PC and video game Duke Nukem titles, as well as rights to future products.

This means they will own the distribution rights to the old titles - there are no plans at this point for them to repackage them or anything like that.

To sum up:

What does this mean to you, the game player? Not a whole lot really. All this boils down to two things:

1.The game will have a Gathering/Take Two logo on it instead of an Infrogrames logo on it when you buy it.

2.The release date is still "When it's done" (Not Summer 2001 or any other personal interpretation you may have read online elsewhere). The release date is always "When it's done", unless you see it posted otherwise here on the 3D Realms site.

While you're at it, head over to the God Games site to check it out. They also have a poll online now asking which game you're looking forward to the most. Guess which games are on the list?

Posted by Joe Siegler on December 6, 2000 at 11:40 PM | Permalink
News Categories: Duke Nukem