3D Realms: 2K Games to publish Duke Nukem Forever

Funny how the past catches up pretty quick with a game popularly pegged “forever-in-development.” News from the press waves has just filled us in to a deal that happened between Take-Two Interactive and GT Interactive which evidently granted the rights of publishing Duke Nukem Forever to the holders of the 2K Games brand. More at the full story.

3D Realms seems to have been letting some information loose about it’s game ten years in the making, Duke Nukem Forever. The first news of DNF going multiplatform may have been actually tied down to the same fact that Take Two Interactive and underlying 2K Games own the rights to publishing Duke Nukem Forever on whatever format the publisher wishes.

3D Realms CEO Scott Miller was quoted as saying, “Take 2 and 2K Games own the global rights for Duke Nukem Forever, across multiple formats.” Unfortunately, 3D Realms never specified any platform their studio has targeted its development for.

On another note, the ownership of publishing rights was transferred to Take-Two by way of a purchase agreement back approximately eight years ago – that’s somewhere in 2000 – with then Duke Nukem publishers GT Interactive (Unreal Tournament, Quake). That would be about the same time, if not after, Infogrames’ acquisition of GT in late 1999.

“And while IÂ’m here, to be clear, Take 2 has not paid any development money to 3D Realms for the DNF project. It has been all self-funded,” Miller clarified.

As usual, however, 3D Realms and 2K Games did not answer questions as to when Duke Nukem Forever will be out. And thus, we play the waiting game again. We may see history in the making, because it’s not everyday millions can claim that they’ve “waited for forever” several times for the past ten years.