Update: Apogee (who are a legal identity of 3D Realms) are not affected so it seems like this is just an office closing and a name ceasing to be used rather than an actual closure of studio. They have also confirmed that development of Duke Nukem Forever will continue as planned.
It seems like another imaginative developer has closed it’s doors. Confirmation this morning from the developer’s webmaster indicates that the news came as a surprise to everyone. He also refutes allegations that the news was a marketing ploy.
3D Realms are/were famously responsible for Duke Nukem but were also responsible, at the beginning at least, for Doom before the ID developers split and released it on their own. They were also largely responsible for popularising the Shareware distribution system that was popular on the PC and, it could be argued, eventually developed into Steam.
With the unbelievably long development time (12 years) spent on Duke Nukem Forever it is hardly surprising that funding issues have arisen and forced the closure of both 3D Realms and the recently rebooted Apogee (which was the studio name way back when they also made games that weren’t 3D). Take 2, who are/were 3D Realm’s parent company are retaining rights to the Duke Nukem franchise.
News Tip: kur15u
