Duke Nukem Forever the victim of high expectations, says Gearbox
Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford talks about how years of anticipation set expectations too high for Duke Nukem Forever, but he's still proud of putting out the product.
Duke Nukem Forever received a pretty icy critical reception, including in our own review, but that doesn't bring down Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford. The passionate developer says he's still very proud of putting out the game, and that its poor response was the product of high expectations.
"There are a lot of people who were perfectly gratified by the game," Pitchford told The Verge, "and there were other people, because of the development effort or because of the way it’s been upsold throughout the years, there is just no possible way to meet or exceed such expectations."
Despite the critical reception, he says the studio is extremely proud of the project -- though it sounds like his pride is mostly in finally bringing it to fruition. "It's like, it is a miracle. The game exists and we get to see that content with what those guys have been working on for so long. And I love the game, I think it is hilarious frankly."
Looking to the future, Pitchford also talked about how working on Aliens: Colonial Marines feels when so many developers have borrowed from the franchise. "You can feel the influence, you can feel the inspiration, it is not just subtle, it is in your face to the point where the sergeant from Halo is the sergeant from Aliens. It is like the same exact character trope and all the designs of the dropships and stuff, it is all there."
Aliens: Colonial Marines will be shown at PAX East, starting on April 6 in Boston.
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Steve Watts posted a new article, Duke Nukem Forever the victim of high expectations, says Gearbox.
Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford talks about how years of anticipation set expectations too high for Duke Nukem Forever, but he's still proud of putting out the product.-
"The Doctor Who Cloned Me" DLC felt more fun than the stock game, though not by much. And even that used recycled bits snipped out of the main game. That said, I'm greatly looking forward to what Gearbox does with a sequel. Duke, as a character and a universe can still be fun. Just needs a fair shake. :)
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The key is that those sequences are so easy to mess up. Portal 2 is essentially nothing but a FPS platformer and it managed to do it quite well. HL2 had an even longer driving sequence, but again, it was crazy fun. DNF did neither well and that's why those segments stand-out as being particularly bad.
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Quite honestly it wasn't "high expectations" - we know from history that the odds of an often-delayed game getting universally positive reviews, especially one with the troubled development history this one had, are pretty slim. It was the fact that every single impression you had of the game had to be seen through the lens of "it took them [13/14/15] years to do this?"
Same way Chinese Democracy would have been a fine album in a series of fine albums from Guns N' Roses had it been released in 1997 or something. Instead you're left with "well that was good but... 17 years of good?"
I still want to play the Quake 2 engine version.-
Hmm, I've listened to Chinese Democracy quite a lot and I really like it. While it was a bit of a joke when in production, once it came out I didn't care how long it took to make and judged it for what it was. It is a good album, even if other people managed to make more albums in the same amount of time.
OTOH, I played the demo of DNF with extremely low expectations and it didn't even meet those. It seemed like a complete pile of shit, whether it was made in 2 years or 17. Unless the full game was really different to the demo (but it wasn't from what I read).
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I think people were WAY too hard on this game. Yes, it had it's flaws, parts of the game were horribly dated by today's standards... but it was still a fun shooter. There were plenty of cool things to see and do in the game and honestly... it didn't look half as bad as some people made it out. There were some levels which actually looked pretty damn good. And there were also parts which were pretty funny. I had fun with the game and I'm VERY glad, personally, that I was able to play game. If the game had just never come out I would have this somewhat sad nagging feeling for the rest of my life... just a little bit of sadness never having gotten to play the game I followed for so many years.
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I think one of the reasons the game wasn't "fun" for many people is that a lot of the jokes are based on pop culture from the era. Some of the cutscenes that should've been in place in some of the levels weren't added because the noobs would've never gotten the reference. I still love the idea that the game finally came out and that perhaps Gearbox will start a new one from scratch.
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"Shipping is really important," Pitchford told Vox Games. "It is not about making the perfect thing. It is about sharing something that we’ve created with the world and getting feedback from that [...] We want that information as immediately as possible so it can affect us and help us do a better job next time. So shipping a lot gives us a constant stream of feedback and helps us improve our decision-making process and our craftsmanship.
"Basically, we like shipping things."
Or - "We like charging you $60 for crap so we can give you more crap for $60" -
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It's not about expectations. An "okay" game could have been released and the fans would have been pleased so long as it did a good job following in the footsteps.
Duke 3D was a fast paced strafe'n'shoot with emphasis on destruction. Duke Forever was not this. It was a frankenstein monster that tried to mix some of the interactive elements of Duke3d with modern cover shooter mechanics. Its jokes were subpar. Honestly the game did not need a strong narrative. Part of the charm behind the one-liners of Duke3D was that they were properly integrated into the game. They were short and sweet and delivered with timing. This existed in Duke Forever, but most of them were long and unfunny.
Duke's Interactivity was also done wrong. When interactive elements were used in Duke 3d, they were also fast to the point where they enhanced the primary mechanics of shooting and blowing shit up were complimented. Think of bathrooms in Duke 3d. You walk in kill aliens, and as collateral damage, a toilet stall blows up, bursting the plumbing into a fountain. Walk into a bar, shoot some aliens, one of your bullets hits a pool ball and the whole rack of balls ricochets. Quick use key allows you to give a dollar to a stripper still doing her job through it all. All interactive elements were short and sweet.
Compare that to duke forever where you are drawing on a board or lifting weights or playing pinball. These are all afterthoughts and something to do aside from the game. They don't compliment with other elements of the game. They are just there and they are boring. Sometimes they make it necessary to do these things in order to gain ego. That's plain stupid and wrong. People play Duke to shorten their attention span, not go on a meticulous scavenger hunt.
I just think that the developers didn't understand what made Duke 3D fun. They only knew that it was fun and saw just the surface of the game and nothing else.-
A number of the items in this game like that would have been neat or revolutionary even in 1998 when this game was supposed to be out. Instead, DNF was the Microsoft Word of the game world in that most of the people who worked on the game at the end of 3DR's life were in no way connected to the beginning of the development and so a number of things like you describe were brought forward without a real clear understanding of what the point was.
I think the problem is, and I mean no disrespect to George Broussard, but he was the main problem. Every single mistake you can think of, 3DR made. From switching engines and thinking it would add ~6 months to the development time to using a no-name physics middleware engine from a company that died to having no clear vision for what the game was even supposed to be for a long time.
Gearbox saw an opportunity - purchase an established IP that worked well at one point in time, as well as a mostly-finished game they could polish off, port to consoles, and release within a year. And that's why they still made money with it - the $22M or so was already a sunk cost on someone else's dime. It was a really smart move - they get to release a new product, they get some more old school cred for being able to finish the last great game of the late 90's Dallas Gaming Mafia scene and deliver it to market, we get to see what the game was like, everyone wins.
I mostly find it amusing that the game's quality makes people angry. If you're legitimately pissed at DNF for being a bad video game, it may be time to find a new and less stressful hobby.-
Duke 3d is likely one of those flukes where the developer (3d Realms) made something really awesome and possibly didn't understand why it was awesome.
They couldn't establish a solid gameplay philosophy throughout development and that's likely the main problem at hand.
To be fair though, 1997-2005 saw a very rapid rate of tech and gameplay evolutions that it was really hard to keep up. Prey fell victim of this but ultimately, released a solid game. In fact, I've said this a thousand times playing through Prey: "reskin the art assets and personality of this game to Duke, and you've got a very very cool Duke Nukem game."
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http://www.shacknews.com/article/68139/duke-nukem-forever-footage-laces
Here is randy lying through his teeth, but even he struggles to talk about what's good about the game. -
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LMAO I called out Duke back when nothing was shown for seven years and remember I took a lot of shit on these very forums and had my username nuked....all for being right. Here's another one I'm gonna call right now, if nothing is shown at E3 VALVE, YOU'RE NEXT (you know what fucking game I speak of)
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Valve is really not next. Why? Easy. They scrapped and rewrote tons of shit in Portal 2. It's a totally different game in the end. Did they do constantly over the course of a decade? No. Was the game outdated when it was released? No. Was it fun as shit? Yes.
Valve more than has the resources and talent. The only thing they can't control is expectations. -
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The gunplay was about the only thing that was even marginally fun about this game, and you got to do so little of it in the game (At least compared to walking around solving terrible puzzles or watching lengthy and terrible scripted sequences) that it ended up at a net negative.
The expectations are completely separate from the criticisms this game deserves. The pacing was shot to hell (With 5 seconds of intense firefight followed by 30 minutes of walking around aimlessly), the game obviously wasn't designed for 2 weapons (With secrets to find weapons in that have no point because you can't keep them), the art direction was bland and uninspired and the jokes were lazy and predictable. -
I agree with Randy. There are a lot of people who were perfectly gratified by the game and there were other people for who, there is just no possible way to meet or exceed such expectations.
I don't deny that theres people belonging to both those groups. But let's face it, main reason people thought it was a bad game is because it was a bad game.
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I wish we could do a Fark "Obvious" Tag on this...
I'm not sure which game should get title of worst delayed, overhyped release. Anachronox or DN:forever
I saw Duke in the PS3 bargain bin for $20... I didn't buy it . lol
"Hey guys, we're not sure why, but our decade and a half year old game didn't sell that well!?"
Good project management skills there George rofl.. make sure you put Dukeforever on your resume.
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DNF was a horrible game and expectations had nothing to do with it. Pitchford blatantly mislead consumers during the hype campaign leading up to its release. For that, DNF ranks right up there with Brink as two games that left me feeling like an idiot for buying them. Perhaps, I am indeed an idiot for spending my money and believing the lies. That does not mean Pitchford gets a pass. I think he is a fake ass mother fucker.