Duke Nukem Forever rises from the dead: Apogee's Scott Miller speaks out
Mar 21, 2007 @ 10:04am

Summary:
In a candid interview, Apogee's Scott Miller speaks about numerous topics, including the state of gaming, Apogee's success with recent titles, and a certain little game known as Duke Nukem Forever.

Full Text:

By Eugene Huang

Despite being known throughout the gaming world as a perpetual punchline, Scott Miller assures YouGamers in a multi-page interview that Duke Nukem Forever has been more or less ressurrected and is making good progress. The vice president of Action Entertainment Inc. (parent company of Apogee Software Ltd./3D Realms, original creators of the Duke Nukem series) takes most of the blame for the game's delay, but believes that development for the game is now well on the way to recovery:

"First, we fully admit we're [sic] screwed up the development of DNF, and it's now an industry joke. I laugh (and cry) when I think about it, too. Our fault is that we set the bar too high, and we tried too hard to make the game to beat all games. In the last 18 months we've taken a much more realistic look at the project, we've hired a truckload of experienced help, and I personally believe we are now on the right track...finally."

According to Miller, the Duke Nukem forever team is now 33 strong, and the experienced help of which he speaks refers to a number of developers from what he calls "several blockbuster projects."

"These new developers have made a stunningly positive impact on the project. And we continue to hire. I think when any developer visits our studio, meets the people already here, and sees what we already have in place...well, it becomes an easy sell."

But will it really sell to gamers? And will Duke's popularity with aging gamers play a role in the success of DNF? Miller believes that it won't, or shouldn't matter at all:

"DNF will succeed or fail not because of the Duke brand, but solely based on whether the game is great, or not. The original Duke Nukem 3D didn't have a large fan following, and yet it succeeded. DNF will have to stand on its own just the same."

In fact, for Miller, one of the biggest problems in the gaming industry today is the fact that it relies too heavily on licensed and/or already-established IPs. Another problem in the industry? Resells:

"Gamestop is the biggest offender, and makes over a billion dollars a year on resells now -- with none of that going to the publishers or studios that created these games. This is a serious blow for content creators, and will only make it harder and harder for original IP to be given any sort of a chance in the future."

As to what's currently saving the industry, Miller feels strongly that Nintendo's Wii controller is doing much to bringing more physical interactivity into the realm of video games. Furthermore, he believes that the burgeoning casual games industry is doing much to broaden the shrinking gamer base.

And finally, Miller spoke quite a bit about his company's more recent successes, including Prey and Max Payne. But, he's particularly curious as to why nobody has released a new Max Payne game in quite a while:

"With Max Payne, for example, we always planned for a long series. I'm still puzzled to this day why -- after 3D Realms and Remedy sold the IP to Take2 -- there's not been a Max Payne 3. That's a franchise that sold over 7 million copies between two games. We should be hearing about Max 4 in development by now."

With Take-Two's current financial woes, however, one shouldn't expect that to come out any time soon.