Conspiracy Theory: Duke Nukem Forever and a Story About a Chair
Game developer Charlie Wiederhold, who worked at 3D Realms between 1998 and 2006 wrote on his personal blog about an mindblowing conspiracy perpetrated between the heads of 3D Realms, Epic Games and a few other leading members of the industry to keep Duke Nukem Forever in almost perpetual development for the PR and marketing purposes of boosting the success of the Unreal Engine and to create a game that was to be remembered for all time:
Before heading out to E3, George and Scott Miller had arranged a meeting between Epic, 3DR, and the people who had worked on Duke 3D but weren’t working on DNF. The intent of this meeting was… you guessed it… how best to handle the future of the Duke franchise. Epic was invited because having Duke around on the Unreal Engine was a constant PR boon for them. So they are almost just as invested in how well Duke does as 3DR (as you will see later). It was a secret meeting (there were actually two meetings, but I’ll get to that later), not even the publisher knew about it (except Mike Wilson… he was operating outside of the Gathering of Developer’s authority). The people there were Scott Miller, George Broussard, Cliffy B, Mark Rein, Tim Sweeney, Levelord, Allen Blum, Keith Schuler, myself, Brandon Reinhart, Mike Wilson, and even Todd Replogle and Ken Silverman made the trip out there.
The plan was actually pretty simple… create the longest developed game in history that eventually is one of the greatest games ever made. You have the time to work on it properly (no ****), so given the intelligence and talent of all the people involved, it was a pretty good bet. All 3DR had to do was make money on other stuff. All Epic had to do was open up a wide channel between the two companies. 3DR would serve as a research house for future Epic engine updates, but also give 3DR everything they did as well. The boots on the ground just had to keep the drum beating and keep the image of business as usual going. The truly hard to swallow part of this was some of us had to eventually leave, but we were guaranteed we’d be ok. All we had to do was let go of the idea of just making DNF in the traditional way… which I’m ashamed to admit was easier to let go of than I thought it would be.
The story then takes a sudden shift as the chief parties start to resemble members of the Mafia, and ends with a physical threat on the developer's life when he questioned the contract he was about to sign. Read on.
We all came back the next day. We went around and gave our thoughts on things after having a night to sleep on it. Scott and George wanted to get paperwork signed that day if we were going to attempt it at all. This seemed *way* too soon and I didn’t have a lawyer around to read the contract or anything. I was young, but I had had enough experience by that point to know you don’t sign a contract of any significance without having a lawyer read it. Unfortunately it was made clear that this offer was active only so long as we were all in the room. Once any one of us left it was void and Scott, George, and Mark Rein (the three that put it together) would deny all knowledge. They had never done any discussions of this in written form except the contracts which Scott Miller was holding.
That was pressure… here was this deal where I would be set for life, and if I backed out of it, it would blow the whole thing for both companies and everyone involved. Not only would I be backing out of the opportunity of a lifetime, but I would also be ruined in the industry because those guys have way more power than I do. I wanted to do it, but how do you commit on such short notice and without really knowing what you are signing?
Brandon, Allen, Keith, and I kept hemming and hawing and we could tell we were really causing problems with everyone else in the room. I said that I wanted to do it, but I *had* to have a lawyer review it before I signed it. The fury in the eyes of the guys sitting across from me was literally enough to give me a third degree burn. I have *never* felt that much fear in my life. Well… up to that point at least.
I was told to think about my next words very carefully before giving my final answer. Honestly, I felt this was a test to see how well I would hold up to pressure later when we had to “hold the lie” (the similarity to “hold the line” isn’t on accident), so I held firm and said I really wanted to, but needed to have it reviewed…
oh ****…
Faster than I can even remember (literally… I don’t remember) I was knocked out of my chair by I *think* of all people Tim Sweeney (it was a wooden kitchen chair) and was pinned on the ground by Mike Wilson and Cliffy B (he’s so much stronger than I ever expected). George walks over to my chair and ******* stomps the **** out of it until the legs are broken off. He casually picks up one of the legs that had split into a **** your pants style point and starts tossing it up and down. Scott and Mark Rein alternate on and off saying that I apparently wasn’t aware how *real* business is done and that if I didn’t want to find out why those two companies had maintained such a strong position in the industry dating back to the shareware days (when it seems people didn’t ask nearly as many questions about why developers appeared, made a game, and then disappeared without a trace)… I had better reconsider my answer.
I do remember the next part very very well though… I will never forget it and I have to admit that I have dreams about it pretty frequently.
Cliffy and Mike pulled me up and shoved my face about 6 inches from the point of the chair leg. I was drenched in sweat (the trailers didn’t have decent AC so it was already hot as hell in there)… and if they had let go of me I would not have been able to stand on my own.
George looked me in the eyes and asked me one more time what I was going to do… so at that point I did what anyone would do…
Far out. I don't buy that at all, but it makes for a good story (read the original here).
Wiederhold is currently under the employ of Infinity Ward, where he works as a mission scriptor on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Thanks to VE3D for the heads up on the news.
