Randy Pitchford: "customers love Duke"

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 17 June, 2011

Plus, voice actor hits out at critics.

Gearbox Software boss Randy Pitchford has taken to Twitter to comment on sales of Duke Nukem Forever.

"With sales data, it seems like *customers* love Duke," he said. "I guess sometimes we want greasy hamburgers instead of caviar..."

Duke Nukem Forever, thought lost in development hell before Borderlands developer Gearbox rescued it, was panned by critics upon its release last week.

Eurogamer's Duke Nukem Forever review returned a 3/10.

Take-Two stock fell by over 4 per cent to $14.80 earlier this week. Stocks are down more than 15 per cent since mid-May, although up for the year overall.

However, the incredible hype surrounding Duke Nukem Forever's launch has propelled the game to the top of the UK charts, and will presumably have a strong effect on the US sales for June.

Meanwhile, Jon St. Jon, the voice of Duke, hit out at the game's poor review scores.

"I have no comments regarding bad reviews by clueless critics," he told The JoyPads.co.uk.

"They seem to want to compare Duke Nukem Forever to Call Of Duty and other FPSs and they are missing the point. My thoughts about Duke Nukem Forever: It freakin ROCKS! Lots of action, lots of fun, sexy, funny, irreverent... It's everything I hoped it would be."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (67) Latest comment 11 months ago

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  • StolenGlory #1 11 months ago

    I love Duke. Can't fucking stand the game he is in though.

  • DDevil #2 11 months ago

    StolenGlory got it in one. We like Duke, but yer game is shit.

  • seanyboycorben #3 11 months ago

    Randy, 99% of these *customers* are likely very pissed at you and will be trading in your shitty game this week.

  • CaptainQuint #4 11 months ago

    So all of a sudden it's become trendy to hate on this game. It's the latest fashion.

    Only a few weeks ago this game was apparently going to be the dogs dick and anyone who dared to suggest otherwise was shouted down in 0.5 seconds.

    Honestly, some of you people are complete dickheads.

  • kingz #5 11 months ago

    Hopefully now gearbox have the rights to the ip they can build it from scratch, instead of filling in the gaps left by the previous studios and restore the now tarnished name of Duke Nukem to former glory
    Edited by kingz at 17/06/11 @ 11:15

  • Shikasama #6 11 months ago

    Getting bored of Bioware telling me I'#m wrong for not liking DA2 and Gearbox telling me I'm wrong for not liking Duke Nukem.

    Marketing sold your games so good job on that front, but your product was fucking shoddy. Even on an objective, TECHNICAL level, it was poorly made. That's nothing to do with fun, that's craftsmanship.

    You fucking dick.
    Edited by Shikasama at 17/06/11 @ 11:12

  • AcidSnake #7 11 months ago

    Stop digging! You're gonna have a tough time getting out again!

    Also, no mention on here about the blacklisting?
    Edited by AcidSnake at 17/06/11 @ 10:59

  • Shikasama #8 11 months ago

    CaptainQuint - You mean before it was released people thought it would be good? Now they have played it they have changed their opinion!?

    THOSE BASTARDS! I've never been so disgusted in all of my life.

  • karlidog #9 11 months ago

    I love Duke. Can't fucking stand the game he is in though.

    I'm not a Duke-lover or hater - I'd totally be open to the idea of a game with him in that was actually good - but... what do you all love about the guy? Isn't he just a hand with a gun and a load of lines repeated from movies? It seems like there's nothing there to have an opinion on, and the only reason people remember him from DN3D is that the plagiarism of a load of other people's dialogue gave him slightly more personality than the Doom marine or whoever.

  • actionfitz #10 11 months ago

    Im betting a good portion of those people will not be pre-ordering another Gearbox game until reviews indicate a return to form (hopefully Borderlands 2 :p )

  • steve1979 #11 11 months ago

    Look, Randy we're not blaming you or Gearbox for the game. It was shit when you got your hands on it, and you can't polish a turd. Iit's understandable. But that doesn't mean it's any good, and that doesn't mean that the critics were wrong.

    The best thing you can do, is forget about it and take the license to make a good game. You know, like most Gearbox games, so that we can all quickly forget about the shit that's just been realsed and bask in a game that deserves the Duke name.

  • cw- #12 11 months ago

    "I have no comments regarding bad reviews by clueless critics,"
    Then goes on to comment about the reviews? :p


    I'm really enjoying DNF, great mindless fun.
    More disappointed with the "quality" of the limited edition. Statue was much smaller than the images made it look and the playing cards, wtf? They're rather small... why not include normal sized ones!

  • Branoic #13 11 months ago

    I got DNF for €3 through the Gamestop deal of trading in 3 games I hadn't played in about 2 years, so I'm happy enough with my purchase. 1 euro for every point in the EG review seems about right for me. I'd be fucking fuming if I paid any more though.

  • Lemming81 #14 11 months ago

    If they'd gone full 80's action movie satire instead of adding in all the frankly shit blowjob/fart/shit gags people would have loved Duke.

  • andywilkie35 #15 11 months ago

    Randy "Doesn't ever stop fucking talking" Pitchford

  • Fightclubber #16 11 months ago

    I nearly punched my monitor after reading this

  • kentmonkey #17 11 months ago

    is the headline missing 's of Hazard'? I'm trying to make sense of it.

  • Gunhappy23 #18 11 months ago

    "With sales data, it seems like *customers* love Duke," he said. "I guess sometimes we want greasy hamburgers instead of caviar..." NO!!! holding back review copys people had to find out the hard way how bad this game is .

    Edited by Gunhappy23 at 17/06/11 @ 11:16

  • rob_of_the_robots #19 11 months ago

    "Statue was much smaller than the images made it look and the playing cards, wtf? They're rather small... why not include normal sized ones!"

    To make the statue look bigger?

  • Phantom_Dynamite #20 11 months ago

    "I guess sometimes we want greasy hamburgers instead of caviar..."

    I constantly want burgers over caviar, but never want terribly made games over quality ones.

    Funny that.

  • NOSAVIOUR #21 11 months ago

    No customers bought Duke then realised it was shit and are selling it asap.

  • Retro_ #22 11 months ago

    Is it really that bad? we know the 360 version sucks a bit but what about PS3 / PC. Anyone?

  • King_Edward #23 11 months ago

    I still love you Randy. You work for some spineless fuckers though.

  • schnide #24 11 months ago

    Methinks the Pitchford doth protest too much..

  • speedjack #25 11 months ago

    To be honest the game is exactly what I expected... and in a strange way I'm glad I bought it just to satisfy my curiosity.

    But to get pissed at Gearbox or Randy Pitchford is ridiculous when they had pretty much zero to do with the game other than glue the mess together.

    Its like blaming your optician because your girlfriend is ugly.

  • RodHull #26 11 months ago

    I'm really tempted to pick this up, from a car-crash rubber necking sort of perspective, just to see how truly awful it really is.

  • kristo #27 11 months ago

    balls balls balls balls balls balls.......of Steel!

  • Haloboy #28 11 months ago

    I've lost a fair bit of respect for Randy since he got us all so uber psyched about the release of DNF with his "it's fucking here at last, can you fucking believe it!?" hyperbole train. And all we ended up with was a train crash of a game. Fuck sake Randy, I wanted to believe you, I almost did. Thank fuck I came to my senses in time and cancelled my order.

    Don't worry though Randy, there's still Aliens: CM and Borderlands 2 that could well put you back in favour again. Just please in the name of all things holy don't make the same mistake twice.

  • CaptainQuint #29 11 months ago

    @Shikasama

    Speak for yourself. Some of us are old and grizzled enough to spot a shit game at the preview stage.

  • sega #30 11 months ago

    I'm buying it soon! Oh man, I have a bad feeling - I can't resist, though. I'd need to go through fourteen years of negative reviews to dilute the fourteen years of hype.

  • headcrash #31 11 months ago

    @retro_

    Just read the comments of the review here on EG. IMO if you play it on PC, are over 25 years old and chuckle at the humour of games like Postal 2 oder the GTA series, then it is a shitload of fun.
    If you have followed the development and consider how hard it must have been to combine all the ideas of three development teams into one game, then you will appreciate the result that Gearbox delivered, at least on PC.
    Oh, and read the User feedback on metacritic.

  • Raz76 #32 11 months ago

    I guess sometimes we want rancid old spam instead of greasy hamburgers.

  • InsoFox #33 11 months ago

    Customers certainly love trading Duke in, if a cursory glance around CEX last night is anything to go by.

  • Kaonazhie #34 11 months ago

    Pitchfork's turning into the new Molyneux.

  • Freek #35 11 months ago

    Yup, people like Duke and thought the game was an interesting curiosity, a bitt of history. But it is not good, not at all.
    Even if it came out 10 year ago it would still not have been up to standards of the FPSs of the time.

    Stop bullshitting people, admit the mistake and make the Duke game everybody wants, a modern FPS with a sense of humor.

  • paketep #36 11 months ago

    Yeah, yeah, Randy. Keep telling yourself that.

  • DrStrangelove #37 11 months ago

    Uhum. Uhu-uhu-UHRR-UHUM! UHUH uh *gasp* ARRHEM RHUM. *choke*

  • BuddyChrist #38 11 months ago

    You ruddy critics, comparing DNF against good games within the same Market. The hell you doin' that for?!

  • Branoic #39 11 months ago

    Another of his tweeds says:
    "So... Spiderman on Broadway finally opened the same day that Duke Nukem Forever shipped. COINCIDENCE?!?"

    Hmm, isn't Spiderman on Broadway also supposed to be an absolute train wreck? COINCIDENCE?!?

  • HurbleBurble #40 11 months ago

    Have to agree with Shikasama - I'm getting bored of companies and PR groups telling gamers that "It's not the product, it's your understanding of it."

    Let's look at it this way: If it wasn't Duke and didn't have the branding, does the game stand on it's own merits to be a successful IP and be raved about by critics and the public alike? No.

  • theonlyix #41 11 months ago

    really liked it sofar.!

  • Cryotek #42 11 months ago

    "With sales data, it seems like *customers* love Duke," he said. "I guess sometimes we want greasy hamburgers instead of caviar..."

    Let's see what the sales data says in a month, shall we? Good week one sales are indicative of good marketing, not a good game. Longevity is the key.
    If by next month it is still selling well, with a large amount still playing it while connected on-line ( because we wouldn't know the data tracking of offline ) then, and only then, do *customers* love Duke.
    Keep an eye on trade-in rate too.
    To think ljust last week, i had a pretty good opinion of Mr. Pitchford.

  • Seoh #43 11 months ago

    I think a better venue for the character "duke nukem" would be a point and click adventure game a la "sam and max"

  • PaletteSwap #44 11 months ago

    I think Tom Chick phrased it best in his review: "The real value of Duke Nukem Forever is that you can use it to gauge the range of any reviewer's lowest rating. Here is the baseline for how low games can go". That's actually not too hyperbolic.

  • AaronTurner #45 11 months ago

    I still can't understand why people bought this when all signs pointed to awful. Sure, pick it up when it's cheap to satiate your interest but as a £40 game?

  • CelticTerry #46 11 months ago

    What score did Eurogamer give it? they never seen to mention it.

  • FortysixterUK #47 11 months ago

    It's rubbish.
    I suspect a lot of second hand copies will be hitting the shelves soon, unless the publisher does some kind of damage limitation and asks shops not to dispaly second hand copies for a few months, or asks for them to be sent them back to the publisher to hide the fact the games performed so badly

    It seems to me everyone involved in making the game is talking utter bullshit, they knew it sucked, and they still released it,
    with a nice short review period just to ensure some sales were had.

  • brod #48 11 months ago

    Customers love nostalgia. DNF sucks.

  • brod #49 11 months ago

    "I have no comments regarding bad reviews by clueless critics," he told The JoyPads.co.uk before making comments.

  • RoOhDaMite #50 11 months ago

    The game had it's moments, but really benefits from our 14 years of Duke-abstinence. The next game better be the real deal though.

  • huckan #51 11 months ago

    Couldn't give a toss what any review says; I'm enjoying it thoroughly from the god awful graphics to the ridiculous plot!

  • coolbritannia #52 11 months ago

    It's already discounted to £20 isn't it? Alongside Brink...

  • BonzoBanana #53 11 months ago

    the metacritic score was 6/10 last time I checked which is average to good. Eurogamer's score is not in line with this but they did review the inferior 360 version. There are plenty of games I've loved that have scored 6 or less. Everyone seems keen to give the game a kicking but 6/10 is a score that merits consideration especially if its a favourite genre of yours and you played Duke Nukem 3D in the past.

  • AaronTurner #54 11 months ago

    The Metacritic is 57 for PC and 49 for Xbox. That's pretty bad really.

  • Spekingur #55 11 months ago

    It's true though what Jon St. Jon writes. Many reviewers are comparing Duke to Call of Duty and seemingly forgetting the heritage of the old games (especially Duke Nukem 3D). Some reviewers are complaining about childish one liners - which just makes me believe that they never played previous Duke Nukem games.

    We all knew that the game was a mess. We just wanted it to come out, play it and get this chapter in gaming over with.
    I knew what I was getting when I bought it for my PC and I am pretty satisfied that it met my expectations - which were quite low. I never expected it to surpass Call of Duty in FPS quality (it didn't) but that wasn't why I bought it for either. Result? I am okay with the money I spent on it.

  • KDR_11k #56 11 months ago

    Lots of action? No, the game has too much downtime.

  • BradlayLaw #57 11 months ago

    I bought it, played it, liked it, completed it, went back and played some of the games in the strip club and then traded it in for £30 so I could by Children of Eden. Total cost of Duke - £8. I'm happy with that.

  • mooseman721 #58 11 months ago

    Pacman DX, now there's love put into the remakes of that old IP, thats how you you do it! Do that and you won't get a backlash over how shite your product is. Oh and I don't care that three teams worked on it blah blah blah, so what? You released it, it sucks, come get some.

  • HyperTails #59 11 months ago

    I like Duke. Good game, though if this is polished i'm a German.

    MP is really fast, never a moment to let up. SP is pretty fun, good humour, decient length...

    Its about a 7/10 from me. If you take it for what it is, you might like it. Just don't compare it to COD, or anything like that. Those FPS'es passed it years ago.

  • Dabs #60 11 months ago

    Shut the hell up Randy, it's a shitty game by any measure and you're irritating people by having the audacity to offend it. Admit that it's a load of out-dated, offensive, badly-made bollocks and let's all move on.

  • tomjoadsghost #61 11 months ago

    @dabs:- please could you detail the measures that randy is taking to offend his copy of DNF, is he dancing around pulling faces at it or something?

    Its a pretty fun game, i think if they'd have been more forthcoming with review copies and sent out the Ps3/PC version it wouldnt have faired as badly as it did - its definitely a far, far more entertaining campaign than that godawful AVP game that came out last year and im not terribly MP minded but i noticed that the guy on the top of the leaderboard had accrued 48 hours of playtime so presumably it has its charms in that department too.

    Do feel a bit sorry for the reviewer having to give up a weekend playing a game he obviously didnt enjoy though, was impressive getting the review up ahead of schedule.
    Edited by tomjoadsghost at 17/06/11 @ 17:17

  • Freek #62 11 months ago

    Oh please, don't even bring up the heritage of the old games. That just makes DNF look worse! No seriously, go play DN3D, you can get the demo for free on Xbox Live, it has almost the whole of the first level. You will imidiatly see it´s a better game.
    The level design is far more interesting, with lots of secrets to discover, opening up new ways to play and interesting guns. The art direction is more colorfull, the action is better. The jokes are funnier because it´s not yet so outright obnoxiouse and self indulgent.

    DNF compares badly to the kind of game it wants to be: an old style shooter like Half Life or Unreal. Those games are far better too, they´re still retro fun and interesting.
    DNF is just badly made.

  • Subdominator #63 11 months ago

    The Duke has to live up to 3D Realms hype. They said three years ago that despite being in development for such a long time it will live up to all standards and look great. And there are parts (on PC, because 3DR only worked on a PC version, the console versions are cheap ports made by other studios in the last two years) where it does indeed look good. But there are also parts where you wonder why you're back in 2007. The game looks like Doom 3 + Prey + more colors. But that wouldn't be the biggest failure.

    Duke pretends to be an old school shooter, even mocks current titles. Yet it has a two weapon limit (great for tactical shooters but otherwise the dumbest invention ever), some of the most linear levels I have ever seen (Duke 3D had linear gameplay but pretty open levels) and reload animations. The game wants to be worthy of Duke 3D (which is why they recycled so much of it) but totally fails getting the things right that made D3D a success. DNF feels clunky and boring, D3D is fast paced and fun. And they made the exact same mistake: Promising lots of interactions. Just like in D3D it's pretty much only the first two levels where you can actually do something with the environment. After that - nothing. And even in the few parts where you can interact it feels very shallow, because you can only interact with 10 % of the objects. The rest are totally static. This wasn't a problem back in 1996 when there were very few objects overall and you could interact with everything you saw. But now you have ten objects in a scene and you can use one, yet you try to use them all because you don't know which are interactive and which are not. It ruins the pace of the game. I enjoy D3D much more than DNF - even after all those years. George Broussard should burn in hell for stopping development on the 2001 E3 Duke Nukem Forever. Because from the trailer alone one can see that that game would have been much better than what we have now.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHU3sq8Wfjs
    Edited by Subdominator at 17/06/11 @ 18:56

  • Diabeu #64 11 months ago

    bought at day one, finished twice and traded after 3 days.

  • wayne997 #65 11 months ago

    and i was so looking forward to this .every time i would die i would roll a rolly and stick the kettle on smoke it drink it then may be the charlie checkpoint may of loaded when they have had all that time to make this game why not a load once like halo and that was it.and if there was to muck going on on screen it was like been in a rave with the frame rate ,i was in the room at night and it was like strobe lights with one of the worst frame rates [should of put a warning on the cover for this game may cause seizures dyslectic i mean rimes with paralytic. like stolenglory said I love Duke. Can't fucking stand the game he is in though. nuff said i would say duke sack randy pitchfork from borderlands to this best thing was borderlands was made in the time they where making DUKE NUKEM FOREVER FUCKUP .get rockstar or valve peace people save your money

  • headcrash #66 11 months ago

    Dear wayne997,

    what?

  • Gizzle #67 11 months ago

    The mob is out for the blood of Randy Pitchfork