Miller: T2 lawsuit "knee-deep in BS"

By Robert Purchese Published 16 June, 2009

3D Realms "always innocent", "always wins".

3D Realms (and parent company Apogee) founder Scott Miller has rubbished claims of an offshore bank account with "substantial funds" made in a Take-Two lawsuit.

"Do readers here realize that filed lawsuits are entirely one-sided statements, based on knee-deep BS and with more spin that a top?" Miller asked Shackews.

"3DR has been in nearly a dozen lawsuits (including against Warner and Fox). We're always innocent, and we always win. This one is no exception. Give it a year, then the truth will come out."

Take-Two wants USD 12m compensation for the failed delivery of Duke Nukem Forever, which the publisher believes Apogee has, despite 3DR claiming funding was the reason the game was buried and most staff laid-off.

"Upon information and belief, Apogee has title to a substantial amount of funds deposited in an off-shore account, which Take-Two believes Apogee can use to fund its outstanding obligations," said the publisher in the freshly-unearthed May lawsuit.

The lawsuit suggests the real reason may be an Xbox 360 version of Duke Nukem Forever. Take-Two wanted it, but claimed 3DR disagreed with funding proposals. T2 sought out another developer for the console version and assumed a contractually obliged 3DR would provide source code.

But, without warning, Apogee shut down development on DNF and all but closed 3DR.

A full trial is expected within eight to 11 months from now.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 3 years ago

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  • BillyBrush #1 3 years ago

    Always Innocent, Always Wins....great quote

    tbh I wouldn't be surprised if they scurried money away and just released a bunch of demo reels for the price of mere millions of dollars...

    Or be surprised if they have a version of the game ready but want to go bust, break ties with T2 and try and resell it to the highest bidder...

    What i'm not so sure about is who in their right mind would want to deal with them in future in terms of publishing

  • MyPointIs #2 3 years ago

    "we've been in a dozen lawsuits ... but we are always innocent"

    Hmm... talk about bad luck!

  • kangarootoo #3 3 years ago

    I wish this guy would just stop talking. It doesn't really matter whether he is right or wrong, he just sounds like an angsty teen instead of a professional businessman.

  • Bigglesworth #4 3 years ago

    Quite ironic, having link to buy DNF beside this article...

    edit: Actually, that quote is a much better tagline than "Always bet on Duke":
    Duke Nukem Forever: He's always innocent, and he always wins!
    Edited by 1 at 16/06/09 @ 09:56

  • Sunyavadin #5 3 years ago

    Time to kick ass and spend pension funds...


    ......and they're all out of funds....

  • penhalion #6 3 years ago

    I think T2 have simply sat down and said

    "When you exhaust all other possibilities, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true. Hence all that money we poured into Duke Nukem must have gone to a swiss bank account as it can't have been used to produce the crap 3DRealms showed us!"

    And so they sue to get the money back. Seems reasonable to me :)

  • RobotRocker #7 3 years ago

    This is what T2 gets for not Betting on Duke.

  • loopy #8 3 years ago

    "Time to kick ass and spend pension funds...


    ......and they're all out of funds.... "

    :D

  • sneetch #9 3 years ago

    "Do readers here realize that filed lawsuits are entirely one-sided statements, based on knee-deep BS and with more spin that a top?" Miller asked Shackews.

    Ah, I think I understand, so lawsuits are kinda like this press release (and indeed the entire development history of Duke Nukem Forever)?

    The failure to produce anything of worth after so much time and so much money has screwed them they're not going to get much sympathy because the funding was pulled. Of course it was pulled! In this climate T2 can't afford to keep throwing good cash into this kind of black hole.

    That said, I feel sorry for the staff that lost their jobs particularly as I dare say having 3D Realms on your CV will be like having "Hobbies: strangling stray animals and stalking my superiors".

  • sneetch #10 3 years ago

    @cragtek
    "I've told you, Dougal.... those funds were just resting in that account!"

    "It was there for a very long time Ted... a good long rest".

  • zoidberg #11 3 years ago

    People, stop writing Take-Two as "T2". It reads like TERMINATOR 2.

  • sneetch #12 3 years ago

    @zoidberg
    People, stop writing Take-Two as "T2". It reads like TERMINATOR 2.

    No! You stop writing Terminator 2 as T2! It reads like Take-Two! :p

  • kangarootoo #13 3 years ago

    "Ah, I think I understand, so lawsuits are kinda like this press release (and indeed the entire development history of Duke Nukem Forever)?"

    Good call :)

  • Goffee #14 3 years ago

    You can win a court case by having better lawyers than the other side - but still have dun the deed, just a thought.

  • Eraser #15 3 years ago

    "all but closed 3DR" implies they (Apogee) have done everything except close 3DRealms. Is that piece of text correct or is it another example of incorrect use of "all but"?

  • mingster #16 3 years ago

    I also thought it was a terminator 2 lawsight

  • Spekingur #17 3 years ago

    So wait, Apogee didn't agree on a contract with Take Two on an X360 version of Duke Nukem Forever so Take Two decided to talk to another developer for that believing that the original contract with 3D Realms would allow them to do so.
    Apogee though, didn't like that, and thus decided to close down 3D Realms claiming it to be "out of funds" or whatever the reason was. That way all deals 3D Realms had are void and allows all intellectual property to be shifted to Apogee?

    So basically, Apogee closed down 3D Realms so Take Two wouldn't or couldn't involve a diffirent developer for the X360 version.

  • TheBoyChris #18 3 years ago

    ???

    http://ww w.shopto.net/page.php?page=dett...

  • penhalion #19 3 years ago

    @Spekingur

    Nope Apogee closed down 3DRealms because they know that, should anyone actually get their hands on the duke code and assets, the true extent of the fraud will come out and they'd be finished.

    Someone, somewhere has stolen an awful lot of money from T2 and they are rightly pissed about it.

  • dirk_aircool #20 3 years ago

    Sounds like they've pulled a sex pistols/EMI scam . blatant fraud . I hope they get in the shit . give em 50 to life in the upstate Pen' .

    sunyavadin . thats one of this years best eurogamer posts .

    Countfrapula. I think they are outstanding buisnessmen . they appear to have got $12M for doing a few fake screenshots while at the same time accumulated enough interest to pay for fantastic lawyers , T2 will end up paying THEM damages and costs .
    Edited by 1 at 16/06/09 @ 15:53

  • YenRug #21 3 years ago

    Seems some people haven't followed what's happened:

    Apogee/3DR sold the publishing rights to another third-party (can't recall who off the top of my head), for which they received somewhere in the region of $400K.

    Apogee/3DR were funding the development of DNF out of their own pockets, there was no funding forthcoming from the publisher for the ongoing work.

    Take2 approached the original publisher and made a deal with them, not Apogee/3DR, to purchase the publishing rights for which they paid in the region of $13M.

    The collapse of Apogee/3DR seems to be a bit confused, at this point, there seems to have been talks with T2 regarding possible funding to complete DNF, but T2 have apparently made demands which Apogee/3DR were not willing to accept. At this point, Apogee closed down 3DR to retain control of their own IP's.

    In response T2 have tried to lay claim to those IP's, justifying that the publishing rights equates to ownership and have also claimed that the money paid to the original publisher is also due to them, from Apogee, even though the developer didn't benefit from the purchase of the publishing rights from the original third-party.

    So, no, no-one has actually stolen any money, it's just T2 pissed at spending a small fortune on something that's failed to materialise; they're now looking for their pound of flesh, but they're actually going after the wrong people, unless they can prove that the money did in fact end up at Apogee/3DR. Whilst I can't see it being unlikely that at least part of the money went to them, I can't see it being anywhere near the whole $13M that T2 are after.

  • dirk_aircool #22 3 years ago

    YenRug .
    stop ruinning things by being right ( possibly ) We gamers were promised a game 12 years (or whatever ), now we want an angry mob of pitch fork wielding torch bearing peasants storm the castle and spill blood and guts all over the place . lets just enjoy .
    Edited by 1 at 16/06/09 @ 16:07

  • YenRug #23 3 years ago

    @CountFapula

    But this is exactly where you're wrong, Apogee currently have at least one other team of developers working on other games featuring DN; are they just supposed to hand over the rights to something they created to someone else, thus losing control of something they're already working on?

    What do you expect T2 to do with the DN IP? Churn out one bog-standard FPS after another, with no respect for what went before? You could argue that that would at least be doing something with it, but is it the right thing to be doing with it?

  • smelly #24 3 years ago

    YAY! Gamers talking about game development as if they know what they're talking about as they once read an article in "edge" magazine.

    .. do go on.. i could do with a laugh this morning.

  • TitusCrow #25 3 years ago

    im sure somone is telling the truth- so help me zod!

    "Im not on trial here" - Dr Zoidberg circa 1999
    Edited by 1 at 17/06/09 @ 00:18

  • kangarootoo #26 3 years ago

    "I'm no business man but I surely wouldn't hire someone from that company"

    Well not being a businessman is probably why you would make an that sort of statement. There might well be a bunch of talented people at 3DR, but they aren't all in charge of the company are they? Tarring everyone with the same brush is just short sighted.


    @smelly

    Oh come on, at least add something of substance to the discussion instead of sitting in your tower. The whole DNF development cycle has been a proper cluster f*ck and you and I both know that. Its no good suggesting that gamers who nothing about development are way off the mark here, unless you know something that is escaping all of us that demonstrates this was actually a great project with no major competance issues at the top....?