Duke Nukem Lawsuit Mentions Off-Shore Banking

Today, the latest piece of information about the legal battle between 3D Realms and Take-Two came out via Shacknews.  The courtroom documents give new details about the entire sordid affair that led to the lawsuit.

Originally, 3D Realms had contended that Take-Two had made a proposal to acquire the developer and the Duke Nukem franchise that was not acceptable and torpedoed the project, forcing much of the development team to be let go.  These new documents show that Take-Two hoped to co-develop an Xbox 360 version of Duke Nukem Forever, where 3D Realms apparently "demanded that Take-Two fully fund Apogee's reaching certain milestones" for making the PC and Xbox 360 version at the same time. 

Given the extended development cycle of Duke Nukem Forever, Take-Two was hesitant to offer full funding, instead offering half of the co-development cost up through the alpha milestone and the rest coming upon the game's completion.   3D Realms found the proposal to be unacceptable and rejected it.

When Take-Two acquired the rights to publish Duke Nukem Forever in 2000, they note they had the rights to independently develop console versions of the game as well.  Take-Two claims that not only has 3D Realms failed to deliver the finished game on time, but they have prevented a port of Duke Nukem Forever to the Xbox 360 as a consequence.

I guess 3D Realms didn't spend all their money on strippers.

Two cash infusions were made for Duke Nukem Forever, the larger one being $2.5 million from Take-Two Interactive in 2008.  That amount carried a "7 percent per annum" interest past September 2009, which would be due if the game was not delivered by October 22, 2012.

The publisher is seeking damages from 3D Realms for profits lost from not delivering the game and equal to the various advances made, accounting for accrued interest, in addition to the source code.  Take-Two also claims that 3D Realms "has title to a substantial amount of funds deposited in an off-shore account" the sum of which the company believes the company can use to pay off its debts.

This whole lawsuit between Take-Two and 3D Realms is a very tangled web.  We've occasionally made jokes (many of which cannot be shared here) over the years about what 3D Realms was doing with their development money instead of making Duke Nukem Forever, but shenanigans involving off-shore bank accounts certainly seemed like a possibility.  In the end, we can only feel so sorry for 3D Realms given that after a dozen years, they still failed to produce a game.