take-two-interactive posts

3D Realms (under their Apogee Software parent name) has now officially responded to Take Two Interactive's lawsuit filed last month concerning the shut down in the development of Duke Nukem Forever. In the 20 page response filed on Friday (found by GamePolitics) with the US District Court in the Southern District of New York, 3D Realms/Apogee denies most of the allegations made by Take Two in its lawsuit.

However the response has also revealed that 3D Realms entered into an agreement with Take Two for an all new Duke Nukem game, Duke Begins. The agreement was made in 2007 and the development would be handled by an unnamed third party game studio, not 3D Realms, and published by Take Two's 2K Games brand. According to 3D Realms, Take Two/2K Games ordered work halted on Duke Begins in April 2009,something which 3D Realms says Take Two has denied.

The legal fight between 3D Realms/Apogee Software and publisher Take Two Interactive over the long awaited FPS Duke Nukem Forever remains one of the biggest news stories of 2009 so far and now more info on the lawsuit has come to light. A filing made by Take Two to the New York State Supreme Court on May 11 and posted on the court's web site on June 13 gives Take Two's side of the story in full.

In short, Take Two states that in early 2009 they came to 3D Realms/Apogee to work on an agreement to make an Xbox 360 version of the game alongside the PC version. According to the Take Two statement, 3D Realms requested that they fully fund the game. Instead Take Two said they would fund 50 percent of the game's development for the PC and Xbox 360 version and would fund the remaining 50 percent when Duke Nukem Forever was completeted. Take Two stated that 3D Realms rejected this offer.

As we reported, Take Two Interactive issued its quarterly financial report today. However during the conference call to discuss the results with analysts, its CEO Ben Feder revealed that the highly anticipated BioShock 2 would be released on Nov. 3 in the US with an earlier October 30 date planned for Europe.

Oddly, BioShock 2's platforms are still "TBA" at least according to Take Two's own release calendar. However the game's official community site The Cult of Rapture has revealed that the game will indeed be released for the PC platform and that it and the console versions will all be released at the same time.

After nearly two weeks of rumors and a lawsuit against the company by publisher Take Two Interactive, Duke Nukem Forever's development studio 3D Realms has finally sent out an official response to the shut down of development for the long awaited first person shooter. Big Download received a press release via email from 3D Realms in which they state while they indeed let the Duke Nukem Forever development team go on May 6, "3D Realms (3DR) has not closed and is not closing." Even though their last news post on their official web site does indeed say "Goodbye" today's statement says they are still in operation as a smaller development studio and are still working on co-developing and licensing the Duke Nukem IP for new games.

Their statement says that 3D Realms has only received a $2.5 million payment from Take Two Interactive in July 2008 "in connection with another agreement for an unannounced game." 3D Realms claims they did not receive a $12 million payment from Take Two in 2000 as Take Two claims in last week's lawsuit. In fact that $12 million went to GT Interactive "to acquire the publishing rights for the DNF game." 3D Realms claims that aside from $400,000 from GT Interactive in 1998 and the 2008 money from Take Two they have receive no other funds from publishers for Duke Nukem Forever. They also claim to have spend a total of $20 million to develop Duke Nukem Forever.

Last night news broke that Take Two Interactive filed a lawsuit against 3D Realms and its parent company Apogee over the failure to complete the long-in-development FPS Duke Nukem Forever. Now Shacknews has some more info based on photocopies of the lawsuit.

Basically Take Two is asking that the source code for the game remain intact while the lawsuit proceeds through the court system and that they get a copy of that source code to "ensure the code is preserved and remains unharmed during the pendency of this lawsuit." Meanwhile a message post on Shacknews that alledgedly comes from 3D Realms's co-founder Scott Miller states that the developer "didn't get a penny of that money" that Take Two Interactive states it gave 3D Realms in 2000 for the publishing deal (Take Two claims they gave 3D Realms $12 million). The post reads, "This, along with so much else, is 100% spin, being eaten up by those who have no clue whatsoever. But, we cannot talk yet. We will, soon..."

We had a feeling that the shutdown of 3D Realms was not the end of the Duke Nukem Forever saga . . . and we were right. Just not in a good way. Bloomberg reports that the game's publisher Take Two Interactive has filed a lawsuit against 3D Realms and its parent company Apogee, claiming that the developer had breached its contract in its handling of the long-in-development shooter.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, states, "Apogee continually delayed the completion date for the Duke Nukem Forever. Apogee repeatedly assured Take-Two and the video-gaming community that it was diligently working toward competing development of the PC Version of the Duke Nukem Forever." The story states that Take Two paid $12 million in 2000 for the game's publishing rights and the two parties entered into another agreement in 2007. The story does not state what damages Take Two is asking for in the lawsuit.

Publisher Take Two Interactive made a big deal out of the fact that movie director Gore Verbinski had signed on to direct a movie version of their hit action game BioShock over a year ago. Now Verbinski is reported to be fast tracking the BioShock film as his next project over a "sure thing" sequel.

Variety reports that Verbinski has turned down an offer to direct a fourth film in the Pirates of the Caribbean series for Disney. He directed the first three movies which together have grossing a whopping $2.6 billion worldwide. The article says Verbinski is likely to direct the BioShock film next for Universal Pictures. The movie already has a script from John Logan but there's no word on when production might begin. Meanwhile the game sequel BioShock 2 is due for release this fall.

It's been rumored for years and now Take Two Interactive's Rockstar Games' brand has finally made it official: a third Max Payne game is in development. This time the creative team isn't Remedy (who made the first two games and are now working on Alan Wake) but Rockstar Vancouver, best known for their work on Bully.

Rockstar has revealed little about Max Payne 3 other than it will feature you playing have "more of the classic elements and hyper-intense action that fans have come to love, while moving the story of Max in a new direction."
The press release adds, "Since leaving the NYPD and New York itself behind, Max has drifted from bad to worse. Double-crossed and a long way from home, Max is now trapped in a city full of violence and bloodshed, using his weapons and instincts in a desperate search for the truth and a way out."

The game is due out in the winter of 2009 and a teaser site is already online. While there is no PC logo on the site, the official Max Payne 3 press release does mention the PC as one of the platforms the game will appear on.

Take Two Interactive, who is usually the last game publisher to announce it's quarterly financial numbers, did so today for the three months that ended on Jan. 31. Revenues were $256.8 million for the time period compared to $240.4 million for the same period a year ago. Take Two registered an overall loss of s $50.4 million for the time period compared to a loss of $38 million for the same period a year ago.

Take Two, which owns the 2K Games, 2K Sports and Rockstar Games publishing brands, plans to hold a conference call later this afternoon to further explain their numbers. We will report in if any major news is revealed.

Take Two Interactive had to deal with a nine-month fight with Electronic Arts in 2008 but finally kept EA from buying the company. However, many financial analysts have taken the company and its current management crew to task for not selling to EA and instead saw Take Two's stock price fall.

Now one of those execs has decided to leave. Our sister site GameDaily reports that its Chief Operating Officer Gary Dale has left for unnamed "personal reasons". Dale was COO of Take Two for only six months; he previously was COO of Take Two's Rockstar Games brand for five years before becoming Executive Vice-President of Take Two in December 2007 and then becoming COO in August 2008. Take Two does not plan to fill the COO job; Dale's responsiblities will be handled by the other executives.