What Randy Pitchford bought last year wasnât the rights to a storied video game franchise, it was a promise.
âWhen I made the decision to take the risk, to buy the brand, I became the guy responsible for making sure this ships,â said Pitchford, president of developer Gearbox Software. âI felt the best commitment I could make, was to make the game weâve been waiting for all of this time.
âI bought the brand. I have plenty of time. I can do whatever I want to do down the line. But this has to be resolved, I need this as a gamer.â
Pitchfordâs words have weight, a sense of gravity not lost on me, a fellow gamer who needs the resolution as much as anyone else who gamed on a computer in the 90s.
Duke Nukem Forever wonât be a game that reboots the series or a game that changes the way we think about a genre, or a brand. It will be instead a reminder. While it can sometimes feel lost in its time, Duke Nukem Forever in action still delivers those same old experiences.
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But that doesnât mean that publishing this game, a title that was first announced in 1997 and with endless delays spurred both anticipation and irritation among its fans, will lead to success.
Duke Nukem Forever and its new developers, Gearbox, are in an unusual position; the years of hype means that expectations are high, but it also means that it has a level of awareness few games so long off the shelves can boast.
âThere is no game that can live up to 12 years of development,â Pitchford said. âBut I bet on it. I didnât have to risk my company and my fortune to become the guy responsible for this. I think it was a good bet.â
And Gearbox isnât exactly a one trick pony. The developer has Borderlands, Brothers in Arms, Aliens and some other project in the works besides Duke Nukem.
âIt wouldnât kill us if this didnât work, but that would suck,â Pitchford said. âWhat would be better is if it worked. â
Either way, Pitchford thinks this is a better ending to the Duke Nukem Story than the one gamers woke up to in the summer of 2009, when news broke that the game wasnât happening.
âWe thought it was dead,â Pitchford said.
Is this a make-it or break-it game for the brand, I ask Pitchford. If this game fails will we never see Duke again?
âIf it doesnât succeed it depends on why,â he said. âItâs very hard for me to believe it wonât succeed, but I canât think of a scenario where it can be considered overall profitable either.â
What will matter instead, Pitchford says, is how many copies sell, a surefire way of measuring potential interest in a future installment in the series.
âIf it does less than one million copies, thatâs bad,â Pitchford said. â1.5 million? That means thereâs something there, maybe only curiosity.
âIf it does two million, youâre there. 2.5 million? OK it wasnât just curiosity.â
