Duke Nukem: Endangered Species cancelled
By Trey Walker, GameSpotPosted Dec 18, 2001 3:04 pm PT

Action Forms confirms that its Duke Nukem hunting game has been axed.

A company representative for Ukranian game developer Action Forms has confirmed that its upcoming hunting game, Duke Nukem: Endangered Species, has been cancelled. The game was in development at 3D Realms and Action Forms and was originally scheduled for release under Take-Two Interactive's GodGames label in the second half of 2001. It was to be a hunting game starring the famous action game hero Duke Nukem, and players would hunt down a variety of dangerous animals running wild in a suburban area.

According to The Duke List, a former employee wrote this:

The 2001 trailer was 100% scripted cinematic, and not actual gameplay. They built specific demo maps just to record video from to make a trailer. Everything you see in that trailer was phony.

The typical work flow there went something like this:
Designer would be assigned a task (build a new map, rebuild an old map, polish a bit of a map, etc.). Designer would work on said task for two, three weeks, a month, all the while lower management would be looking over it and making sure it was going in a "good general direction." Designer would move on to another task. A month or two later upper management would finally look at the work and say, "It's all wrong, do it again." Rinse, repeat.

Entire maps would be done from the ground up, almost to beta quality, and then thrown out simply because no one would make decisions early on in the process. (Read up on Valve's 'orange box' method of design -- that's how you make games)

Another example of [redacted] is the fact that there was one part of one map that was being worked on before I started working there. Nineteen months later and the same designer was still working on the same part of that same map... I'm not blaming the designer, it wasn't his fault.

I think the biggest problem that the company had in general is being self-funded. When you're a developer working directly with a publisher and you have milestones to meet it's a whole different ballgame. If you don't meet those milestones, you don't get any money. That right there will keep your project on schedule. If, however, you're funding it yourself, you don't really have anyone to answer to except yourself and you can quickly lose sight of just how much money is going out the door.

This is from Duke4.net and it sounds like a pretty well formed story:

1. George and Scott own equal parts of 3D Realms.
2. DNF taking forever to make costs tons of money.
3. Scott who is arguably the smarter businessman gets tired of this over time and doesn’t want to dump his money into it anymore.
4. Scott looks to other things like Radar Group and newly launched Apogee Software LLC and leaves 3D Realms in Georges hands.
5. Scott is still technically a manager at 3D Realms but is effectively done with 3D Realms at that point.
6. Scott is now free to run companies as he sees fit without dealing with a 50% partner.
7. A year or so later George wasn’t able to handle it, especially with lack of Scott’s personal and financial cooperation.
8. Eventually funds begin to run low.
9. Since Scott is out, and so is money, George drives out to California to show Take 2 the game in an attempt to wow them into funding development to finish DNF.
10. Vague references were made to Take 2 possibly having (verbally) promising money, but didn’t deliver.
11. When George requested the $5 million from Take 2 so DNF development could be funded.
12. Take 2 counter-offered with giving 3D Realms $30 million instead…. *IF*3D Realms sells all rights to the Duke IP. (currently Take2’s only has publishing rights)
13. George\They refuse this and keep the Duke IP, instead shutting down the company and going on life support.
14. The purpose of not selling the IP is because the Duke IP still has the potential to make money, and it is their trademark. It would be like iD selling the Doom IP.
15. George is said to have previously went to iD Software and Epic in an attempt to make a deal with funding for them, but is turned down.
16. ..was also said to still have plans to contact other companies to make similar requests.
17. A company in a better position to spend $5 million, such as EA or Microsoft are seen as the most likely candidates for possibly investing in saving DNF.