The Speculist

The Duke Nukem Forever list is amusing in concept. It tries to put some perspective on how much time has passed -- via how many major events have occured -- in the time since 3d Realms announced that the game was under development. It also lists some major accomplishments that have taken less time than the development of a single game.

Of course, the joke is only so funny if you know that 3D Realms died out years ago, development of the game halted, and there never will be a Duke Nukem forever. In that case, the list is just an exercise in ironic existential angst -- like keeping a watch going for when Fox is going to take The Chevy Chase Show out of hiatus.

But that's not the case. 3D Realms is a going concern. And according to this page, they do intend to release Duke Nukem Forever, although they can't say exactly when. In fact, the lack of closure appears to be a point of perverse pride for them:

The release date of this game is "When it's done".  Anything else, and we mean anything else is someone's speculation.  There is no date.  We don't know anydate.  If you have a friend who claims they have "inside info", or there's some game news site, or some computer store at the mall who claims they know - they do not.  They are making it up.  There is no date.  Period.

And yes, we know the game has taken a long time.  There's no possible joke you could make about the game's development time that we haven't already heard.  :)

(Futuristic Blink Effect from the original.)

Astounding.

Now, if this were a major contruction project requiring taxpayer money, this is the kind of approach one would expect. Such projects are designed to take as long as possible in order to keep the money flowing. But that's not how the computer game business (ordinarily) works.

There must be a lesson to be learned from all this, but I'm not sure what it is. On the one hand, in an era when technology has greatly accelerated the speed with which things like computer games can be developed, and at a time where more and more seems to be happening faster and faster, it's almost kind of refreshing to see this "we have all the time in the world" approach to life.

On the other hand, my heart goes out to any woman who has accepted a marriage proposal from one of these guys.

And then there's this: one of them is going to wake up some fine morning and realize that he's an old man who spent a major chunk of his life developing a single computer game. In which case, we have to hope -- for his sake -- that it's one hell of a game.

Similarly, this story provides an opportunity to examine our own lives. Do we have our own DNF's -- projects that linger on for years with no end in sight, which seem unlikely in the end to provide a return sufficient to the time and effort they have demanded?

But maybe that's not the issue. Maybe what these guys really like to do is to develop games. Releasing and selling them are kind of a drag, so they just skip that part.

Maybe the journey is the reward.