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How Success Killed Duke Nukem - A heartbreaking story of developer failure

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mouser:
This is the heartbreaking story of a video game that never made it to market, and whose developers had to give up after 12 years of struggle.

On May 6, 2009, everything ended. Drained of funds after so many years of work, the game’s developer, 3D Realms, told its employees to collect their stuff and put it in boxes. The next week, the company was sued for millions by its publisher for failing to finish the sequel...
What happened to that project has been shrouded in secrecy, and rumors have flown about why Broussard couldn’t manage to finish his life’s work. What went so wrong? This is what happened.

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http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/fail_duke_nukem/

40hz:
Great article. And an all too common story that once again illustrates how pursuing absolute perfection at the cost of  producing something that's extremely good leads to disaster.

Couple that mentality with access to virtually unlimited development financing and the outcome becomes almost inevitable.

Too bad the rest of the dev team had to pay the price for one guy's unbridled ego.

mouser:
as true and important as it is, i think almost everyone would agree with the statement:
"pursuing absolute perfection at the cost of producing something that's extremely good leads to disaster."

i think a harder and more subtle lesson for people to come to terms with is how many benefits there are to be gained from just getting something finished and working, even if it's flawed and not as good as you want it to be.  And how much focus and determination and it takes to do that while the siren song is calling out to you to extend the project longer and spend more time improving things.

zridling:
Yea, Wolfenstein 3D was definitely a time sink for me back in the day. I'd still play it today if a new one were around. Great piece of journalism by Clive Thompson, that's for sure. They should have outsourced more than merely licensing the engine. Unbelievable.

mnemonic:
I guess that's why developers need project managers to get scopes agreed and ensure that they're kept to.

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