Early Apogee/3D Realms stuff to be released

Hey guys, this is my first post after being a lurker for a looong time. I came across this thread: http://forums.duke4.net/topic/7366-duke3d-sw-earlyalphabetagold-material/

Interceptor has bought 3D Realms and now has access to all old stuff from the Apogee/3D Realms era, and they will release it all to the fans. Except for Prey and DNF, which rights are at Gearbox.

 

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thanks for the heads up!

 

Thanks for the link. All I can say is WOW!!!

 

Very cool. I wish more companies would release their old assets instead of losing them.

 

Im sure most game companies keep backups of their work, its just that when they go under, they tend to garbage/destroy everything to prevent future legal trouble because of the assets. Assembler got lucky in nabbing the Acclaim tapes, Im sure if the auctioneers actually knew what they sold they'd have destroyed them.

with 3DRealms, we were lucky again, the 3DR backups stuff was shipped directly to Frederik, a man after our own hearts. a young developer with young ideas. a risk taker. Some people aren't afraid of releasing sensitive stuff, unfortunately not alot of those individuals have ready access to the stuff wed like.

It took a nasty lawsuit and bankruptcy to get both 3DR's and Acclaims backups in a position to be "out of the fortress" so to speak. and I think well have more goodness from the Texas offices of 3DR in the coming years.

Not to mention the equally large bonanza that will be the Acclaim archive. Im glad that games history is being made so readily. Interesting times ahead my friends!

 

I I wonder if this means Duke Nukem 3D Reloaded could see the light of day. I was really looking forward to that before Gearbox shelved it...

 

This is pretty awesome, looking forward to seeing what comes of it. I would be surprised if Bethesda lets them release the Prey beta too, but that would be very interesting to see. 3DR was involved with so many great IPs.

 

http://forums.duke4.net/topic/7366-...gold-material/page__view__findpost__p__192141

Criminy, look at that list of Duke Nukem builds. I'm not a huge fan, but man if that isn't the coolest thing to see! I dream of seeing the equivalent for Banjo-Kazooie or Donkey Kong 64.

Or, ha, I've thought it'd be hilarious/awesome for it to happen with a wholly unreleased title. 15+ years without Twelve Tales Conker, and then bam, 65 unique builds.

 

If only Japanese companies were less protective about their old prototypes and development assets... I'd give anything to have a look through Sega's archives from the 1990s especially!

 

That's really cool to be soon able to play these builds.
And yes, if only Japanese companies were less protective about their old prototypes we would already have a lot more of Mario/Sonic/Whatever famous games from Japan beta content.
(Nintendo would never release some of their prototypes, even if their main license is going to turn 30 next year)

 

Will they fall on public domain? I have a question about this, once a creation go on public domain, that means that anyone can profit from it without having to deal with the original owner?

 

I would love to see their games updated and put on PS3 or Xbox 360 arcade or hell Steam. I love apogee.

 

It depends, prototype games showing the name of the full retail games belong to the company that published them, that's why there won't be any release of Prey.
If the IP is not bough by another company before the owner closes then yes, protos of said game IP sould go in public domain...

 

AFAIK, no game goes into the public domain if a company goes under, the asset rights are either transferred to another company (though sale of IP or merger) or if the company goes bankrupt and the IPs aren't resold, the assets are transferred to their creators (the individual developers).

Generally speaking, standard copyright law applies here, 50 to 70 years has to pass from the demise of the company/developer's death before it goes into the public domain. that is if it isn't bought/appropriated first.

Funny thing about copyright law, in the US before 1978, if a work was released without a copyright notice, it immediately was placed into the public domain (the Universal Pictures movie Charade is a good example of this). Some countries are still like this.

 

I never knew about this....

 

I would buy game packs if they released Apogee titles on Steam. Good games there, Apogee titles. Fun to play.

 

I'd love to see these titles for my Windows 8 computer as tiles. I ended up downloading some of Apogee's titles for Dos Box. I missed them, but I will say some work better with a joystick than a keyboard.

Any chance they will have more releases? I didn't feel the "early apogee" thread on that site really gave a lot of information besides the Shadow Warrior stuff.

 

Thanks for the info !!!



Wow... :O

 

where did you got this screenshot?