Funny how the past catches up pretty quick with a game popularly pegged "forever-in-development." News from the press waves has just filled us in to a deal that happened between Take-Two Interactive and GT Interactive which evidently granted the rights of publishing Duke Nukem Forever to the holders of the 2K Games brand. More at the full story.

 

Atari and Infogrames big boss Bruno Bonnell has left all of his position within the company he built. Yesterday's Infogrames board meeting netted the promotion of Patrick Leleu as the new chairman and CEO.

Bruno Bonnell (together with Christophe Sapet and Thomas Schmider) founded Infogrames in 1983, after which it acquired GT Interactive and Hasbro Interactive - along with Atari and Game.com. With Bonnell leaving Infogrames, he also leaves his two positions in Atari: chairman and chief creative officer.

Infogrames had been implementing a "global debt restructuring plan" that ended in March 2007. Remember when David Pierce stepped up as CEO of Atari last year? Looks like Atari and Infogrames are back on the steady track financially. The revamp was done to stabilize and strengthen the company's finances and "redevelop its business". Bonnell had this to say:

It is with understandable emotions, but also reassured about its future, that I leave Infogrames after 24 years spent to build this group with the support of all its teams. Together, we have been able to show its strength and capacity to innovate, even in the worst situations. Time for business developers has logically come, after the entrepreneurial period. It’s now time for Infogrames to conquer and progress on a market as promising as interactive entertainment business.

The Board seems to have a lot of confidence on the new guy, Patrick Leleu who has been a director in the company since January of this year. He was previously the CEO of Bouygues Telecom and Noos before stepping up into Bruno Bonnell's shoes. Leleu comments, "I want to thank the Board to put its trust in me. I am convinced that Infogrames holds the assets, talents and teams to get back into the industrial competition and recover its  dynamics of growth."

The independent game development studio Saber Interactive, who is responsible for video games like TimeShift and Will Rock, is happy to announce that it just hired one of the industry's veterans to head Saber's game content division. That guy is Rick Raymo and he sure has a lot under his belt.

Raymo has been working in the video game industry for 19 years now, and about 30 titles are credited under his name. Some of the more notable ones include Duke Nukem 3D projects, Blood, Shadow Warrior, Death Rally and Max Payne. The creative director also used to work with companies such as I.D.G., GT Interactive, GameSpy, Red Jade, Interactive Studio Management, and Hudson Soft. Before Rick Raymo accepted his new post at Saber, he was working with HBO Interactive Entertainment as a production executive, and was responsible for spearheading efforts to create interactive properties out of the company's internal licenses.

Saber's new guy wasn't able for comment, but the company mentioned that Rick Raymo is more than happy to join them. He will be stationed at Saber's HQ in New Jersey and from time to time, he will also be making his rounds in Saber's production studio in St. Petersburg, Russia. Most of his work will be focused on the design and production team who are working on current and upcoming next generation titles.

Welcome aboard Saber's ship Rick Raymo!

In an interview over at YouGamers, Scott Miller, founder of Apogee (now known as 3DRealms), assures that Duke Nukem Forever is being worked on. Yes folks, despite the game being treated as a punchline, and being used as an epitome of vaporware, Miller says that it's been resurrected, and in Eugene Huang of GamePro's words: making good progress.

It's nice to note that 3D Realms takes full blame for the delay. Here's Miller's words:

First, we fully admit we’re [sic] screwed up the development of DNF, and it’s now an industry joke. I laugh (and cry) when I think about it, too. Our fault is that we set the bar too high, and we tried too hard to make the game to beat all games. In the last 18 months we’ve taken a much more realistic look at the project, we’ve hired a truckload of experienced help, and I personally believe we are now on the right track... finally.

As for the question of Duke’s lasting appeal, I believe strongly that it doesn’t matter at all. DNF will succeed or fail not because of the Duke brand, but solely based on whether the game is great, or not. The original Duke Nukem 3D didn’t have a large fan following, and yet it succeeded. DNF will have to stand on its own just the same.

The game is reportedly in full development and has a 33 man team working on it. Publishing wise, Take-Two Interactive has inherited 3D Realms' original agreement with GT Interactive back in the 90s. Miller notes that the original agreement does allow them to sell the game directly through an online digital service, and that they plan to do so.

Yes, they're taking forever, but at least they're admitting they messed up. So yeah, they're taking criticism pretty well. In fact Miller even has a favourite Duke Nukem Forever joke here's him talking about it: "It's hard to resist the cold, cruel, but true: Duke Nukem Taking Forever. My two sons, in particular, love to slam me with this one."

They plan to bring DNF to multiple platforms. However, Miller has refrained from noting which ones.