Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has confidently declared that Duke Nukem Forever was a profitable venture, in spite of its poor reviews. He said this as Captain Obvious was spotted flying around outside his window.
“Despite its disappointing reviews, Duke Nukem Forever was profitable for Take-Two,” he said during a conference call. It’s dismaying to think that if a game makes money, the company doesn’t need to worry about a game being a disgrace to the industry, but there ya go.
Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford has, for many weeks, boasted about DNF‘s commercial success on Twitter, constantly reinforcing the game’s worth through sales. Comments such as, “With sales data, It seems like *customers* love Duke,” seem to expose the mentality of the game’s makers. It doesn’t matter about the quality of the content or even what gamers actually think — if they bought it, they clearly loved it, so screw anyone with a criticism.
Frankly, I’d be more interested in seeing how many times the game got returned or traded in. I’m sure we’d get a far more accurate sense of how many gamers actually “love” DNF and weren’t just caught in the whirlwind of manufactured hype.
Duke Nukem Forever Proved Profitable For Take-Two [Gamasutra]
