$500,000 offered to finish Duke Nukem Forever this year [update 3]

In an SEC filing, Take-Two brought up a rather sore (yet infamous) subject: Duke Nukem Forever. The uber-delayed project, in development since 1997 (remember 1997? Titanic won an Oscar) has been given some incentive to complete and release the game by December 31, 2006 -- $500,000 worth of incentive. While it may not seem like much (most commercial video games have multimillion dollar budgets), 3D Realms is currently being offered $4.25 million from Take-Two for the title's eventual release, down from the $6 million promised in their original -- apparently lapsed -- deal. See update 3 for the skinny on this mess.

Does this mean we'll see Duke before 2007? Doubtful, but we could be wrong ...

[update 1: where there was confusion, there is now clarity]

[update 2: silly Gamespot, the actual SEC filing says dollar amounts are listed in thousands, so their figure of $4,250 is off by a factor of, you guessed it, one thousand. With the $500,000 promissory, that means 3D Realms can still collect nearly 80% of their original contract ... if they manage to finish this thing. Thanks, nonpareil.)

[update 3: newish games blog Metafuture has gotten to the bottom of this little mess. It wasn't just the figure that we had wrong, it was the payee as well. Indeed, Gamasutra reported on this over two months ago writing:

"One other notable payment was the renegotiation of a $6 million charge due [to former publisher GT Interactive, now owned by Atari] upon delivery of the final PC version of Duke Nukem Forever back in March 2005. The epic delay of 3D Realms' shooter has meant that $4.25 million of the final milestone payment has already been paid, alongside the promise of a final $500,000 upon the commercial release of Duke Nukem Forever prior to December 31, 2006."

So the $4.25 million has already been paid to Atari and the $500,000 is being offered to Atari and not 3D Realms. Got it? I think we do now. Apologies for the confusion.]