Re: Duke Nukem Forever
Really didn't owe anyone an explanation but gave one anyway.
Originally posted by Randy Pitchford, Gearbox President
Hi Everyone,
Thanks for coming to the forums and beating us up a bit over this. We asked you guys to come here and do that and we really deserve it. I am ultimately responsible for Duke now, so I deserve it. Given that we've made this mistake and it's cost everyone another several weeks of waiting, I think it's helpful for myself and for all of us to feel a little pain from that.
I want you to know, though, that when we announced May, we believed it. Thousands and thousands of tasks and bugs have been completed since then. Each of those work items created a degree of uncertainty with our prediction. But we use our experience and the trends and data we have to guide our predictions and that gave us confidence that May was not only accurate, but had some cushion in it.
I don't think I'm going to surprise anyone with this information, but it turns out that from a project point of view, Duke is a different beast all together. Some of our experience, it turns out, didn't turn out to help us as much as we are used to in providing accuracy with our predictions. Many of the elements of uncertainty that were rolled up in all of the unfinished work turned out to be more challenging or difficult than we were able to see at that time and too many of those points of uncertainty ended up biting us.
So we had to make a very difficult, painful and expensive decision to shift the date by several weeks.
When we announced May, we believed it and we felt that our fans, who have been waiting so long for this game, deserved to know what we believed. After all - by the time we announced the launch date (in January), we had gone many months since we first announced the return of Duke at PAX Prime in August of 2010. During that time, the sentiment among the most loyal fans was that we OWED them information.
I didn't want to do the "when it's done" thing. I think that would've been worse - more as if we were toying with fans. Certainly we must have *some* idea! That's what the sentiment would've been if we said "when it's done" and it would've been true.
We had some idea. In fact, we felt very confident that May was the time.
But the problem with these projects is that there is a lot of uncertainty in the tasks and challenges where the solutions aren't already known and the time it takes to implement the solutions that are known is also not known.
But fans don't want uncertainty. We don't want to hear uncertainty at all, do we? We want answers. And we, as gamers and customers, deserve answers.
So we thought we were doing the right thing. We provided answers. We announced the date that, at the time, we knew and understood to be the true date.
As we got along a little more, say, the month of February, it looked like we could make it.
And, there was a lot at stake and waffling on something like the ship date for Duke Nukem Forever isn't a good idea. So we really convinced ourselves. I convinced myself.
But I was wrong.
I'm sorry I was wrong.
I'm for that I am so, so sorry.
We're doing the best we can. Our mission is to complete and deliver the game that all of us, Gearbox people included, have waited so long to get our hands on. This game - this legendary, unimaginably fascinating and historical game - is one that not too long ago should've been dead. It *was* dead, but not for the love of the fans and the commitment of the team that is working day and night to bring it to release.
But it turns out that doing "the best we can" did not give us sufficient accuracy in our predictions to avoid this situation.
So I am sorry.
Now - what about the video?
Once we knew the decision we had to make, we talked about how we would tell everyone.
There were ideas about doing some kind of bit where it was going to be made out like it was Duke's fault. Some even suggested laying blame on some of the people or issues where uncertainty on the project was the highest and results caused the most variables in date predictability.
Ultimately, I decided that:
1) We need to own this responsibility for the delay and apologize for it, and
2) That *I* needed to own up to this personally.
I am now responsible for Duke Nukem now so whatever happens with this game, good or bad, is ultimately my responsibility. So I was going to own that responsibility. That was a key component of how to reveal that we missed.
I should now explain that we have this weird kind of thing that drives most of us... I have this weird kind of thing *very* strongly - maybe too strongly.
Here's what this weird kind of thing is: Our purpose in life is to entertain people.
That's what drives me. I can't seem to be okay with myself unless whatever energy I have is used to help enable and provide entertainment and feelings of joy and amusement for others.
I care about video games because, well, interactive entertainment is simply the most interesting, exciting, compelling, valuable, meaningful, impactful and important form of entertainment in the world.
So we couldn't help ourselves. With the announcement, the video also couldn't help itself but to try to entertain you. Even though it was about me owning responsibility for the delay and about us apologizing for it and even *asking* you guys to come here and beat us up over it, there was a strong feeling that the revelation of the delay should at least attempt and hopefully succeed at providing some kind of entertainment value for you.
I realize that some of you feel betrayed by the date change. I'm sorry. I hope I can earn your trust back and whether I do or not I will always be working towards earning it.
But I hope all of you trust that the goal in the video wasn't to make fun of *you*. Besides offering the information regarding the date change, the goal of the video was to make fun of *us*. The purpose in making fun of ourselves was meant to be for your amusement and entertainment. I'm glad to see that it succeeded with many of you.
But ultimately, we screwed up and we're owning up to that. We were wrong about the date.
I was wrong about the date.
I'm sorry.
Try not to take it out on the team too hard. Everyone is working their assess off to make you guys happy.
And try not to take it out on Duke.
You can pull your bets off of me, but ALWAYS Bet on Duke.
Thanks for coming to the forums and beating us up a bit over this. We asked you guys to come here and do that and we really deserve it. I am ultimately responsible for Duke now, so I deserve it. Given that we've made this mistake and it's cost everyone another several weeks of waiting, I think it's helpful for myself and for all of us to feel a little pain from that.
I want you to know, though, that when we announced May, we believed it. Thousands and thousands of tasks and bugs have been completed since then. Each of those work items created a degree of uncertainty with our prediction. But we use our experience and the trends and data we have to guide our predictions and that gave us confidence that May was not only accurate, but had some cushion in it.
I don't think I'm going to surprise anyone with this information, but it turns out that from a project point of view, Duke is a different beast all together. Some of our experience, it turns out, didn't turn out to help us as much as we are used to in providing accuracy with our predictions. Many of the elements of uncertainty that were rolled up in all of the unfinished work turned out to be more challenging or difficult than we were able to see at that time and too many of those points of uncertainty ended up biting us.
So we had to make a very difficult, painful and expensive decision to shift the date by several weeks.
When we announced May, we believed it and we felt that our fans, who have been waiting so long for this game, deserved to know what we believed. After all - by the time we announced the launch date (in January), we had gone many months since we first announced the return of Duke at PAX Prime in August of 2010. During that time, the sentiment among the most loyal fans was that we OWED them information.
I didn't want to do the "when it's done" thing. I think that would've been worse - more as if we were toying with fans. Certainly we must have *some* idea! That's what the sentiment would've been if we said "when it's done" and it would've been true.
We had some idea. In fact, we felt very confident that May was the time.
But the problem with these projects is that there is a lot of uncertainty in the tasks and challenges where the solutions aren't already known and the time it takes to implement the solutions that are known is also not known.
But fans don't want uncertainty. We don't want to hear uncertainty at all, do we? We want answers. And we, as gamers and customers, deserve answers.
So we thought we were doing the right thing. We provided answers. We announced the date that, at the time, we knew and understood to be the true date.
As we got along a little more, say, the month of February, it looked like we could make it.
And, there was a lot at stake and waffling on something like the ship date for Duke Nukem Forever isn't a good idea. So we really convinced ourselves. I convinced myself.
But I was wrong.
I'm sorry I was wrong.
I'm for that I am so, so sorry.
We're doing the best we can. Our mission is to complete and deliver the game that all of us, Gearbox people included, have waited so long to get our hands on. This game - this legendary, unimaginably fascinating and historical game - is one that not too long ago should've been dead. It *was* dead, but not for the love of the fans and the commitment of the team that is working day and night to bring it to release.
But it turns out that doing "the best we can" did not give us sufficient accuracy in our predictions to avoid this situation.
So I am sorry.
Now - what about the video?
Once we knew the decision we had to make, we talked about how we would tell everyone.
There were ideas about doing some kind of bit where it was going to be made out like it was Duke's fault. Some even suggested laying blame on some of the people or issues where uncertainty on the project was the highest and results caused the most variables in date predictability.
Ultimately, I decided that:
1) We need to own this responsibility for the delay and apologize for it, and
2) That *I* needed to own up to this personally.
I am now responsible for Duke Nukem now so whatever happens with this game, good or bad, is ultimately my responsibility. So I was going to own that responsibility. That was a key component of how to reveal that we missed.
I should now explain that we have this weird kind of thing that drives most of us... I have this weird kind of thing *very* strongly - maybe too strongly.
Here's what this weird kind of thing is: Our purpose in life is to entertain people.
That's what drives me. I can't seem to be okay with myself unless whatever energy I have is used to help enable and provide entertainment and feelings of joy and amusement for others.
I care about video games because, well, interactive entertainment is simply the most interesting, exciting, compelling, valuable, meaningful, impactful and important form of entertainment in the world.
So we couldn't help ourselves. With the announcement, the video also couldn't help itself but to try to entertain you. Even though it was about me owning responsibility for the delay and about us apologizing for it and even *asking* you guys to come here and beat us up over it, there was a strong feeling that the revelation of the delay should at least attempt and hopefully succeed at providing some kind of entertainment value for you.
I realize that some of you feel betrayed by the date change. I'm sorry. I hope I can earn your trust back and whether I do or not I will always be working towards earning it.
But I hope all of you trust that the goal in the video wasn't to make fun of *you*. Besides offering the information regarding the date change, the goal of the video was to make fun of *us*. The purpose in making fun of ourselves was meant to be for your amusement and entertainment. I'm glad to see that it succeeded with many of you.
But ultimately, we screwed up and we're owning up to that. We were wrong about the date.
I was wrong about the date.
I'm sorry.
Try not to take it out on the team too hard. Everyone is working their assess off to make you guys happy.
And try not to take it out on Duke.
You can pull your bets off of me, but ALWAYS Bet on Duke.
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