Forever Wait

"When it's done." That was the release date for Duke Nukem Forever. Announced in 1997, it wasn't released until 2011. For fifteen years, the game became a punchline, a myth, and a tragedy. It burned through engines, developers, and millions of dollars, trapped in a cycle of endless restarting driven by the desire to be the best. This book takes you inside the chaotic offices of 3D Realms. It is a lesson in project management gone wrong, illustrating the dangers of feature creep—the compulsion to add every new shiny technology until the project becomes impossible to finish. It captures the rise and fall of the 90s shooter kings and asks the question: At what point does the pursuit of perfection become a refusal to ship?