George Broussard, co-owner of 3D Realms, had plans to elevate “the icon and merchandising dream” to loftier heights: “Our goal is to make Duke synonymous with PC games (and gaming in general) like Mario is to Nintendo, or Sonic is to SEGA” ( link).Īll chips rested on Duke–literally, Broussard had gambling chips made with his chiseled he-man face on them–and the pressure was great, perhaps too great for even a self-described king to meet.Īs part of another promotional drive, 3D Realms gave its blessing to a Duke Nukem-inspired soundtrack in August that featured a hodgepodge of disparate performers ranging from Megadeth to the Wu-Tang Clan. “Our marketing manager at our Duke Nukem publisher, GT Interactive Software, recently remarked that anything they slap ‘Duke Nukem’ on sells,” 3D Realms Founder Scott Miller admitted in an interview ( link).

The previous year, a Hollywood movie based on the game series had been announced by Threshold Entertainment, the producers of Mortal Kombat Annihilation ( link). Come Get Some'” ( link).ĭuke’s questionable endorsements notwithstanding, his emergent global franchise was being pushed more and more aggressively. The bizarre press release went on to say that 3D Realms ran on Monster Cables-that the premium-priced wires were the only ones entrusted to power the computers used to develop Duke Nukem Forever-and ended with Duke proclaiming, “‘Monster Cable. “‘I got a call from Noel Lee, the boss over there, he actually goes by the name The Head Monster, clearly this guy knows what he likes–in addition to making the best cables on the planet.’ Nukem grinned, ‘I can respect that.'”

If he hadn’t already become a cash cow for his developers, 3D Realms, they certainly tied a great bell around his veiny neck by September of that year when the lunkhead was forced to hawk Monster Cables: A wholly new sci-fi shooter still radioactively glowed on the mushroom cloud horizon.īy 1999, the video game celebrity had been living the high life: a line of action figures by ReSaurus, Interact memory cards shaped in his likeness, his own Tiger Electronics LCD handheld. Duke wasn’t through with the Nintendo 64 just yet after 1997’s Duke Nukem 64.

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