So the long, painful death of Duke just keeps getting weirder.

According to Scott "George Broussard isn't available" Miller, the alleged 12 million dollars that Take Two claims they provided 3D Realms with never really materialized. "This, along with so much else, is 100% spin, being eaten up by those who have no clue whatsoever."

Just to recap: Take Two is a publishing partner with 3D Realms on the biggest punchline in gaming history. 3D Realms never delivers said punchline. Take Two claims they provided over the course of the development history 12 million dollars, which in the long run doesn't seem that unreasonable of a number. 3D Realms claim they never saw the first penny of that money, which begs the question for me who was funding this project?

So who do you believe? Its kind of hard to believe anyone involved with 3D Realms right now, but it also isn't too far-fetched to believe a major publisher like Take Two would think they could bully a much smaller developer into doing what they want, even if it was resolved out of court. Either way, this is far, far from over.

There's no way of knowing exactly what happend right now, but that's a giant discrepancy and someone is in hot water either way.

And to repeat a ton of surpised people around the web, the unfinished game actually looked pretty awesome too.

It is a conspiracy.  John Romero wants revenge.

UPDATE: 3D Realms death has been greatly exaggerated.

Remember, always bet on Duke.

So one company says they gave them 12 million and the other company is saying that never happened, lol.

All I care is if we will ever see Duke Nukem Forever. Like the guys said on the Bombcast, the fact that that game may disappear is astonishing. We need closure, and if it is just gone with no playable form to keep us satiated, then we will have a big hole in our hearts from the jester in the corner of the gaming industry, DNF.