As I write this, my carefully preserved receipt from summer 2001, holding my pre-order of Duke Nukem Forever, is sitting on my desk. Unlike a number of similar reservation tickets found all over the web, I like to think mine is in relatively fantastic condition, for a piece of paper nearly a decade old.

It’s been a long road waiting for Duke to return, but Gearbox Software is making the once-impossible possible next year. And now they’re trying to figure out something with retailers to reward folks who’ve been loyal to the dream all this time. Speaking at a London event this week, studio CEO Randy Pitchford said: “There are a lot of people who pre-ordered the game. We’ve been starting to talk with retailers because we didn’t take them directly, and 3D Realms didn’t take them, it was all retailers going ‘I’m going to take this guy’s money.‘”

“We’ve started to engage them, saying ‘Hey, you’ve got customers who you made a promise to, and any bad feeling they have will reflect on us, so can we work together to do something for those people?’ I don’t know what we can do yet, but something should be done for the people who pre-ordered.”

There’s probably a snowball’s chance in hell that retailers — especially ones like GameStop — will wind up caving in and rewarding long-time fans. Giving back to the consumer, who willingly coughed up money well in advance of a product’s release? Excuse me while I laugh myself into a seizure. But, not too long ago there was also a snowball’s chance in hell that Duke Nukem Forever was actually going to come out, and look where we are now.


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