Think about who you were in 1997, then who you were in 2011. In that entire span, one studio was trapped inside a single project. This episode dissects Duke Nukem Forever, which held the Guinness World Record for the longest video game development cycle at 14 years and 44 days, as a psychological case study in what happens when creators get unlimited resources, zero deadlines, and an obsession with perfection. After Duke Nukem 3D sold roughly 3.5 million copies in 1996, 3D Realms founders George Broussard and Scott Miller were independently wealthy and took only a 400,000 dollar advance from GT Interactive, keeping total creative control with no publisher to say no.

The hosts walk through the E3 1998 trailer that won the show, the decision weeks later to scrap the Quake 2 engine for Unreal, the 2000 to 2006 vaporware years of disconnected t ...