Bobby Prince, the music composer of “Doom,” “Doom II,” “Duke Nukem II” and “Duke Nukem 3D,” is suing Randy Pitchford and Gearbox studios.
When “Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour” was published in the Steam Store page in 2016, hardly anyone made a buzz about it. However, since then, the music composer of “Duke Nukem 3D Bobby Prince” has begun a lawsuit against Gearbox Studios, the publisher of this remastered version and the CEO of the company, Randy Pitchford.
According to the documents, Gearbox Studio purchased the rights to “Duke Nukem” in 2010. However, those rights did not include the music which was still owned by the composer. To their ignorance, they published this remastered version without editing or removing the music that they didn’t have the rights to. Prince had registered copyrights for all the songs in the game and, according to his old contract with the original owners of “Duke Nukem,” Apogee, “Apogee had a limited right to use Mr. Prince’s music in Duke Nukem 3D in exchange for a royalty equal to one dollar per unit sold.” That contract still applies because the agreement between Apogee and Gearbox did not include negotiations with Prince on the music.
As of writing this, neither Randy Pitchford nor Gearbox Studio has responded to the summons to court.
However, what makes this even worse is that Bobby Prince attempted to deal with this mishap before the lawsuit. He made a call to the CEO Randy Pitchford over the phone where Pitchford said that the problem would be “taken care of.” Those words however, proved to be a complete fabrication by Pitchford when Bobby learned later that, not only was the music not removed from the game, Pitchford stood his ground and refused to remove the music despite numerous requests from Bobby. To that end, this lawsuit seemed inevitable.
However, the bigger question is: will this affect Gearbox or its CEO in any impactful way? Most likely not if history is to be believed.
Randy Pitchford and Gearbox have been through significantly worse than this. From the time Randy left a flash drive at a Medieval Times that was filled with critical work documents and, for some baffling reason, pornography. To the time Gearbox software fabricated the story that multiple voice actors were not coming back even when they were asked, when the voice actors themselves don’t recall even being contacted. That story was followed up by an allegation of physical assault by Randy Pitchford, who later attacked and harassed the individual for discovering shady business dealings that he wasn’t aware of. Those two worrisome events are only a sample of how this is far from the worst story that has come from the company or the man. Both those stories come from a tsunami of lies and controversy that plague the two of them.
This isn’t even the first major lawsuit against the company. That honor goes to the time Randy Pitchford was accused of siphoning the bonuses of Gearbox employees.
However, this story still stands to be a significant one. As of this writing, neither Randy Pitchford nor Gearbox Studio has responded to the summons to court. Time ticks down to the inevitable as we wait for what will happen.
Edward Park is a second-year student majoring in English education. EP909756@wcupa.edu