The Oddity of Apogee Dilemma

"The Apogee Model."

Rebranding of Apogee Entertainment caught my attention and that's something I wanted to cover as it gave me an excuse to focus on one of the questions that were floating in my mind. After reading into it and looking around, the weirdness of this subject was clear more than ever. In short, that got me really curious as it really is just... odd to me.

But hey, at the very least I get to write a bit about some old games and just have fun with it in more relaxed form this time around. That's enough to make me happy for a moment.

Who is who?

This question stuck in my head for quite some time now. More specifically, "Is 3D Realms of today the same company as back in a day?" and how this Apogee fits into all of this? Thankfully, finding out the answer isn't so hard, especially considering that all the work was done already. An absolutely massive article called "My Story of 3D Realms / Apogee" from Joe Siegler tells his story with the company and offers much needed "name summary", as he put it with both in-depth and very basic explanation of the matter.

Despite laying off its staff in 2009, 3D Realms (a.k.a. Apogee Software Ltd) still existed and was bought four years after by Interceptor Entertainment. Legally speaking, 3D Realms is still the original Apogee Software owned by now Slipgate Ironworks... It's just a mess of holding companies and stuff that's just pretty confusing even after explanation.

What about another Apogee then? Well, Terry Nagy acquired the rights for Apogee Software as a name with its logo. That's just a new company that took the old and recognizable name, not the one under different leadership. Before its rebranding, it was known as "Apogee Software LLC" and actually published a remake of Rise of the Triad.

You know, after that its pretty peculiar to see Apogee Entertainment's reveal and how it was presented. All this talk about "Apogee's return" is just a "PR speak" because Apogee never left: it just changed its name to 3D Realms. It's funny to read how in "Looking Back" Scott Miller refers to them as "new 3D Realms" while in reality it's the exact opposite.

Shared Heritage.

Going back to Joe's article, there's another detail that caught my attention. I already knew that old 3D Realms site still works to this very day (which is awesome), but existence of "Detailed Release Timeline" was something I either forgot or never knew before. After taking a look at it, I discovered some very interesting information that was later repeated in that blog. A few old 3D Realms games migrated to Apogee Entertainment on November 24, 2020:

• Crystal Caves.

• Monster Bash.

• Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold.

• Raptor: Call of Shadows.

• Blake Stone: Planet Strike.

• Rise of the Triad: Dark War.

• Terminal Velocity.

I suppose that Scott Miller didn't have any difficulties with taking those titles as he's still a co-owner of 3D Realms, according to GamesIndustry. All of these games were released under Apogee Software's name... except Terminal Velocity. Interestingly enough, 3D Realms celebrated its 26th anniversary recently while new Apogee didn't, even though they're the one who distributed it on Steam and GOG.

With the release of Crystal Caves HD, announcement of Rise of the Triad Remastered at Realms Deep 2020 and teasers of more remasters in Apogee's showcase video, we should expect to see Blake Stone games and Terminal Velocity getting similar treatment since they're the ones who left untouched by Apogee Entertainment for now.

Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure HD Screenshot. Taken from YouTube.

However, Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure seems to be in interesting position. Even though its enhanced version was teased alongside Raptor (this one was announced before) and Monster Bash, Cosmo appears to be staying with 3D Realms. They're still selling the original game on Steam and their website. Same goes of GOG, although there they're sharing it with Apogee Entertainment. Which means that 3D Realms might be involved in this remaster as well... or more changes are on their way. To be fair, Cosmo is the one classic Apogee platformer character that did appear in Rad Rodgers: Radical Edition... and so is Duke Nukem, yeah.

Conclusion.

Now let's try and answer one question: "Why?" 3D Realms and new Apogee coexisted for many years now, no denying of that. They worked together before and now, therefore merging doesn't sound too crazy. My guess would probably be avoiding the growth... Let me explain. 

I think I don't need to talk about Duke Nukem Forever and how much it affected 3D Realms. Perhaps Scott Miller decided to use Terry Nagy's idea of rebranding his Apogee as opportunity to make sure that both parties wouldn't become big enough to potentially repeat past mistakes. Becoming too large for their own good. I know that this might sound too romanticized. Of course, it could actually be a malicious intent: greed or something along those lines. However, I don't see any reason for considering this option unless there're some public convincing evidences to support it and so far that doesn't seem to be the case. Thankfully I have a reason to stay positive about something, and I would rather stick to that when I can.

As for my remarks towards new Apogee, I just love making those. Even though I actually think that their marketing is a bit of a stretch, it's just me having fun with pointing that out funnily.