Duke Nukem is a video game series named for its protagonist Duke Nukem. Created originally by the company Apogee Software Ltd. (now 3D Realms) as a series of video games for IBM-compatible personal computers, the franchise expanded to games released for various consoles by third party developers. During 2010 the rights of the franchise were acquired by the company Gearbox Software, who completed the development of Duke Nukem Forever and released it on 10 June 2011 in Europe and Australia and on 14 June 2011 in North America.