Scott Miller (programmer)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Scott Miller is an entrepreneur and former game programmer. Miller is the founder and CEO of Apogee Software, Ltd. (currently known as 3D Realms Entertainment), started in 1987. He started as game programmer, but now handles primary business duties of the company, as well as producing and co-designing all third-party games associated with the company, including Wolfenstein 3D, Raptor, Terminal Velocity, Max Payne and Prey.
Miller also authors one of the industry's leading blogs, www.GameMatters.com, where his views show him to be a strong proponent of studio independence, and of studios and publishers creating original brands rather than licencing brands from other media sources.
Miller is noted in the industry for his integration of marketing and gameplay hooks within a game's central concept and design. He pioneered the shareware method of game distribution where one episode of a game is released freely through digital distribution, and the follow-up episodes of sold through the company. In effect, the free episode is the carrot-on-a-stick; an advertisement to purchase the remaining, commercial episodes. Kingdom of Kroz, in 1987, was the first game to use this method, which Miller refers to as the "Apogee Model."
Upon success with this model with the seven Kroz episodes, Miller left his full-time job in mid-1990 and devoted full efforts into growing Apogee. As a side note, it was at this time that Miller contacted key members at Softdisk (a monthly software magazine delivered on floppy disks to subscribers) who later formed id Software, and convinced them to make Commander Keen as a shareware game to be released through Apogee, which proved to be an outstanding success, and lead id Software to become an independent studio.
Miller began writing computer games in 1975 on a Wang 2000 while living in Australia. He wrote several DOS games that circulated widely on BBS file bases:
- Computer Quiz
- Astronomy Quiz
- BASIC Quiz
- Beyond the Titanic
- Supernova
- Kingdom of Kroz
- Word Whiz
- Trek Trivia
Miller was also a professional industry writer in the '80s, having co-authored a book on beating video games, Shootout: Zap the Video Games, and writing a weekly column for The Dallas Morning News for four years ('82-'85), titled "Video Vision", and later changed to "Computer Fun". He's also written for COMPUTE!'s PC & PCjr and other now defunct national game industry magazines.
Miller was later instrumental in the formation of Gathering of Developers in 1998, a new publisher created with the aid of several leading game studios, and later sold to Take-Two Interactive.
