Scott Miller

Current

• Chief Creative Officer and Co-Founder at Radar Group
• Co-founder/CEO at 3D Realms

Past

• Co-founder/Director at Gathering of Developers
• Industry writer at various publications

Education

• Self-educated plus college

Recommended

3 people have recommended Scott

Connections

369 connections

Industry

Entertainment

Websites

• My Company
• My Company
• My Blog

Scott Miller’s Summary

Highlights:

o Started 3D Realms (then called Apogee) in 1987, which remains one of the most successful fully independent game development studios in the world.
o Involved with the creation of five completely original hit franchises.
o These five franchises have so far averaged 4.8 million retail sales each.
o Each of these five won multiple Game of the Year awards.
o Pioneered the online distribution of games, and game demos.
o Co-created the FPS genre in 1992, still one of the most popular genres today, with blockbuster games like Halo, Gears of War, Doom, Half-Life, Call of Duty, and Duke Nukem.
o Created or co-created several innovative game hooks, like portals, bullet-time and talking game characters. Additionally, was the first to stop using game lives, back in 1990, an innovation now copied by practically all of today's games.
o Co-founded a publisher, in 1998, which was sold to Take2 in 2000, earning them $700 million on less than $50m of investment.
o Sold the Max Payne IP to Take2 for $48m, an unprecedented feat for an independent studio, demonstrating the true value of IP in our industry. (And this was after earning $30m in royalties from this IP.)
o I've spoken at E3, SIGGRAPH, ECTS and several other events.
o Wrote first computer game in 1975. Been doing it ever since.

Scott Miller’s Specialties:

Creating successful original IP, storyverse design, collaborative game design, game hooks (bullet-time, portals, deathwalk, many others), branding & positioning, paradigm shifting.

Scott Miller’s Experience

• Chief Creative Officer and Co-Founder

  Radar Group

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Games industry)

  June 2007 — Present (2 years 6 months)

  Radar Group is a pioneering brand creation and portfolio management company, at the sweet spot between studios and publishers, adding tremendous value to each: by helping studios co-own IP, while bringing publishers prototyped, proven, innovative concepts that they can quickly visualize and buy into.
  
  Thanks to our Hollywood-based partner, Depth Entertainment, Radar is also positioned within the intersection of the game industry and the film industry. It is finally time for both industry's to share talent and resources in creating something more than games, and more than films: a storyverse. This is our innovative method of creating original properties that have all the elements needed to succeed in both the interactive and linear mediums. Star Wars, LOTR, and Harry Potter are three of the best examples of a deep, rich storyverse.
  
  Proof of this in action is the Max Payne movie (Depth is a producer of this movie), currently due for release late in 2008, starring Mark Wahlberg.

• Co-founder/CEO

  3D Realms

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Games industry)

  April 1987 — Present (22 years 8 months)

  For many years in the 80's and 90's, Apogee revolutionized and dominated the shareware game industry, pioneered demo distribution for games (no publisher did this before Apogee), episodic releases, and digital distribution. Apogee lead the way in the rise of the financially independent PC studio, and was the first studio to partner with peer studios to create original games. Apogee was at ground zero with the creation of the FPS genre, as the exclusive distributor of this game in 1992, and contributing design and all marketing direction to this title.
  
  In 1994, Apogee rebranded itself as 3D Realms, and continued its success with Duke Nukem 3D, many Duke console releases, Max Payne, and Prey.
  
  3D Realms has always been fiercely independent, loyal to other development studios and the developer community, and a strong, vocal proponent of studio IP ownership. As part of this, 3DR runs the largest, most influential underground developer-only discussion group in the industry, since 2001.

• Co-founder/Director

  Gathering of Developers

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Games industry)

  January 1998 — February 2000 (2 years 2 months)

  Gathering of Developers was a Dallas-based publisher that worked with proven independent developers, and with the unique idea of allowing developers to retain full ownership of their IP. Max Payne was the Gathering's biggest release. In 2000 Gathering was purchased in full by Take-Two Interactive, which earned for them over $700 million in total from the releases originally started/signed by Gathering's management and teams.
  
  During my time with the Gathering of Developers I wrote a key document, the Developer's Ten Commandments, which can still be found on the web (written in 1998):
  http://www.igda.org/articles/smiller_commandments.php

• Industry writer

  various publications

  (Computer Games industry)

  June 1982 — August 1989 (7 years 3 months)

  I wrote my first computer game in 1975 on a Wang 2200. As a video game master during the early arcade era, I won several tournaments and in 1982 co-wrote a book on beating arcade games, titled Shootout: Zap the Video Games--in it I made predictions such as dual-screen video game systems, MMOs and sim games, none of which existed back then, but are prevalent today.
  
  Throughout the 80's I wrote 230 published articles (in publications like COMPUTE!, plus 4 years as a video games journalist for The Dallas Morning News). During this same period I personally created over 20 published games.

Scott Miller’s Education

• Self-educated plus college

  Game development, marketing, business, coding

Additional Information

Scott Miller’s Websites:

• My Company
• My Company
• My Blog

Scott Miller’s Interests:

Passionate about martial arts, health & fitness (I take 80+ longevity supplements daily), strength training, hardcore snow skiing, water sports, drumming, investing, scuba diving, traveling the world, disc golf, and the nature of the universe. I read 100+ books a year (80% non-fiction).

Scott Miller’s Groups:

During the early 90's was a key member within the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP), helping revise their policies to allow for episodic releases--one of Apogee's key marketing innovations at the time. I also helped form an alternate shareware association, STAR (Shareware Trade Association and Resources) during this time, which survived until ASP changed their policies. In 1992 I was a founding member (#19920007) of the Computer Game Developers Association, which later became the IGDA.

Game Industry

•    Game Designers Workshop
•    Game Developers
•    Game Creator's Network
•    Video Gaming Industry Executives
•    VideoGame Professionals

Scott Miller’s Honors:

At various times I have received industry industry honors, such as being listed on Computer Gaming World's "15 Most Influential People in the Industry", on Next Generation's list of the "30 Most Important People in the American Game Industry," and a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Shareware Industry Foundation, in recognition for pioneering work in episodic gaming and online distribution.

Scott Miller’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• new ventures
• business deals