2/9/2000

Makegames.com

Interviews

Scott Miller


Our interview today is with Scott Miller, co-owner and partner of Apogee Software and 3D Realms Entertainment. Scott has graciously agreed to share his extensive knowledge of the game development industry with makegames.com.

Makegames: Mr. Miller, please introduce yourself and tell us something about your company.

SM: Got started in the industry by writing games in Turbo Pascal in the mid-80's, and selling these small games to various monthly disk publications, like Softdisk and I.B.Magazette. Got around $200 per game back in those good ol' days! Eventually, the shareware scene was starting to take-off and that's where I focused my efforts, and that's how Apogee got started back in 1987.

Since that time Apogee has released 35 PC games, six console games, launched our well known 3D Realms division, and we remain one of a handful of long-time, successful, fully independent developers in the PC industry.

Makegames: How did you get started in game development?

SM: I began writing computer games on a Wang 2000 business computer in 1975, using the BASIC language. My first games used ASCII letters for graphics, to represent little tanks and people moving around the screen -- a far cry from today's 3D accelerated games. I wrote literally hundreds of small games on various computers I owned, such as the Commodore PET, the C-64, and the Amiga 1000. In 1984 I bought an IBM PC (256k RAM, no hard drive, CGA 4-color graphics) and slowly but surely began to do most of game programming on it, even though the Amiga had by far better graphics. It was also around this time I discovered bulletin boards, the web sites of their day, and realized that there was a big world out there and now I was connected to it, though only at 300 baud!

Makegames: What made you decide to move from the development side into the publishing side of the business?

SM: We've never been a true publisher, even though we release and market games developed by other authors and companies. What we used to do is partner with other authors and teams, fund their projects, market them as shareware, and handle all order processing. But that's not part of our business model anymore because making several games at once is too difficult and costly, so instead we focus on one game at a time internally.

But since the success of Duke Nukem 3D, we've been able to take advantage of another business avenue, licensing our characters to third-party developers, who then create all-new games with us assisting with the design.

And we do have a strong partnership with Remedy Entertainment in Finland, the developer behind Max Payne. Apogee's role with Remedy is to provide funding and design assistance, plus we'll handle the shareware marketing or this game. We also played a key role with the very high level design of this game and character, ensuring that Max Payne becomes a strong franchise character and brand, much like Duke Nukem. Most developers fail to design games with the proper hooks in place for this to happen.

Makegames: What do you consider your first mega hit?

SM: Well, this is all relative to how well Apogee was doing at the time. For example, my original Kroz series--the game that pioneered the multi-episode marketing method--raked in an average of $1000 a week for nearly two years! That's the game and the money that allowed me to quit my day job and give Apogee my full-time attention. Then the bar was raised again with Commander Keen, allowing me to hire Apogee's first employees. It was raised again with the first Duke Nukem in 1991, bringing in $50,000 gross per month--a lot for a small company at that time!

The bar was pushed sky high with the release of Wolfenstein 3-D, grossing $250,000 a month for over a year. Now, even mainstream publishers began taking notice. And of course Duke Nukem 3D is one of the top selling games ever (over 2 million copies on the PC alone), and one of gaming's most valuable and successful franchises.

Makegames: How many development teams do you have working for you now?

SM: We have an 18 person team internally, working on Duke Nukem Forever, and that's it. Remedy Entertainment is developing Max Payne, which we have an ownership stake in, but they are not "working for us."

The bottom line is that nowadays there are so many developers and games that to make any impact you must specialize and focus your company like a finely tuned laser beam. You cannot be diverse--more often than not the best, most innovative companies are specialists, not generalist. You must pick your battle on a single front and wage war with all you've got in order to punch through all the competition. Those that wage war on several battle fronts are spreading themselves to thinly to punch through.

Makegames: What new games can we expect to see in 2000?

SM: For the PC, Duke Nukem Forever, which most people have heard of (I hope ), and Max Payne (www.remedy.fi). We also have two original Duke Nukem consoles games in development, one for the Playstation that's due out this summer (Planet of the Babes), and an untitled one due out next year for the Playstation 2.

Makegames: Do you think your company will have an IPO any time soon?

SM: Not a chance. We never want to have the arbitrary pressures and hassles of being a public company, having to answer to dumbass shareholders who know as much about making games as I know about making Windows work a full day without crashing. ;-)

Makegames: How has the game development industry changed over the years?

SM: In many significant ways!

[1] When Apogee was starting in the late 80's thru early 90's, there were maybe 30 to 100 games released in a year. This meant that there was still a great demand for good games, and people would find our shareware games through friends, online, in stores, etc. But then the game industry took-off and suddenly hundreds, then 1000's of games came out each year, which drowned out the shareware market and also gave game buyers so many more choices for their money--and less money went to the shareware market. It was around this time in 1994 that Apogee began working with retail publishers because we understand that the real money was in the commercial market.

[2] Another effect of the exploding retail market, with a 1000+ game releases per year, is that few games end up making their money back, and even fewer are big hits. This is because the supply of games has greatly exceeded the supply of consumer dollars, and it's just not financiall possible for most people to buy more than 10-20 games per year. What happens is that the big hits end up eating 30-50% of the public's game budget, leaving the rest of the budget to spread between about 1000 more games. Obviously, it just doesn't add up, and most games lose out.

Other factors worthy of lengthy overview include the Internet, the consolidation of publishers, the overall inexperience of young developers in our industry, and the obligation every publisher seems to have to clone the current hot games.

Makegames: What is the biggest mistake you've seen game developers make?

SM: There are far too many game design and gameplay mistakes being repeated from previous games. In other words, too many project leaders and game designers in the development industry are not learning well from the industry's past. I attribute this to the large number of games being made, and therefore the necessity to hire and promote relatively inexperienced developers to a key role in the game design process. After all, there's only a limited pool of designers with five to seven plus years of real game development experience, and that's generally a minimum of what's needed to play a leadership role on a project. Too many projects that I'm aware of lack experienced leadership.

One of the terms we invented at Apogee about 10 years ago is "shit filter." For example, a good designer must have a good shit filter, which i the experience and talent to know which ideas are bad and just plain stupid, and have no business making it into the game. There are a lot of designers "out there" that do not have adequate shit filters, and a good shit filter can only come from years of experience, both playing and making games.

Makegames: Do you have any advice for game developers just getting started?

SM: Play other games, and learn, learn, learn! Read sites like this one and www.gamasutra.com. Also, whether you want to be an artist, level designer, modeler, or coder, you must take it upon yourself to practise endlessly. Build a demo or a portfolio of your work--it's your best ticket into the industry.

Scott Miller
Apogee Software, Ltd. and
3D Realms Entertainment
http://www.3drealms.com
Screenshot from Max Payne

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