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Scott Miller Interview - The Man Who Would Be King?

Scott Miller Interview - The Man Who Would Be King?

Conducting interviews via email is never easy as they miss the all-important level of human contact that you need when talking to someone for the first time. It’s often hard to judge what a person is really like or what their true feelings on the matter is, so to start the balling rolling we fired a couple of questions towards Scott to ask him about his background and history, and what his general thoughts are on the gaming industry at the moment.

So just who is Scott Miller then?

Scott: This link sums things up well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Miller_(programmer)

In short, I founded Apogee as an online publisher in 1987, the first game company of its kind. We also pioneered the episodic model of releasing games, which we continued to use even after we re-branded ourselves 3D Realms in the mid-90’s. Some people may remember, for example, that Duke Nukem 3D was released as three episodes, with the first episode freely available as shareware.

Twenty years is a long time to be in the business and Scott must have surely seen witnessed a great many changes. We asked him whether he had ever thought “Enough is enough” and decided that it would be best to move on to other, completely different, areas? What keeps somebody motivated after such a long time in one job?

Scott: It’s hard to consider what I do "a job". It’s something I look forward to every day. There’s so much creativity involved, and so little stress. Not to compare myself to Spielberg, but does he ever wake up and say "enough is enough," even after his tremendous success? I doubt it. He’s having far too much fun. And it’s the same for me, as well as most people I know in the industry. It really is a dream job. And as long as there’s any creative energy left in me I hope to stick around. How old is Spielberg now? ;-)

The next question was an obvious one to ask, given the length of experience Scott has: what do you think have been the best and worst changes in the gaming industry since you started?

Scott: This is a question I can answer in many different ways. For example, as an industry we’ve generally been overly occupied with graphics technology at the price of gameplay innovation. The cost of games is getting to be so high that we are seeing less and less original IP [intellectual property - Ed] given a chance. I’m not a fan of licensed IP, and as an industry we rely far too much on it, even though the data clearly shows that IP born within our industry is, by a large margin, more successful than licensed IP (if you exclude kids licenses and sports licenses – two special cases).

A new threat to our industry is resells, something that was not a factor only three years ago. Gamestop is the biggest offender, and makes over a billion dollars a year on resells now – with none of that going to the publishers or studios that created these games. This is a serious blow for content creators, and will only make it harder and harder for original IP to be given any sort of a chance in the future.

On the positive side the Wiimote is bringing in a horde of new players who are now finding games to be much more interactive, by using much more of their body. The casual games market is exploding, too, which is tremendously positive for the industry, by broadening the base.

We’ve often wondered whether the sheer complexity of modern games makes it virtually impossible for people interested in making games to start in the same manner as Scott did. So is there is any chance for the ‘bedroom’ programmer or designer, or is it is case that these days companies are only going to take on people with degrees in these areas?

Scott: Sure. As I mentioned above, the casual/puzzle game market is the current low-cost, sweat-equity doorway to get a foot into the industry. But, in this industry a studio is immediately stereotyped based on their first successful game, and so it becomes very difficult to convince a publisher that, just because you have a hit in the casual market, you can make the leap to making larger games. Still, there’s plenty of success to be had on either side of the coin.

And as a final “warm up” question, there’s currently a particular trend in the game (and movie) industry to remake old favourites. What would make Scott’s top 3 list for being remade?

Scott: I would most love to see a fully 3D, real-time version of Planetfall, a modern remake of M.U.L.E. (would be a brilliant causal, online game), and I think a remake of Duke Nukem 3D would be quite fun, too.

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