Scott Miller Interview - The Man Who Would Be King?
Hmm, looks like I have the con…3DRealms is reasonably unique in the industry for being a producer as well as a developer, which must have given them quite a different level of understanding of how things work in the world of video games. For example,” what does a producer do?” is a relatively simple question but one could write a whole book on the matter and we thank Scott most profusely for not doing so! A little more background on the company to begin with though - if we run through the past 10 years, they’ve gone through being game developers to mostly being game publishers/producers. So, was this something planned in the early years? Scott: We’ve released some 35 games, and only three were made internally. So, we’ve always been more of a producer rather than a developer, and this has been a super successful model for us, going back to when we first worked with pre-Id Software (I teamed up with them before they called themselves Id, they were just employees at Softdisk, and later called themselves Ideas From the Deep, or IFD Software).
Our first internal project was Rise of the Triad, and our most recently released game was Shadow Warrior. In between we created Duke 3D, and that’s been it for us. The games did well, but we are fully aware that we’ve not be a fact in the last decade, internally-speaking. Our love of perfection has gotten the best of us with Duke Nukem Forever, and it’s something we’ve had to learn to back off on. Luckily, our work as game producers/mentors has continued to pay off with huge successes, Max Payne and Prey. And this is an area we will continue with, even at a more aggressive pace.
Publisher/producer? What roles behind a game do these take? For example, how much input does one have in the actual design of a title? Scott: When we act as a producer, we often contribute significant funding to a project, which allows it to reach a point where it is much easier to pitch to publishers. We also provide design guidance, marketing guidance (for example, I was a prime mover on all marketing for Duke Nukem 3D, Max Payne, and Prey, leading the design of the retail boxes, game ads, picking the screen shots, writing all of the marketing text, etc.), and at the end, we are deeply involved with play-testing and polishing. It’s quite a lot of work, but then, it’s also really fun.
A calm moment in Prey...
Prey was well received by press and gamers alike, so just how much input did 3D Realms have in its development? Scott: All of the above! Big money. The overall concept came from me, and was then co-shaped by Human Head and me together. I brought in all three of the external writers and worked closely with them, and Human Head, to lay-out the story and characters. Human Head and I worked on all of the key gameplay ideas, some coming from me (death walk, spirit walk, Talon) and some from Human Head (gravity and wall walking). And many from 3DR were involved with the game’s play-testing. It really is a big collaboration.
Since Prey 2 is already under production, we asked Scott if we be seeing a long term series of Prey games: Scott: That is always the goal. With Max Payne, for example, we always planned for a long series. I’m still puzzled to this day why – after 3D Realms and Remedy sold the IP to Take2 – there’s not been a Max Payne 3. That’s a franchise that sold over 7 million copies between two games. We should be hearing about Max 4 in development by now.
Well that gives quite a good impression as to some of the work that a producer does but some aspects aren’t always clear - for example, we wanted to know just who is ultimately in charge of support, patching and updating a game in general: the developer or the publisher? Scott: Since most studios are actually publisher owned, like Blizzard, Bungie and Raven, for example, it falls upon the publisher’s shoulders. However, for independent studios like Epic, Bethesda and us, it is in our best interest to support our games and release whatever patches are necessary, even without the publisher pushing us to do so. It’s just common sense to support the players.
Having published titles over a wide variety of formats (PC, console, mobile), one would expect there to be a favourite but purely from a business point of view, 3DRealms have a clear winner: Scott: PC. It’s the most powerful. Plus, For FPS games, you simply cannot beat the mouse controller. It is still light-years better than a console controller for rapid, accurate shooter action.
Strong words indeed but 3DRealms do like the mobile phone sector quite a lot, and have been keeping quite busy in this area: Scott: We’ve been working with MachineWorks to develop mobile Duke games for two years now. These games have been quite highly rated and pretty big sellers. We also have several other projects cooking that have yet to be signed with a publisher.
Hopefully those answers should give folks a clearer idea as to what it means to be a publisher, producer…err…developer. Hmm, we’re still none the wiser as to what pigeon-hole is best to put them in but 3DRealms can certainly claim to wear a great many hats!
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