Scott Miller On Making Max Payne A Success

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to 3D Realms founder Scott Miller's weblog entry discussing the reasons why Max Payne "was purposely positioned for success right from the start" . Although Miller, the man overseeing the ever-delayed Duke Nukem Forever, has now sold his share of Max Payne's IP to Take Two/Rockstar, he discusses specifics, including the choice of name ("A perfect name will convey something about the product... have good word-play possibilities for press and news headlines... and have a good short-hand version"), the hook ("The attribute Max owns is 'bullet-time,' like Volvo owns the word 'safety' and McDonalds owns 'fast'") and controversy ("Max Payne had a little, though it didn't get as much press as we thought it might.") He also reveals 3D Realms is "currently working with another developer, with a very similar relationship that we had with Remedy, to create another hit series (or so we hope!)" - an announcement is due in 2004.

Comments

Foresight

[Tom7]

Next time tell us how successful your product will be before it goes to market, and then we'll see how good your predictive powers are!

Oh, wait, every company does this with every product.

DK

[Anonymous Coward]

"3D Realms is "currently working with another developer, with a very similar relationship that we had with Remedy, to create another hit series (or so we hope!)" - an announcement is due in 2004."

that sounds too early for Duke Nukem Forever

And worth every penny.

[El_Smack]

This is why Scott Miller is making the big dough. You or I would take a game we made and position it for failure, or mediocrity at best. Scott is that one guy in a million who would position his game for success. And he did it right from the start, too.

Just another feather in the cap of the man who keeps Duke Nukem For(When)ever on task and on budget.