Alan Miller
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Alan Miller was an influential figure in the video game industry. He was an early game designer and programmer for Atari 2600 games who went on to found two large video game developers and publishers.
Miller joined Atari in February 1977 and was one of the first four Atari 2600 game designers. His titles include "Surround," "Hunt," "Hangman" and "Basketball." With others, he co-authored the operating system for the Atari 400/800/1200 computers in late 1978 and early 1979. His last game for Atari, "Basketball," was one of the first ROM games for the Atari computers.
In late 1979, Miller left Atari with three other programmers, Dave Crane, Jim Levy, and Bob Whitehead. They were disillusioned and disappointed with Atari's refusal to give them screen credit for any of the games they worked on. Together they formed Activision, the first independent video game developer and publisher. Activision rapidly grew to $159 million in revenue in 1983, its third year of sales. Miller acted as Vice President of Product Development and designed several of the company's first games. Among his games designed while with Activision are "Checkers," "Tennis," "Ice Hockey," Starmaster and Robot Tank.
Miller eventually left Activision in 1984 and together with Bob Whitehead formed the game developer and publisher Accolade. While with his new company, he designed only one game, Law of the West for the Commodore 64. Accolade quickly became known for their pioneering and high-quality titles. Miller started as Vice President of Product Development but in a few years rose to Chairman and CEO.
Ironically, Accolade hit hard times and in 1999 was purchased by Infogrames which in 2003 changed its name to Atari.
Miller left Accolade, and the game industry, circa 1995 and went on to develop handheld devices for golf.
External link
- Moby Games brief entry on Alan Miller (http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId=92980/)
- Photo of Alan Miller (http://www.gamedev.net/columns/events/gdc2003/pics/gdca50.JPG) accepting an award for developing the first third-party video game development company at the 2003 GDC (second photo (http://www.gamedev.net/columns/events/gdc2003/pics/gdca48.JPG))
