Alan Miller is an American

video game design Video game design is the process of designing the rules and content of video games in the Video game development#Pre-production, pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the Video game development ...

er who was the co-founder of the video game company

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...

Career

Miller studied

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, graduating in 1973. Miller joined Atari, Inc. in February 1977 and was one of the first four Atari 2600 game designers. His 2600 titles include '' Surround'', '' Hangman'' and ''

Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

''. With others, he co-authored the

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

for the Atari 400/800 computers in late 1978 and early 1979. His last game for Atari, ''Basketball'', was one of the first

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...

games for the Atari computers. Miller did not work on any Atari 2600 cartridges during his last year with Atari. In late 1979, Miller left Atari with three other programmers, David Crane,

Larry Kaplan Larry Kaplan is an American video game designer and video game programmer. Kaplan studied at the University of California, Berkeley from 1968 through 1974 and graduated with a degree in Computer Science. Larry was inspired to work in the game de ...

and

Bob Whitehead Robert A. Whitehead (born November 1, 1953) is an American video game designer and programmer. While working for Atari, Inc. he wrote two of the nine Atari Video Computer System launch titles: ''Blackjack'' and '' Star Ship''. After leaving Atari ...

. They were disillusioned and disappointed with Atari's refusal to give them screen credit for any of the games they worked on. With music industry executive, Jim Levy, they formed

, the first independent video game developer and publisher. Activision rapidly grew to US$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 Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

'', ''

Ice Hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

'', '' Starmaster'' and ''

Robot Tank ''Robot Tank'' is a first-person shoot 'em up written by Alan Miller for the Atari 2600 and published by Activision in 1983. It is similar in design to Atari, Inc.'s '' Battlezone'' tank combat arcade video game and more so to its 2600 port. '' ...

''. Miller experimented with implementing a 3D display for the game Checkers but due to technical limitations of both the Atari 2600 and television sets of the era, the idea was dropped. Miller and Whitehead thought that diversification to other platforms, such as the home computers like the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in ...

, was essential for success.Bob Whitehead interview
from DigitalPress Activision was resistant to this idea, so he and Whitehead left Activision in 1984 and together formed the game publisher

Accolade The accolade (also known as dubbing, adoubement, or knighting) () was the central act in the rite of passage Ceremony, ceremonies conferring knighthood in the Middle Ages. Etymology The term ''accolade'' entered English by 1591, when Thomas ...

. While with his new company, he designed only one game, '' Law of the West'' for the

. Miller started as Vice President of Product Development but in a few years rose to chairman and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

. After ten years at Accolade, Miller left in 1994. Accolade hit hard times and in 1999 was purchased by

Infogrames Atari SA (formerly Infogrames Entertainment SA ()), also known as Atari Group, is a French holding company headquartered in Paris that owns mainly video gaming-related interactive entertainment properties. Atari SA's core subsidiaries include ...

, which later changed its subsidiaries' names to

Atari Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French holding company Atari SA (formerly Infogrames) and its focus is on "video games, consumer hardware, licensing and bl ...

, Atari Europe, Atari Australia, and Atari Japan respectively. In September 2001, Miller rejoined David Crane at Crane's company, Skyworks Technologies, a leading developer of custom branded online games (

advergame An advergame (portmanteau of "advertisement" and "video game") is a form of advertising in video games, in which the video game is developed by or in close collaboration with a corporate entity for purposes of advertising a brand-name product. Whil ...

s) for

Fortune 100 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along w ...

companies, where he served as Vice President of Business Development for four years.

Click Health

In 1997, Miller co-founded Click Health, a pioneering publisher of health education games for children with

asthma Asthma is a common long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wh ...

and

diabetes Diabetes mellitus, commonly known as diabetes, is a group of common endocrine diseases characterized by sustained high blood sugar levels. Diabetes is due to either the pancreas not producing enough of the hormone insulin, or the cells of th ...

. The games were made available for

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

consoles and

IBM PCs The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible ''de facto'' standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a ...

. Miller served as chairman and CEO. Clinical trials of the company's games demonstrated significant effectiveness. In a clinical trial with pediatric diabetes patients at

Stanford University Medical Center Stanford University Medical Center is a teaching hospital which includes Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children's Health. It serves as a private hospital for the Stanford University School of Medicine. In 2022–23, it was ranked by the U ...

and

Kaiser Permanente Kaiser Permanente (; KP) is an American integrated delivery system, integrated managed care consortium headquartered in Oakland, California. Founded in 1945 by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser and physician Sidney Garfield, Sidney R. Garfield, the ...

, children who played the company's diabetes game, '' Packy and Marlon'', experienced a 77% reduction in urgent care visits over six months, compared to children in the control group who were given a standard video game to play. The company's anti-smoking game, '' Rex Ronan: Experimental Surgeon'', is an interactive exhibit in the Health Odyssey Museum at the

Centers for Disease Control The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and is headquartered in Atlanta, ...

headquarters in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

, played by thousands of children each year as they tour the museum. Unable to find significant interest in distribution of the effective games through health care providers, insurers, and government agencies, Click Health closed its doors in September 2001.

References

External links

Photo of Alan Miller
accepting an award for developing the first third-party video game development company at the 2003 GDC
second photo
*
Miller's library of work for the Atari 2600
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Alan Activision employees American video game designers American video game programmers Year of birth missing (living people) Living people UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni Place of birth missing (living people) Atari people Game Developers Conference Pioneer Award recipients