Rand Miller (born January 17, 1959) is a C.E.O. and co-founder of

Cyan Worlds Cyan, Inc., doing business as Cyan Worlds, is an American video game developer and publisher based in Mead, Washington. Founded by brothers Rand Miller, Rand and Robyn Miller in 1987, the company created the Myst (series), ''Myst'' series. ...

Myst creator Rand Miller teases new Kickstarter project during IndieCade
PCWorld. Retrieved on 2014-01-14. (originally Cyan). He and his brother Robyn Miller became famous due to the success of their

computer game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from a display device, mo ...

Myst ''Myst'' is a 1993 adventure video game developed by Cyan and published by Broderbund for Mac OS. In the game, the player travels via a special book to a mysterious island called Myst. The player interacts with objects and traverses the ...

'', which remained the all-time best-selling computer game from its release in 1993 until that record was surpassed by ''

The Sims ''The Sims'' is a series of life simulation video games developed by Maxis and Video game publisher, published by Electronic Arts. The franchise has sold nearly 200 million copies worldwide, and is one of the List of best-selling video game fran ...

'' nearly a decade later. Rand also worked on the game's sequel, ''

Riven ''Riven: The Sequel to Myst'' is a 1997 adventure game developed by Cyan Productions and published by Red Orb Entertainment. The second installment of the ''Myst'' series, ''Riven'' was released for Mac and Windows personal computers on Oc ...

'', and later reprised his role as

protagonist A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a ...

Atrus in '' Myst III: Exile''; '' realMyst''; '' Uru''; '' Myst IV: Revelation''; and '' Myst V: End of Ages''. He also co-authored Myst novels '' The Book of Atrus'', '' The Book of Ti'ana'', and '' The Book of D'ni''.. He remains the C.E.O. of

Career

Before the success of ''Myst'', Rand and Robyn Miller released '' The Manhole'', '' Spelunx'', and '' Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel''. Miller, his brother, and the company they founded came to international prominence with the success of ''

'' in 1993 and its sequel ''

'' in 1997, both of which broke sales records. Following the success of ''Myst'' and ''Riven'', Miller spent nearly seven years spearheading the development of '' Uru: Ages Beyond Myst'', an online massively multiplayer extension of the ''

'' franchise. Miller noted that "the essence of ''Uru'' was people love to explore and the fault in the one-off games is you get to explore until it stops. Well, what if it didn't stop? What if the worlds continued?" Upon its release in 2003, ''Uru'' was a commercial failure. Online services were ceased by original publisher Ubisoft in 2004. Despite this earlier setback, Cyan Worlds announced in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

at E3 2006 that they would be partnering with

GameTap GameTap was an online video game service established by Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) in 2006. It provided users with video games and game-related video content. The service was acquired by French online video game service Metaboli in 2008 as ...

to bring ''Uru Live'' online again. On February 15, 2007, '' Myst Online: Uru Live'' was released. However, this version also failed to attain sufficient popularity and was shut down in 2008. ''Uru''s failure caused

to briefly cease operations. Miller appeared shocked by ''Uru Live''s ultimate failure, as reflected in his letter to the ''Uru Live'' community, which he wrote to explain why the game had to be shut down for an indefinite amount of time. In a previous interview, Miller had stated that finance from outside investment, not technology, was the reason for the failed project: "I think the biggest failure was running out of money, and thus running out of time, and thus losing control of our own destiny. No matter what promises are made or common goals are agreed upon, whoever pays the bills has the final say." On October 17, 2013, Miller announced the development of '' Obduction'', intended to serve as the

spiritual successor A spiritual successor (sometimes called a spiritual sequel) is a product or fictional work that is similar to, or directly inspired by, another previous product or work, but (unlike a traditional prequel or sequel) does not explicitly continue th ...

to the ''Myst'' series, via a

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

campaign. The game was released in 2016 (for PC) and 2017 (for Mac OS). Reviews for ''Obduction'' were largely positive.

Personal life

Miller lives in

Spokane, Washington Spokane ( ) is the most populous city in eastern Washington and the county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It lies along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south o ...

, and has a wife, Robin, three daughters, and two stepdaughters.

References

External links

wohba.com is purportedly Miller's ''amazing stuff'' blog
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Miller, Rand 1959 births American chief executives American male video game actors American video game designers Businesspeople from Philadelphia Cyan Worlds people Living people