Rand Miller
Rand Miller (born January 17, 1959) is a C.E.O. and co-founder of Cyan Worlds (originally Cyan). He and brother Robyn Miller became famous due to the success of their computer game "Myst", which remained the all-time best-selling computer game from its release in 1993 until that record was surpassed by "The Sims" nearly a decade later. Rand also worked on the game's sequel, "Riven", and later reprised his role as protagonist Atrus in "", "realMyst", "", "", and "". 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 Cyan Worlds. Career. Prior to 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 "Myst" in 1993 and its sequel "Riven" in 1997, both of which broke sales records. Following the success of "Myst" and "Riven", Miller spent nearly seven years spearheading development of "", an online massively-multiplayer extension of the "Myst" 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 at E3 2006 that they would be partnering with GameTap to bring "Uru Live" online again. On February 15, 2007, "" was released. However, this version also failed to attain sufficient popularity and was shut down in 2008. "Uru"s failure caused Cyan Worlds 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 to the "Myst" series, via a Kickstarter campaign. The game was released in 2016 (for PC) and 2017 (for Mac OS). Personal life. Miller lives in Spokane, Washington, and has a wife, Robin, three daughters, and two step-daughters.