Apogee Software
Apogee Software started out as Scott Miller's one-man software company, publishing some basic text-mode games. In 1991 George Broussard joined Apogee as a co-owner and became project leader for most of Apogee's games. Apogee continued to sell Micro F/X's software catalog, so it can technically be regarded as a merger of the two companies.
In the early days of shareware, authors would release complete games and ask users to search their conscience and choose to send money if they enjoyed the game. Apogee pioneered what came to be known as the "Apogee Model", releasing games in episodes in which the first episode would be free, and you had to pay to play the rest.
Apogee continued to develop games in-house, but they also became a publisher and producer. Scott Miller recruited promising game developers and asked them to develop games to be published by Apogee, or brought them in-house for projects such as the Build engine, which was the foundation for Duke Nukem 3D. Apogee licensed Build for use in dozens of third-party games, and in later years relied heavily on licensing their intellectual property to third parties.
Apogee is also known for two other publishing labels: Pinball Wizards, which published Apogee's only pinball game, Balls of Steel; and 3D Realms, which published Apogee's 3D games. Apogee stopped publishing 2D games shortly afterwards, so all of their games were published under the 3D Realms brand from that point on, leading many to believe that the company had changed its name.
Founded on 26 November 1987, Apogee ceased game development on 8 May 2009, though they continue to sell and license existing products and intellectual property.
Apogee sold the source code to a number of games in their early days. The following prices were listed in Pharaoh's Tomb v2.9 Registered:
Kingdom of Kroz (Turbo Pascal 3.0) -- $190 Supernova (Turbo Pascal 3.0) -- 125 Word Whiz (Turbo Pascal 5.0) -- 100 Trek Trivia (Turbo Pascal 5.0) -- 90 Return to Kroz (Turbo Pascal 5.0) -- 350 Asteroid Rescue (Turbo Pascal 3.0) -- 45 Lost Adventures of Kroz (TP 5.0) -- 950 Rogue Runner (TP 3.0) -- 45
Address
Apogee Software ProductionsP.O. Box 476389
Garland, TX 75047 USA
Telephone: (214) 278-5655
Games
Games developed (24)Games published (45)
All games (48)