Max Payne: Making a video game on a budget

Max Payne is a neo-noir third-person shooter video game series developed by Remedy Entertainment and Rockstar Studios. The series is named after its protagonist, Max Payne, a New York City police detective turned vigilante after his family was murdered by drug addicts.

The main character of Max Payne was modeled after the writer of the game, Sam Lake. Lake also dressed up and played the part of Max Payne for the graphic novel cut scenes that are shown through out the game. Sam Lake’s own mother and father portray Nicole Horne and Alfred Woden, respectively.

The game was originally titled Dark Justice, as this well describes the game’s theme, but 3D Realms felt it was more important to focus on the game’s lead character like they had previously done with Duke Nukem. Scott Miller came up with Max, but couldn’t think of a good last name.

At one point, the best name they could think of was Max Heat, and they spent over $20,000 trademarking this name worldwide. Then someone from Remedy proposed Payne as the last name, and immediately they ditched Heat and spent another load of money trademarking Max Payne.