When he was growing up, Scott Olive’s parents took him and his sister to the Dee Why RSL Club in New South Wales every Friday night. A Returned & Services League club which supports veterans and their families, the club provided entertainment and the launchpad for a hall-of-fame career.
“I got to know everyone down there,” Olive tells CDC Gaming. “As soon as I left high school, I got into a university course, but I was working at the same time at the Dee Why RSL Club where I learned the business, and that started right at the bottom. I graduated from the bar and pouring drinks, and then onto the slot machine management side of things.”
Olive recently was named to the American Gaming Association’s Gaming Hall of Fame. Principal and founder of HRG Studios, Olive has been called one of the most important and influential game designers, responsible for games including Dragon Link and Buffalo Link, and while working for Aristocrat Gaming in the 1990s, developing the Hyperlink progressive jackpot system with games such as Cash Express and Penny Train.
He will be inducted with the Class of 2026, including Holly Gagnon, Bill G. Lance Jr., and Timothy Wilmott, at an invitation-only ceremony during the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas this fall.
Olive – who said he was flattered to be admitted to the same organization as Steve Wynn and Frank Sinatra – is the third Australian to be honored by the AGA Gaming Hall of Fame, after Len Ainsworth, founder of Aristocrat Leisure and Ainsworth Gaming Technology, and Gavin Isaacs, who held management positions with Aristocrat Technologies, Bally Technologies, DraftKings, and Scientific Games Corporation.
“Few people have shaped the gaming industry as significantly as Scott Olive,” says Aristocrat CEO and Managing Director Director Trevor Croker. “Throughout his career, he has combined creativity, innovation and a deep understanding of our customers, to create games that have stood the test of time and entertained millions around the world. His contributions have helped define some of the industry’s most successful franchises and have had a lasting impact on Aristocrat and the broader gaming sector. Just as importantly, Scott is a genuinely great person. He is admired by colleagues and peers for his humility, generosity and passion for the industry.”
Olive’s big break came when he answered an ad in the Sydney Morning Herald seeking a game designer with a mathematics background for Aristocrat. He got the job.
“I was one of four game designers for the company back then, so that was really the start,” Olive says. “You sort of fall into it.”
When he started, Olive was an avid game player who realized his mathematics education was as equally as important as his imagination.
“I think to get a good game, you need a bit of everything, don’t you?” Olive says. “You need the math. You need good graphics. In fact, you need the game to flow very well in software. It’s a package. Anything we do is a package. … I was trained as a mathematician and game designer in the industry, but over time — and I’ve been doing it for 30 years now – I sort of take a lot more of an interest in the art and graphic development. In fact, I act as the art director for my company (HRG Studios), so there’s very much a left brain/right brain thing going on.”
With HRG Studios, he tries to create the type of games that earned him plaudits throughout his career. It’s not enough for Olive to release an average game.
“We try to create a story that the players can find fun and entertaining, and we do that through combining our map models with the stories we create with our with our graphics packages,” he says. ‘And of course, then there’s the other software. We try to make it a very integrated type package that presents the world of player.”
