     |
 |
 |
 | | | | |
 |
|||
 |
||||||
          |
 |
 |
||||
|
Worthy of Acclaim: Why David Perry Left Shiny to Go to the Moon
DP: The industry is stuck. If you read the book The Long Tail by Chris Anderson, you'll realize we're screwed as he demonstrates blockbusters are going away as choice increases. So we are at a crossroads. So to answer this question, I'm entirely gauging my answer on who is trying to help the industry grow rapidly. Currently I see Nintendo as the one trying hardest. I think Sony have played it safe. Microsoft saw opportunity, and now they're turning on the heat, all guns blazing. The online support for the Xbox 360 is stunning. The fact they are letting indie developers easily develop for it, and the fact that they are immediately addressing key technologies like item sales, or fixing simple weakness like the lack of an HD-DVD drive, is impressing the heck out of me. So if I was to start a console game today, I would most likely knock on Microsoft's door first, because I'd be thinking about the PC market at the same time. GS: Of all the games you've worked on, is there any one that stands out as your favorite, and why? DP: Earthworm Jim was my favorite game to develop. It was the last game I ever personally programmed. Nobody was applying pressure; we were free to make the game we wanted and had a ton of fun doing it. The team was all hand-picked and contained nothing but passionate, talented people, so the focus was just all about the ideas. This was 13 years ago. Back then things were cheaper. You could take more risks. I tried to carry that mantra forward for years through MDK, Messiah, Sacrifice. But as teams and costs grow, one mistake and you get eaten alive. It's even worse today, so that's why you see many developers, including veterans, looking at ways to change the model. I got so frustrated with it. I started a new company called gameinvestors.com. I believe the problem is a business-to-business problem more than a creativity or publisher issue. Many developers contact me: "Can you help me get my game funded?" I get investors taking me to lunch to explain: "We don't play games, but we want to invest in them!" Frustrating and so easily fixed. Quite a few developers need an angel investor willing to put money down without a publishing deal yet. They need to not just meet a few investors -- they need to have a thousand of them look at their project. They also need to know how to pitch for money verses pitching a game -- two completely different things! That's exactly what I'm working on. I've not even officially announced [gameinvestors.com], so I guess I just did. It will launch at GDC 2007.
GS: Can you explain now why it is you left Shiny, and do you still have any intent to buy back the studio or return to it in some capacity? DP: It's a long story, but Atari decided and later announced they wanted to sell all their internal studios. I've been doing this too long to find myself suddenly working for someone I don't even know! So I resigned and tried to help Atari pick a good partner. Atari, however, took a look at our projects and just kept on funding Shiny. Being an extremely impatient person, I lasted about two months and had then started my next thing. I'm still friends with everyone and they do stay in touch. Shiny was a chapter in my career that has now closed. GS: What do you think of Atari's financial situation now and how they are conducting themselves? DP: I really like [Atari CEO] Bruno Bonnell. The man has quite an amazing charisma that I've seen first-hand. He can walk into a room of people that don't know him, start talking, and in a short time have them all laughing and liking him. Secondly, he's a creative guy, a big thinker, and I also like that. The problem at Atari I think was just a production issue, far beyond his control. I blame us damn developers mostly. After working so closely with Hollywood, I've had to rethink what a "producer" really is. It's an incredibly complex and detailed job. I think if Atari had some really killer "empowered" producers, the results would have been very different from what you see today. At any big company, the bigger it gets, the less empowered and more distracted the producers become, and the more time they spend doing housework than actually producing. I call that "washing the dishes" and producers do far too much of it. |
|||||||||||||||
Features
Previous
|
|
|