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Dave Perry Quits Shiny To Help Facilitate Sale
by David Jenkins
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February 20, 2006
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According to a report by newspaper The Orange County Register, Shiny Entertainment founder Dave Perry is to quit the Atari-owned developer to help facilitate its sale, following Atari CEO Bruno Bruno Bonnell’s announcement that all of the publisher’s internal studios are to be sold.
Perry apparently resigned on Thursday because he wants to find the perfect buyer for the studio. Following poor financial results, Atari recently confirmed it was cutting 20 percent of its workforce and was planning to sell off some of its intellectual properties, as well as developers including Reflections, Melbourne House, Paradigm, Eden Studios and Shiny.
Shiny Entertainment was founded in 1993 by Dave Perry, and produced the hit Earthworm Jim series, as well as the financially successful Enter The Matrix. It is also noted for more esoteric titles such as MDK, Messiah and Sacrifice. The studio was sold to French publisher Infogrames by Interplay in 2002 for an estimated $47 million, before the company bought the rights to the Atari name and logo.
Perry suggests that facilitating the sale to another company was his main reason for quitting the developer, saying to the Register, "If I’m an employee of Atari, then I’d be stepping all over them. This way, I’m representing a buyer. I can act swiftly and get buyers on the table … To be clear, I cannot sell the company but I can get publishers excited about the company enough to get a bidding war going on."
The 56 man team at Shiny is currently working on at least three games, one of which is known to be a version of Earthworm Jim. Perry has indicated that he will rejoin the developer once a buyer has been found. Although Perry has indicated that there is "a lot of interest out there", no possible suitors for the company have yet been hinted at.
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