David Perry

David Perry
David Perry, 2009
Born	1967 (age 42) Lisburn, Northern Ireland
Occupation	Video game developer and executive

This article is about David Perry, the game developer. For the David Perry who was a co-commentator on the UK video game TV show 'GamesMaster', please see Dave Perry, and for other uses, please see David Perry (disambiguation)

David Perry (born 1967) is an Irish video game developer who has created dozens of computer games, the best known of which include Earthworm Jim, MDK, Messiah, Wild 9 and Enter the Matrix. He also founded Shiny Entertainment, where he worked from 1993 to 2006. Shiny created games for many internationally known brands and companies, including Disney, 7 Up, McDonald's, Orion Pictures, and Warner Bros.^[1] In 2008 he was presented with an honorary doctorate from Queen's University Belfast for his services to computer gaming.^[2]

Biography

Perry was born in April 1967 in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, growing up in the towns of Templepatrick and Donegore in County Antrim, attending Templepatrick Primary School and then Methodist College Belfast.

He began writing computer game programming books in 1982 at the age of 15, creating his own games for the Sinclair ZX81. According to an interview with the BBC, Perry stated that his first game was a driving game, "a black blob avoiding other black blobs", which he wrote and sent to a magazine, which printed it. He sent them more games and they sent him a check for GBP£450—a bit of a problem for a teenager who did not yet have a bank account. His work continued though, until he was offered a job making just £3,500/year.

At the age of 17, he moved to London, where he developed games for publishers such as Elite Systems, Mirrorsoft, and Virgin Games, working on titles such as The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Terminator.

In 1991, he moved to the United States to work for the American division of Virgin Games, leading the development teams for several award-winning products, including Disney's Aladdin, 7-UP's Cool Spot, and McDonald's Global Gladiators.

David Perry in 1996, with a miniature of Earthworm Jim

On October 1, 1993, Perry formed his own company in Laguna Beach, California, Shiny Entertainment, naming the company after the song "Shiny Happy People" by R.E.M.. The company's first game Earthworm Jim was a hit, selling millions of copies on multiple platforms, including Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo and PC. The title character, an "average worm" who stumbled upon a space suit which turned him into a superhero, became immensely popular, and spawned a variety of other types of merchandise: action figures, comic books, and a syndicated television cartoon series on the Warner Kids Network, with the title character voiced on the show by Dan Castellaneta (also known as the voice behind Homer Simpson).

In 2002, Shiny Entertainment was acquired by Atari, Inc. in a US$47M deal, with Perry signed to a longterm contract to continue on as President. Also in 2002, Perry collaborated with the Wachowski Brothers on games in coordination with their Matrix series of movies.^[3]

In 2006, resigned from Shiny,^[4] and formed GameConsultants.com, a consultancy firm planning to offer executive level video game industry advice,^[5] followed by GameInvestors.com, a business-to-business company to help video game development teams get funded.

In February 2008, Perry re-released his Game Industry Map website, a large games database, offered for free, mapping thousands of games and game companies on a map of the world, allowing students and industry employees to look up where games are made and companies based.

Perry is on the advisory board for the Game Developers Conference, and has spoken at industry venues such as E3, CES, Hollywood and Games, Digital Hollywood, iHollywood, SIGGRAPH, Entertainment in the Interactive Age, What Teens Want, The Banff Summit, as well as at major universities such as USC, and MIT.^[6] In 2006, he co-hosted the annual Game Developers Choice Awards with Tommy Tallarico.

In November 2008, Perry co-founded Gaikai in the Netherlands, a company planning to release game streaming technology in late 2009.^[7]

In July 2009, Perry confirmed that he had been involved in developing a title with Michael Jackson prior to the singer's death.^[8]

Selected works

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: David Perry (game designer)

• Official Shiny Entertainment website
• DPerry.com (David Perry's official site) (official biography)
• "David Perry TEDTalk: Will videogames become better than life?". http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/david_perry_on_videogames.html. 
• David Perry's profile at MobyGames
• "GameConsultants.com - Perry's company formed in 2006". http://www.gameconsultants.com. 
• "GameIndustryMap.com - Perry's free industry resource, a visual games database on a map of the world". http://www.gameindustrymap.com.