can play any song in the world, or anything you can imagine,” he says, his enthusiasm seeming unhalted by concepts like talent or skill. In Perry’s mind anyone can do anything given the right tools. It’s a refreshingly optimistic perspective, and one he seems sure can be applied universally.
THE FULL SPECTRUM Shortly after making his way into that schoolroom, while still in education, Perry started to submit the aforementioned code to a photocopied magazine that went by the name of The National ZX80/81 Users Club. It was 1982, and the young developer was beginning to get a taste of making his hobby a profession. Within a few months, Perry’s games were also appearing in the magazine publisher’s books, and by 1984 he was the sole author of Astounding Arcade Games for your Spectrum. In the meantime, the cassette-based
industry was gathering momentum, and would eventually make volumes of printed code largely redundant. Next up for Perry came a move to making games at a studio, in a transition he admits he found very difficult. He describes the process as something of a reality check. The boy in his bedroom with dreams of infinite possibility was suddenly just one of many programmers, and his first wage was just £3,500 a year; a small amount even back in the 1980s. Then employed at Mikro-Gen, Perry even
admits to something of a crisis of confidence, until he was given the opportunity to port a game named Pyjamarama, which let him see inside another developer’s code. It was a moment of revelation for Perry, and sent him back on track to emerge as a young star of games development. “I was surrounded by people who were
really good at Mikro-Gen,” offers Perry. “Those guys were too good to bullshit, so I had to learn to be as good as them.”
Soon he had done just that, and would turn his hand to making full games of his own conception.
RISE AND SHINY After a number of roles at the UK’s earliest studios, Perry found himself working at Virgin on titles including Global Gladiators and Cool Spot. Such was the quality of the latter that publisher Sega came back to Perry an offered him a chance to do the highly acclaimed Aladdin movie tie-in game. When Aladdin sold in huge numbers, the young developer began to ponder why he and his colleagues were working so hard to make a lot of money for somebody else.
Selling Shiny was the biggest
mistake I’ve made in my career, because I’d thought it was a one-focus shop.
David Perry, Gaikai Being such a proactive force, the moment
Perry received his Green Card for US residency he set up Shiny Entertainment. It was October 1993, and his career was about to enter a new era of achievement. “We didn’t really know what we were
actually going to do,” admits Perry of the developer’s early days. “There was a long period of waiting and meetings and talking to people about their properties. We were even considering Knightrider. It was at the time we were considering what it was Shiny should make. We knew whatever we chose we could make something of, but we needed that inspiration.” As it turned out Shiny was looking to hire a Dreamworks animator by the name of
IRISHMAN DAVID PERRY is an extremely talented games developer, but he’s not afraid to admit he’s been lucky. And what’s more, he’s sure
anybody can do much to infuse their own industry career with the kind of fortune that can propel you to greatness. “Luck is part of success.
There’s a degree of being in the right time at the right place to any career,” he admits. “I was lucky to be in the industry when everything was starting off, but the bottom line is, it’s about your passion for what you’re doing. If you’re enjoying games, then you have to start thinking about all games; not just what you enjoy. Start playing every kind of game, and start putting
yourself into every situation in the industry you can. My mother used to say ‘if you’re not in you can’t win’. “You have to take a chance to
give yourself a chance. You have to put yourself into an environment where something interesting could happen, and them something interesting might happen. Put yourself ahead of everyone else out there, and you might just get the luck. Not taking a risk is more risky than just taking one.” In Perry’s world, luck is something you simply have to put yourself in the path of. Many developers today would do well to adopt that perspective, as it has clearly worked for this Development Legend.
AUGUST 2012 | 39
THE LUCK OF THE IRISH Perry on luck’s relation to success