Liveblogging The Dave Perry Q&A

The highlight of Friday at the Austin Game Developer's conference is a Q&A session between Shiny Entertainment founder Dave Perry and GDC Director Jamil Moledina. The session is called "When Did (You) Last Level Up? Career Advice From an Industry Veteran, and it is sure to be somewhat helpful to those in the gaming industry as well as those trying to break in. I'll be liveblogging the session from here in beautifully hot and humid Austin Texas, so hit the jump to follow along. This is my first liveblog, so be gentle.

11:08 AM : Play that Funky Music White Boy is playing on the PA, and a small crowd has gathered for the Q&A that was supposed to start 8 minutes ago. Oh, here we go! Jamil and Perry take the stage!

Jamil is talking about how awesome Dave Perry is. I tend to agree. We are pleased and honoured! Applause!

First question...are you the tallest developer in the industry? Yes, yes he is. Even taller than Phil Harrison. He gets the same thing I did in high school. Everyone wanted him for sports. I feel his pain.

Perry is talking about the gaming scene in Northern Ireland in the 80's. Programming in basic, self-publishing, creating booklets. Games in plastic bags on a cassette tape. Those were the days.

He programmed on a Sinclair ZX81. You needed imagination to play games back then. The industry was revolutionised when the 16k memory module came out. He's showing picture of old games. I'll show you those a bit later.

Jamil's next question: Was there a peer group you could work with?

They would have little meets. Perry got his start handing out stickers dressed up like a creepy cartoon character at trade shows.

Haha! Early tries at photorealism. Taking photos, scanning them and editing them.

What games and developers inspired you? Ooo, good question.

He looked up to Peter Molyneux, Chris and Tim Stamford from Rare.

What could you earn during the early days of game development?

Early jobs paid nearly nothing. Starting at nothing, but once a game succeeded your salary would quickly increase.

He wrote a platformer for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the PC, Commodore and AMiga in a week back then.

He moved to the US when Virgin Games needed him to make a McDonald's game called Mick & Mack's Global Gladiators for the Genesis. LOL. McDonald's hated it at first. It won game of the year, but the company was mad that you couldn't buy burgers in the game.

Talking about the Richard Branson parachuting manuevre into the press conference for Disney's Aladdin game, one of the best Disney games ever incidentally.

Jamil: How did you get into a position that you could create your own games within a big company like Virgin?

Once you hit a few out of the park they'll pretty much do anything you ask them to.

On Messiah: "We expected hardcore gamers to buy a game with a crying baby on the box."

Yay Earthworm Jim! Proof that you don't have to be big to get a lot done. Toys, cartoons, Taco Bell toys, No fire extinguishers though.

Hello Kitty is a good place to go for merchandising ideas.

While pitching Earthworm Jim to MGM Universal, studio head Sid Sheinberg came into the room yelling at people, and then told Perry to pitch. Halfway through the pitch Sheinberg interrupted. "This is confidential. Pigs. Pigs are gonna be big. There's been dogs, there's been cats. Pigs. Continue." He went on to create Babe. A visionary!

How do you get a cartoon for Earthworm Jim without a toy line in place, and vice versa?

He invited the head of the toy company and cartoon company out to dinner, where they looked eachother in the eye and said, "I'll do it if you do it."

"Food is the key to everything."

MDK. The publisher didn't see it. It was the first no they got from a publisher. They had built their whole pitch on the innovative sniper helmet the game featured.

They took the same storyboards they used for the initial pitched and created a video. They loved it so much they wanted a toy line and a tv SHOW.

"If you have a great game idea don't write about it...show it"

On the Matrix. Jamil is asking him why there was no game for the first film.They were working on sacrifice. He met with the Wachowskis and all they had to demonstrate bullet time was a burning barrel. They passed on it.

The ESRB wasn't going to give Enter the Matrix a teen rating due to the kiss between two female characters. Shiny's response?

"It's not two women kissing, it's two computer programs kissing."

The ESRB bought it. Hilarious.

Now they are discussing the Top Secret MMO racing game project. How the community took over. They created forums, a wiki, and just basically took over the whole process. It's exciting because he never knows what they are going to do next.

They've come up with very original ideas. Commentator mode, where one player acts as a colour commentary during the races for instance. People would fight for a chance to MC the big races. The idea was nothing a traditional game development team would have come up with.

The design stage is done, and the development phase is beginning. "I don't expect them to go kick Tim Sweeny's ass." I am sure Tim is relieved.

Announcing a deal with Mod Centre to deliver free development tools to the Top Secret community. Acclaim will pay for any game engine in the world for whoever wins the Top Secret competition. Wow.

The winner gets an industry standard publishing deal and $US100,000 cash as their first royalty. They are giving young developers a chance.

The project will also be an iinteresting viral marketing test, as the community will be telling their friends and so on and so on.

The game will ultimately be free to play. Perry went to the biggest publisher in China to explore the microtransaction / play for free model. Showing slides of his trip.

"The old game model we used to use is archaic." The microtransaction model brings in much more money than the standard $US49.99 he used to charge for PC games. "The free to play model works fantastic in the US, even better than China." Combined with in-game advertising it is a really good model for the states.

If a Kojima-level personality from China comes to the US and starts delivering games of that quality from China it will have an amazing impact on the gaming industry here. Disruptive innovation, like the digital camera changing Polaroid's business.

The Wiimote is truly disruptive. Nintendo has disrupted our industry. None of Perry's favourite games or games he is looking for are on the Wii. When the great games come out for the 360 and PS3, people aren't going to be content bowling with their Wiimote.

He is talking about the game Plague that he wanted to make, that would have taken $US17 million to create. It made him start to worry about how games are created and sold.In China he found free fully-funded MMO teams. He is developing 6 MMOs now, three of which are unannounced.

Until the PS3 is everywhere he can't see himself creating a big budget game.

Added some pics to the bottom here.

Awww, we are out of time. That was much more entertaining than I thought it would be. Thanks for sticking with me on this, my very first liveblog!