Brett Sperry is an American

video game designer Video game design is the process of designing the content and rules of video games in the pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the production stage. Some common video game design subdiscipline ...

, a fine arts

gallerist An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells Work of art, works of art, or acts as the intermediary between the buyers and sellers of art. An art dealer in contemporary art typically seeks out various artists to represent, and build ...

, and a professional

photographer A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographe ...

. He is also a leading developer of the

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

arts community where he's made significant investments in property and infrastructure, primarily in the

Downtown Las Vegas Downtown Las Vegas (commonly abbreviated as DTLV) is the central business district and historic center of Las Vegas, Nevada. It is the original townsite, and the Downtown gaming area was the primary gambling district of Las Vegas prior to the St ...

area. In the world of video and computer games, Sperry was co-founder and President of

Westwood Studios Westwood Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was founded by Brett Sperry and Louis Castle in 1985 as Brelous Software, but got changed after 2 months into Westwood Associates and was renamed to Westw ...

where he created the ''

Command and Conquer ''Command & Conquer'' (''C&C'') is a real-time strategy (RTS) video game franchise, first developed by Westwood Studios. The first game was one of the earliest of the RTS genre, itself based on Westwood Studios' influential strategy game ''Dun ...

'' series, among other titles. During this time, Sperry was named the sixth most influential person in the history of video games. Westwood Studios would later receive the 2015 Industry Icon Award, presented by 2015 Game Awards host

Kiefer Sutherland Kiefer William Sutherland (born 21 December 1966) is a British-Canadian actor and musician. He is best known for his starring role as Jack Bauer in the Fox drama series '' 24'' (2001–2010, 2014), for which he won an Emmy Award, a Golden Glo ...

Background and education

Brett Sperry moved from his native Connecticut to the Las Vegas Valley in 1979. He later spent a year at

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...

, where he studied Psychology and Architecture. A self-taught programmer, he began his professional work with video and computer games in Las Vegas, Nevada where he performed for-hire contract work with

Imagic Imagic ( ) was an American video game developer and publisher that created games initially for the Atari 2600. Founded in 1981 by corporate alumni of Atari, Inc. and Mattel, its best-selling titles were ''Atlantis'', ''Cosmic Ark'', and ''Demo ...

and others.

Video and computer games

Westwood Studios

From a suburban Las Vegas garage in 1985, Brett Sperry and business partner

Louis Castle Louis Castle is an American video games designer. He is known for co-founding Westwood Studios, designing the PC game ''Blade Runner'', and collaborating with Steven Spielberg on the ''Boom Blox'' and ''Boom Blox Bash Party'' video games for the ...

created Brelous Software, with Sperry as president and Executive Producer. The pair changed the company name to Westwood Associates two months later, and in 1992 they again changed the name to

, reflecting their studio-like approach to the business. As the company became more successful, Sperry and Castle entertained full buyout offers from both

Sierra Entertainment Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genre, ...

and the

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields. Branson expressed ...

satellite

Virgin Interactive Virgin Interactive Entertainment (later renamed Avalon Interactive) was the video game publishing division of British conglomerate the Virgin Group. It developed and published games for major platforms and employed developers, including Westwo ...

(a division of Spelling Entertainment Group). In 1992, Sperry and Castle sold Westwood Studios to Virgin despite a higher offer from Sierra, citing issues of greater freedom and autonomy. As Westwood evolved into one of the most successful video and computer game entities ever created, Sperry remained President and Executive Producer. However, in 1997 he took a larger role within the companies as Virgin Interactive's President of Worldwide Development, an internal attempt to turn Virgin's otherwise struggling video games divisions into a profitable enterprise. In 1998, the Westwood library and assets were purchased outright from Spelling/Virgin by

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...

Jet Set Games

In early 2009, Brett Sperry announced the collaborative launch of Las Vegas-based software publisher "Jet Set Games", a computer gaming company focused on mobile devices such as

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating s ...

s and iPhones. The company's first successful release was the ''Highborn''

strategy game A strategy game or strategic game is a game (e.g. a board game) in which the players' uncoerced, and often autonomous, decision-making skills have a high significance in determining the outcome. Almost all strategy games require internal decisi ...

Las Vegas arts developer

Since 2007, Brett Sperry has been a central figure in the development of the Las Vegas arts community.

Brett Wesley Gallery and Artifice Lounge

Starting with a 2007

land purchase, Brett Sperry built and designed the award-winning Brett Wesley Gallery, becoming host to a succession of notable art installations, exhibits, and international artists. In 2016, Brett Wesley Gallery was named the "Best of the City". Sperry then acquired additional parcels nearby, and with development partner Trinity Schlotmann created the Artifice Lounge, a multi-use "art-inspired" bar and lounge that Sperry designed from what was formerly an empty 1950's warehouse.

Art Square

Sperry made a sizable economic and architectural investment in the creation of adjacent Art Square, a 20,000 square-foot site with retail and professional spaces, desert gardens, a performance arts theatre, and a restaurant, all of which---apart from the restaurant---Sperry conceived and designed. The Art Square complex was sold to Las Vegas Arts District Development in 2015.

The Modern Contemporary and Luminous Park

In 2009, Sperry became the spearhead and Chairman of a proposed $29-million international-class Las Vegas-based arts museum called "The Modern Contemporary". The museum and its grounds are part of a conceptual entity known as "Luminous Park". Sperry's tenure as Chairman was contractually completed in 2014. Since then he has been an active member of the board of directors.

References

External links

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Brett Wesley Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sperry, Brett American art dealers American video game designers Dungeons & Dragons video game designers Living people People from Newington, Connecticut Western High School (Nevada) alumni Westwood Studios Year of birth missing (living people)