Shiny Entertainment, Inc. was an American
video game developer
A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...
based in
Laguna Beach, California
Laguna Beach (; ''Laguna'', Spanish language, Spanish for "Lagoon") is a seaside resort city located in southern Orange County, California, in the United States. It is known for its mild year-round climate, scenic coves, environmental preservat ...
. Founded in October 1993 by
David Perry, Shiny was the creator of video games such as ''
Earthworm Jim'', ''
MDK
''MDK'' is a 1997 third-person shooter video game developed by Shiny Entertainment for Microsoft Windows. It was ported to Mac OS by Shokwave, and to the PlayStation by Neversoft. It was published on all systems by PIE in North America, with S ...
'' and ''
Enter the Matrix''. Perry sold the company to
Interplay Productions
Interplay Entertainment Corp. is an American video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in 1983 as Interplay Productions by developers Brian Fargo, Jay Patel, Troy Worrell, and Rebecca ...
in 1995, which sold the studio to
Infogrames, Inc. in 2002. After
Foundation 9 Entertainment
Foundation 9 Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game company based in Irvine, California. The company was formed in March 2005 through the merger of video game developers Backbone Entertainment and The Collective.
History
Foundation ...
acquired Shiny in 2006, the company was merged with
The Collective in October 2007, creating
Double Helix Games
Double Helix Games was an American video game developer based in Irvine, California, founded in October 2007 through the merger of The Collective and Shiny Entertainment, two studios owned by Foundation 9 Entertainment. Double Helix was acquir ...
.
History
Background and formation (1980s–1993)
David Perry, a
video game programmer
A game programmer is a software engineer, programmer, or computer scientist who primarily develops codebases for video games or related software, such as game development tools. Game programming has many specialized disciplines, all of which fall ...
from
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
, created his first video game in 1982, when he was 15, for the
Sinclair ZX81 that he had at home.
This led him to move to
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, England, shortly following his 17th birthday, where would work with several early video game developers on games for the
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer.
Referred to during development as t ...
.
One of these companies was
Probe Software
Acclaim Entertainment was an American video game publisher from Long Island, active from 1987 until filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on September 1, 2004. Through a series of acquisitions between 1990 and 2002, Acclaim built itself a large portfol ...
, where Perry worked on ''
The Terminator
''The Terminator'' is a 1984 American science fiction action film directed by James Cameron. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator, a cyborg assassin sent back in time from 2029 to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), whos ...
'', published by
Virgin Games
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 Westwoo ...
.
By 1991, Perry had moved to
Irvine, California
Irvine () is a Planned community, master-planned city in South Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the 1960s and the city was formally incorporated on ...
, to work for the internal development studio of Virgin Games' American branch.
At Virgin Games, Perry worked on three successful promotional games: ''
Global Gladiators
''Global Gladiators'' is a 1992 platform game published and developed by Virgin Games, originally programmed by David Perry for the Sega Genesis and eventually ported by other Virgin Games teams in Europe to the Master System, Game Gear, and ...
'' for
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...
, ''
Cool Spot'' for
7 Up, and ''
Disney's Aladdin
''Aladdin'' is a Disney media franchise comprising a film series and additional media. It began with the 1992 American animated feature of the same name, which was based on the tale of the same name, and was directed by Ron Clements and John ...
''.
All three games were profitable enough that Perry, after two years at Virgin Games, opted to leave the company.
At the time, he had received employment offers from the
Sega Technical Institute and
Playmates Toys
Playmates Toys Limited is a Hong Kong toy company. The company was founded in Hong Kong in 1966 by Sam Chan as Playmates Industrial, manufacturing dolls for other companies. In 1975, Playmates began marketing their own line of pre-school toys, ...
; the latter was a toy company that had produced toys based on the ''
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'' license and was looking to move into video games from that same license.
Perry turned down both offers, instead working out an agreement with Playmates that would see the company fund an independent studio with several million dollars, in exchange for the publishing rights to the first three games developed by that studio.
Playmates agreed, and Perry, once he had gained
lawful permanent resident status in the U.S., set up Shiny Entertainment using Playmates' funds in October 1993.
Offices for the company were set up in
Laguna Beach, California
Laguna Beach (; ''Laguna'', Spanish language, Spanish for "Lagoon") is a seaside resort city located in southern Orange County, California, in the United States. It is known for its mild year-round climate, scenic coves, environmental preservat ...
, and Perry was appointed as the company's
president
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
. Several developers formerly of Virgin Games followed Perry and joined Shiny, bringing its employee count to "around nine".
The name "Shiny" was taken from the song "
Shiny Happy People
"Shiny Happy People" is a song by the American rock band R.E.M. from their seventh studio album, '' Out of Time'' (1991). It features guest vocals by Kate Pierson of the B-52's, who also appears in the music video. According to the singer Micha ...
" by
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. One of the first alternative ...
, which was popular around the time of the company's inception, while the "Entertainment" suffix was chosen because Perry believed that, should the studio attempt to co-operate with
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
film production companies, such companies would rather work with an "entertainment" company than with a "games" company.
Despite this precaution, Shiny was often mistaken for a
pornography
Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults, production company.
''Earthworm Jim'' and acquisition by Interplay (1994–1995)
According to Perry, the young Shiny was not sure what to do, having neither a game project, nor a business plan.
However, since Playmates was new to the
video game industry
The video game industry encompasses the development, marketing, and monetization of video games. The industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs worldwide.
The video game industry has grown from niches to mainstream. , ...
,
Playmates Interactive, the publishing arm set up by the toy company, had no high expectations.
Playmates aided Shiny in finding licenses for potential game projects, and Shiny came close to developing a game based on the ''
Knight Rider'' TV series, but eventually settled on creating an original game.
When the company was about to hire
Doug TenNapel
Douglas Richard TenNapel ( ; born July 10, 1966) is an American animator, writer, cartoonist, video game designer, and comic book artist whose work has encompassed animated television, video games, and comic books. He is best known for creating ...
, an animator formerly of
DreamWorks DreamWorks may refer to:
* DreamWorks Pictures, an American film production company of Amblin
** DreamWorks Television, an American television production company and division of the film studio
** DreamWorks Records, an American record label and f ...
, TenNapel demonstrated his skills by creating a sketch for a game character that would later become
Earthworm Jim.
The character's abilities were worked out by Perry and TenNapel, and the surrounding game, also called ''
Earthworm Jim'', became Shiny's first development project.
To help with the game's promotion, Playmates set out to create ''Earthworm Jim'' toys, but required that a TV series should be produced to market the toys.
Perry subsequently met with executives of
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...
, who agreed to produce the series if there were toys to accompany it.
The
deadlock was resolved when Perry invited the heads of Universal and Playmates for dinner, agreeing each party would fulfill their part of the deal.
The game was released on
console in 1994 to much success, spawning several sequels,
spin-offs and ports to other platforms.
Following a sequel to ''Earthworm Jim'', ''
Earthworm Jim 2'', Shiny ought to produce a game with
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for th ...
, however, Perry was concerned that his team, which had only worked on 2D games, would find it difficult to produce a 3D game.
Seeking help from other companies, Perry was offered deals by
Nintendo
is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...
and
Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
to exclusively develop for these companies' console, but he instead agreed to sell Shiny to another video game publisher,
Interplay Productions
Interplay Entertainment Corp. is an American video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in 1983 as Interplay Productions by developers Brian Fargo, Jay Patel, Troy Worrell, and Rebecca ...
.
The deal was announced by Interplay at the
Electronic Entertainment Expo 1995
The Electronic Entertainment Expo 1995, commonly known as E3 1995, was the first Electronic Entertainment Expo held. The event took place at the Los Angeles Convention Center from May 11–13, 1995, with 50,000 total attendees. Highlights of the ...
, with Shiny retaining their identity and management under the new ownership.
Following this buy-out, half of Shiny's employees, including TenNapel, left Shiny to form
The Neverhood, Inc., another game developer. Meanwhile, Perry instituted a strict no-sequels policy at Shiny to ensure that new games developed by the studio would be surprising and associated with the developer, rather than with a franchise.
Further games (1996–2001)
The next game produced by Shiny was ''
MDK
''MDK'' is a 1997 third-person shooter video game developed by Shiny Entertainment for Microsoft Windows. It was ported to Mac OS by Shokwave, and to the PlayStation by Neversoft. It was published on all systems by PIE in North America, with S ...
'', produced fully in 3D.
The studio's team successfully switched from 2D to 3D development, and ''MDK'', released in 1997, became a very successful game.
Aside from being used as a
benchmark test for new
graphics card
A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or mistakenly GPU) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device, such as a computer moni ...
s by various magazines, Shiny scored between 40 and 60 deals to include support for peripherals, including joysticks and
3D glasses
Stereoscopy (also called stereoscopics, or stereo imaging) is a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by means of stereopsis for binocular vision. The word ''stereoscopy'' derives . Any stereoscopic image is ...
, as well as deal with
Apple Inc.
Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...
that saw ''MDK'' pre-installed on every first-generation
iMac.
Perry believed that selling Shiny because he was unconfident of his team's ability to produce a 3D game was the worst mistake he had ever made. After ''MDK'' shipped, Shiny employees
Nick Bruty
Nicholas Anthony Bruty (born 1969), known as Nick Bruty, is a British video game designer and entrepreneur, known for work on video games such as ''Earthworm Jim'', ''Earthworm Jim 2'', and ''MDK''.
Biography
Early career
Bruty was born i ...
and Bob Stevenson left the company to form
Planet Moon Studios
Planet Moon Studios was a game development studio based in San Francisco, California founded by ex-Shiny Entertainment developers Nick Bruty (President) and Bob Stevenson (CEO) in 1997. The founding members were then known for creating the Third-p ...
with the same development principles as Shiny. Further Shiny games—''
Wild 9'', ''
R/C Stunt Copter'', ''
Messiah
In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; ,
; ,
; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of ''mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach'' ...
'', and ''
Sacrifice
Sacrifice is the offering of material possessions or the lives of animals or humans to a deity as an act of propitiation or worship. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and possibly exi ...
''—were developed in parallel at the company, leading to what Perry said was simultaneously diluting focus and talent, and none of the games sold as well as ''MDK''.
Sale to Infogrames and Foundation 9, and merger (2002–2007)
In April 2002, during financial instability at Interplay, Shiny was sold off to
Infogrames, Inc. (later renamed Atari, Inc.) for .
''
Enter the Matrix'', which was in development at Shiny at time, also changed hands to the buyer.
Under Atari, Perry conceptualized a game named ''Plague'', which Atari forced him to significantly size down to meet budget requirements.
This led Perry to leave the company on February 16, 2006.
He was succeeded by Michael Persson, who became the studio's
studio head
Studio manager, studio director, or studio head is a job title in various media-related professions, including design, advertising, and broadcasting.
Design and advertising
A design or advertising studio manager's responsibilities will typically ...
. Perry went on to found GameConsultants.com, a
consultancy
A consultant (from la, consultare "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice and other purposeful activities in an area of specialization.
Consulting servic ...
firm for video game investors, in May 2006, and by September had joined
Acclaim Games and was working on a
massively multiplayer online game called ''2Moons''.
Shortly following Perry's resignation, Atari announced that it was reducing its staff count by 20% and sell all of its internal studios, both actions also affecting Shiny.
Perry's role as not an employee of Atari meant that he could aid Shiny find the best possible buyer.
Thus, on October 2, 2006, Atari agreed to sell Shiny to
Foundation 9 Entertainment
Foundation 9 Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game company based in Irvine, California. The company was formed in March 2005 through the merger of video game developers Backbone Entertainment and The Collective.
History
Foundation ...
under the terms that Shiny would at some point co-locate with
The Collective, another Foundation 9 studio. On October 9, 2007, Foundation 9 announced that Shiny and The Collective were being merged; both studios had relocated their teams to new offices in
Irvine, California
Irvine () is a Planned community, master-planned city in South Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the 1960s and the city was formally incorporated on ...
, from where the merged company would operate under the lead of Persson. In March 2008, the new studio was named
Double Helix Games
Double Helix Games was an American video game developer based in Irvine, California, founded in October 2007 through the merger of The Collective and Shiny Entertainment, two studios owned by Foundation 9 Entertainment. Double Helix was acquir ...
.
Games developed
* ''
Earthworm Jim'' (1994)
* ''
Earthworm Jim 2'' (1995)
* ''
MDK
''MDK'' is a 1997 third-person shooter video game developed by Shiny Entertainment for Microsoft Windows. It was ported to Mac OS by Shokwave, and to the PlayStation by Neversoft. It was published on all systems by PIE in North America, with S ...
'' (1997)
* ''
Wild 9'' (1998)
* ''
R/C Stunt Copter'' (1999)
* ''
Messiah
In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; ,
; ,
; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of ''mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach'' ...
'' (2000)
* ''
Sacrifice
Sacrifice is the offering of material possessions or the lives of animals or humans to a deity as an act of propitiation or worship. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and possibly exi ...
'' (2000)
* ''
Enter the Matrix'' (2003)
* ''
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines'' (2003, supportive development for
Black Ops Entertainment)
* ''
The Matrix: Path of Neo'' (2005)
* ''
The Golden Compass'' (2007)
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Defunct companies based in Greater Los Angeles
Video game companies established in 1993
Video game companies disestablished in 2007
Defunct video game companies of the United States
Video game development companies
1993 establishments in California
2007 disestablishments in California