Shiny's David Perry Talks on The Matrix: Path of Neo

Our first of a series of interviews getting an inside look of Shiny Entertainment's The Matrix: Path of Neo.

At the end of the day Enter the Matrix sold 6 million copies worldwide for Atari, but for The Matrix: Path of Neo developer Shiny Entertainment wants to do it right. Gamepro.com discussed the development of the game from planning to finish with key members of the Shiny team.

Conversations at Shiny Entertainment: Working with Hollywood
Here David Perry, president and visionary, discusses the impact of "going Hollywood" when you're making a videogame based on a movie.

GamePro: Enter the Matrix was Shiny's first movie-licensed game. So what was it like to "go Hollywood?"

David Perry: First of all either you're in the club or you're not in the club. We weren't in the club until we did Enter the Matrix. But in doing the Matrix, we didn't go directly to Warner Bros. Studios, we went to the directors, the Wachowski brothers, first. Normally, you might go to Warners and say "hey, we want to do the Matrix," but then you'll never talk to a director. You're only dealing with Warner people the entire life of the project.

So for Enter the Matrix we went to the Wachowski brothers and they said , "Hey, Warner, we want you to sign a deal with these guys."

GP: What's it like to have the Wachowski brothers backing you to make a game for them?

DP: Suddenly you're involved in a whole different dynamic. We were in the club. That means top movie talent is coming into our office. For the Matrix it was John Gaeta who won the Academy Award (in 2000) for the bullet-time effects in The Matrix.

GP: It's probably his first videogame and Shiny is an established developer, what do you learn from him in regards to making a game?

DP: When you get to work with someone like him you realize that the fact that these people are breaking new ground is not a fluke at all. It's incredibly hard work. They put so much effort into gathering their thoughts about a project, finding talent, and researching every detail before they move forward.

GP: They're doing footwork as well as homework?

DP: In fact, I talked about that with Hideo Kojima [creator of Metal Gear Solid for Konami], and he said that the Wachowski brothers had talked to him about making The Matrix videogames. And that's a perfect example of what I'm saying: the directors themselves are willing to get on a plane and fly all over the world to meet with everyone they think they should talk to before they decide how to make a videogame. That's how they do it, and why they're successful.

GP: So you had to take a road trip before you begin your game design?

DP: The minute we were effectively in the club, Gaeta said to us "Okay, let's get going. We have to travel and meet all the motion-capture companies." We literally got on a plane and flew around to visit different motion capture facilities."

GP: How were you as representatives of a video game project received at companies that normally do work for Hollywood movie studios?

DP When an Academy Award winner like Gaeta's coming through the doors, it's whole different thing. It's the red carpet treatment. They have a stunt show ready for us to watch. Stunt men all dressed up who have been practicing all morning. The minute we walk in the room they're doing backflips everywhere, and the technical people are showing us capture data. It's just fantastic and it shows you, who are used to doing things a certain way in the videogame world, an entirely different approach.

GP: How would you normally select a collaborator like that?

DP: In the videogame industry we commonly just go with the usual suspects. We say, "Oh yeah, these guys did some stuff for EA and they did some stuff for us before so let's just keep using them." That's why we don't move forward. We as an industry have to be willing to go see what's being done in other fields and then to do the necessary research.

GP: What motion capture studio did you finally decide on for Path of Neo.

DP: Spectrum Studios, the company we decided to use for the Path of Neo. They actually did work on The Matrix movies, and immediately after they finished the Path of Neo they literally broke down their equipment, packed it up, and shipped it all to New Zealand to begin work on King Kong the movie.

GP: What about them told you they were the ones you wanted to work with?

DP: We're working with Dave Bawel, who heads the studio, and he's a video gamer, by the way. So let me tell you why I'm so happy to work with them. This motion capture set has the best collection of arcade machines I've ever seen. I swear to God, the one's you just don't ever see! Bawel has the first arcade machine ever built, Computer Space, which came out before Pong. It's very valuable and very hard to find. I've been trying to buy one. It's incredible: he had two of them.

GP: Bawel knows games?

DP: He loves games. We went from room to room, and he has all the old Atari games, beautiful stand-up versions, that are very expensive. He even had the early arcade machines the ones with no video displays. He must have had 50 machines. Well, I know right then that this guy really gets it. He's a hardcore gamer and he cares about getting the game right.

GP: Does working with Bawel and Spectrum help you score some kind of Hollywood cred?

DP: You have to remember that in the movie industry people move around from job to job, project to project, and now they're going to be evangelists for the videogame business wherever they go.

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