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Meet the talent - Simon Prytherch, Project Manager, Project Doctor, and pre-production and risk management specialist.
Simon was responsible for building their largest internal studio at Codemasters and developing two of their key franchises, LMA Manager and Club Football. Over a three-year period, he grew his team from nothing to an eighty-person studio. The studio was spread over multiple teams and working on 50 different sku's.
He joined Brit Publisher, Empire Interactive, in 2004 and was initially responsible for all their internal development, which was distributed among three studios at three separate locations. After 18 months he was promoted to Head of Development and was responsible for all internal and external development. Games developed during this time included Flatout Ultimate Carnage, Flatout 2, Ford Racing 3, Ford Street Racing, Taito Legends, Taito Legends 2, Taito Legends Power-up, Starship Troopers, Kazook, Wild Earth - Africa, International Cricket Captain and Sega Ford Racing Full Blown.
1. Tell us about your time at Codemasters and Empire Interactive and what you achieved for these leading publishers? Both positions were senior executive roles with multi-million dollar budgets and regular interaction at board level. In both companies, I introduced new processes and management to ensure enhanced game quality, development efficiency and timely delivery of products, which are still apparent today.
At Codemasters, with my leadership and project management, the titles developed were very profitable and had a considerable influence on Codemasters' commercial success through the difficult transition onto PlayStation 2 and Xbox. At Empire in a demanding role involving leading a talented team of producers and studio heads plus a QA department, while pushing the strategic direction of the company, I also identified and implemented several new revenue streams including retro games collections, casual games, Xbox Live Arcade and coin-op arcade titles. This culminated in the sale of the company to Silverstar in November 2006.
2. You have a rare blend of project management,
creativity, technical knowledge and commercial awareness. How do you
now bring this to game
development?
At the beginning of 2007 I decided to capitalise on my 20
years of knowledge
and experience by forming DevelopTrak. I offer the following services:
- Preparing game concepts and pitches in order to get the right deal.
- Running the pre-production phase of a project in order to lay solid foundations before securing a full development contract.
- Performing health checks on a game during development.
3. Tell us about the 'Health Check' service that you offer and how it
can save both publishers and developers thousands of dollars?
Developers and publishers are investing many millions of dollars into making
games. It seems prudent to perform regular checks to ensure that their
investment is on course. Most organisations do not have the time or personnel
to do this properly themselves and are often too emotionally involved with
the game to be objective. Our Health Checks will show senior management
whether they are still going to deliver the game they want, when they want
it.
4. How can you lower the risks of game development by concentrating additional
consulting resource into a games pre-production?
Solid planning and good game design are the foundations that all successful
games are built on. Just like a house if those foundations are poor then
cracks will appear further down the line that will be very expensive to
fix. I can lower these risks by assisting the team to produce documents
including a game design, production schedule, milestone definitions, risk
analysis, staffing plan and budgets. Once I have identified the key risks
I can help the team to produce working prototypes in order to prove these
areas and reduce the risks for full development.
A prototype is normally essential to show a key game-play mechanic or to develop a key technology. The prototyping process allows the developer to show the investors (usually a publisher) a critical part of the full game early in development and therefore gain their confidence.
5. How easy is it for you to spot projects that are starting to come off
the rails and which will need significantly more resource in the future
if action is not taken right now?
Over the last 12 years I have done this
hundreds of times and the lessons I
have learnt mean I can identify problems early before they become too costly
to fix. I have worked on virtually every platform and every game genre,
so
any situation I come across is usually familiar. This means I can guide
teams quickly to a solution avoiding avenues that I know from experience
will not work.
6. What unique skills do you bring the video games market and why should
game developers hire you?
Many people are either from a production background, a technical background,
a creative background or a commercial background. It is very rare to find
a
person that can understand all these areas and see all the dependencies
in
order to make the right decisions. Fortunately, my skills and experience
enable me to do this. I have repeatedly proven this by helping companies
make great games that earn millions of pounds of profit.
7. What attracted you to work with 1 Game Agent?
I am at a stage in my career where I need a company I can trust to go out
there and represent me in the same professional manner that I would myself.
I am so busy working on existing contracts that I do not have the time
to promote myself worldwide. I need a company that understands my skills,
understands the computer game industry, and has a personal service but
deals on a global level. That company is 1 Game Agent. I look forward to
a long and fruitful partnership.
Simon Prytherch is available for hire through 1 Game Agent. Please contact David Smith for further details. 1 Game Agent charges no introduction fee.