The short answer
Gaming veteran David Perry shares the story behind three separate acquisitions by Disney, Sony, and Atari, including what strategic buyers from global brands actually want and how branding shapes exit outcomes.
Key takeaways
- How to best engage your customers
- Tips on gamification from the game maker himself
- The trends shaping the future of gaming
- How to stay ahead of the curve so you’re constantly innovating
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1 hr 12 minWatch the full interview
About this episode
David Perry wanted to be a pilot. But at 6’8, he was too tall to fit in the cockpit. While he fell short in the aviation industry, he made up for it in the gaming one.
39 years later, David has created and sold numerous #1 selling games, built and sold several businesses acquired by Sony, Disney, and Atari, and has now switched from games to eCommerce, building and developing a partnership network that over 30K Shopify brands have joined, providing over 320M visitors a month.
Tune in and learn the lessons brought from gaming to business development, acquisitions, and now into tech.
Chapters
- 9:22Branding matters, no matter what industry you’re in. David’s career changed when he got to work on classics like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Terminator, and other household names
- 19:47After shifting from the gaming world to the business world, David has taken his lessons in selling games and applied them to engaging customers. The ingredients? Skill, risk, and strategy
- 27:05David’s tips for business gamification: The reward needs to be real. Here’s how to get it right so your customers become addicted
- 47:34David’s company, Gaikai, was built because he stayed ahead of the curve in his industry and brought the first online game streaming servers to the United States
- 1:06:36David’s top takeaway tip: Avoid people who point at hurdles. Instead, gravitate toward the people who jump hurdles. Those are your 10xers. They’re how you grow
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About David Perry
David Perry is the CEO of Carro, a new e-commerce partnership network that over 30K Shopify brands have joined, providing over 320M visitors a month. Carro helps brands gain attention, sales, and new customers by partnering with other brands in the network.
Before Carro, Sony PlayStation acquired David’s previous company Gaikai to establish leadership in the future of streaming video games from the cloud. This service is called PlayStation Now.
David was also the Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer of Acclaim Entertainment, helping introduce “free-to-play” gaming to the western markets. Disney acquired Acclaim.
Prior to that, David founded the game development company Shiny Entertainment based in Laguna Beach, California. Shiny was first acquired by Interplay to capture the rights to Earthworm Jim, then again by Atari, to obtain the rights to the games based on Warner’s Matrix movies.
After 39 years in the business, David remains one of the best-known video game industry veterans with multiple #1 hits, and was honoured with the Development Legend Award at the Develop Industry Excellence Awards.
Connect with David Perry
About the show
Buy Grow Sell is hosted by Simon Bedard, founder and managing director of Exit Advisory Group, a boutique mergers and acquisitions advisory firm that helps Australian business owners value, prepare for and navigate a sale. Every conversation draws on real deals and the patterns behind them.
