After taking a year "off," veteran game developer David Perry appeared at Montreal Games Summit 2007 to talk about his supposed vacation. It turns out that he's going back to the scene with three MMORPGs being developed under his belt, and he talked about the free-to-play model which will make his projects work.

More on David Perry's keynote speech at the full article!

Volunteers of David Perry's Project: Top Secret will have something to expect this Christmas since they have been such very good boys and girls. And what is this great big present? Volunteers will be given all the tools necessary to develop the Top Secret racing MMORPG.

"This is like Christmas for the mod community," said Perry. Like Christmas it is, since the brave souls who volunteered working on the game will be able to choose and use any game engine of their choice, be it the Unreal Engine, Crysis, or id.

IGN's Modcenter is in charge of giving out various development tools to the participants of Project: Top Secret, while Acclaim will pay for the usage of every budding game developer's gaming engine of choice.

Since Project: Top Secret will eventually award the person who made the most contributions into the development of the game, the free usage of tools is nothing short of entirely helpful, and awesome.

If you're interested in joining the community effort of making the next best MMORPG, then there's no more reason to hold back: the gaming development tools are already taken care of.

 

If you have what it takes to create what you think is the best MMO, then you may just be the one that David Perry, Director of Project: Top Secret, is searching for. In Acclaim's pursuit of completing its Project: Top Secret, Perry is calling any and all individuals (professionals or otherwise) who have a passion in gaming to participate in what could be the creation of one of the most creative and imaginative MMOs to date.

With the position of Game Directorship up for grabs, the lucky participant who manages to snag the prize will be able to earn in royalties and all the other perks that come with such a responsibility. And since we're talking about royalties, there's quite a possibility to earn a large amount.

Project: Top Secret is already underway for several months, and so far they managed to lay out the basic premise of the game: a racing game jam-packed with features, and they're just waiting for the individual who's going to make the most difference in creating the game. The said individual will be awarded with the responsibility to helm a future MMORPG. If your dream is to create video games, then this certainly is it.

Interested? Do check out the Read link for more details!

CMP Technology, the organizers behind GDC China, has unveiled a few more details about the upcoming developers conference. The event is set to take place in Shanghai this August and will focus on topics such as online gaming, outsourcing, recruitment and mobile gaming. A short list of speakers who have already signed up for GDC China include the following:

• David Coleman (EA Canada)
• Tom Leonard (Valve)
• Mark Ollia (Nokia)
• David Perry (Gameconsultants.com)
• Gordon Walton (Bioware)

According to GamesIndustry.biz, GDC China is being jointly produced with IDG and will be overseen by an advisory board that includes a number of Chinese developers from companies such as Epic Games China, Shanda and JDL International. GDC China will take place at the Shanghai International Convention Center on August 27 to 29.

Dave Perry should be very proud of his on-going project aptly dubbed for now as "Top Secret." After explaining the mechanics of the competition behind the making of the said MMO video game, the community's response to it has been nothing but overwhelming. To date, there's more or less 23,000 different individuals who want to become a part of this community project.

Talking to gaming site Games Industry recently, the founder of Shiny Entertainment finally revealed some important details on "Top Secret." According to Dave Perry, it's going to be a racing game and Acclaim is more than happy to support this proposition. Perry shared,

For our first project we'll make a racing game, simply because as a genre it really needs fresh new ideas. We're betting that with 23,000-plus developers we'll be so buried in new ideas, it's going to be tough to choose between them all - a nice problem to have.

For those who missed it, this "Top Secret" project has been making a lot of buzz across the gaming industry for the past few months now. David Perry made an open call to interested individuals, preferably students, to help out in making the game. Whoever person "shines" the most during the development will become the director of a future MMO, and it's guaranteed to be published by Acclaim.

Acclaim recently surpassed the 1 million mark in terms of registered users. We can only imagine that this "Top Secret" will continue to add to the momentum the publisher is currently enjoying. Some of the titles under its belt include BOTS!!, 9Dragons, 2Moons, and DANCE! Online.

Top Secret, apt name for something that was heard little of in the Game Developers Conference almost two weeks ago, is Acclaim's recent MMORPG developed by the end-user. Jon Wood of MMORPG.com was able to sit down with Acclaim's CEO Howard Marks and Chief Creative Officer David Perry to talk about Top Secret.

While Top Secret will be backed by 100,000 developers, they would mostly be game development students, avid fans, and amateur game development teams all working to carve out something out of nothing.

And they're not hoping to make just another off-the-wall MMO either. They hope to make something that the game industry has been lacking for quite some time.

Ever since the game industry's blind move into great graphics and mediocre gameplay experiences, the numerous titles available on all game platforms today lack creativity. Everything and anything banks directly from past award-winning franchises and intellectual properties. Perry, who left Shiny Entertainment, decided to hold a contest pitting actual game developers against everyone else.

The idea of competition with cooperation, as he believes, should be able to bring a community closer together. After a similar experience with Acclaim's past MMORPG 2Moons, Perry wanted to tap into that community involvement and twist it into an even broader, more positive direction. Is Acclaim thinking about saving on development costs? That's narrow-minded speculation and the details on the whole mechanics of development is still in the works.

As Perry said, "We're not saving a penny team-wise." Acclaim still needs its own development team to smooth everything out. What the others will be getting from the experience is the know-how, getting spotted by other development companies and by pushing out an eventually free MMORPG loved by an entire community.

Star-studded David Perry has a lot of things to say about his upcoming project with Acclaim Games. To those of you who missed it, it's not going to be just any game. Selected applicants will form a new development team and come up with a new free MMO game. The ultimate prize is the chance to be the overall director of the said game.

Perry shared that he has been helping new talents into business for years now. Some of his past projects included helping out at Westwood College and investing a lot of time and effort with his local IGDA chapter. In relation to the "Top Secret" project, he explained,

This is really that concept on steroids, instead of just hosting students and gamers, this way we will all work together and make a game. The goal for the first game is actually just to keep it fun and get something shipped. Then we can see who did what, and who did well.

Apparently, this competition is nothing but the tip of the iceberg. Perry commented that after this, the winner will get his/her own MMO and that winner will be able to invite any talent they enjoyed working with. The director then shared that Acclaim will try to give people as much space as they need in developing the game. He commented,

The design, like before, will be based on voting, with the cream rising to the top. If you need to work on something semi-privately, you can ask the moderator to carve some space for you. So a small group can bang away on an idea and present their results. If I like an idea, I'll make it happen.

Even though it's a free MMO, Perry clarified that participants will still get something out of it. And he doesn't just mean the experience or an entry in their resume. Perry divulged then that there's actually a competition within the competition. Anybody who is capable enough will get a job offer to join his team. And then he added,

They will make royalties off the game. Hopefully they will have a pre-built audience so they will make good money from their first title. If they do a great job on their first title, obviously Acclaim would be dumb to let them go, so a career could be the final prize.

Lastly, Dave Perry commented that they are not trying to make a World of Warcraft clone. He explained that they are trying to push the paradigm forward and doing another WoW will never do that. He believes, though, that a good place to start is in a genre that everone has experienced:

I'm keeping this game simple so we can aim to be done within 12 months. I don’t want to start a 5 year project. I think we will start with something in a genre that everyone has experienced, that everyone has opinions on, and then challenge their brains. What would make this genre more fun? Prepare for plenty of discussion.

Acclaim Games has earlier announced that it is starting a collaborative effort to build the most original MMO game to date with star director David Perry  codenamed "Top Secret."

The game breaks new ground because behind the development of the new game is a competition in itself. Here's how it works- Acclaim will select a group of applicants from its game community to become part of the new game's development team.

Prior experience doesn't matter as Perry claims that the raw talent and passion in the applicants is their main target. The participant who exhibits the qualities needed to make it big in the industry is selected during the process, is declared the winner and gets a  shot to get his life changed.

"This is the only chance I know of to jumpstart a directorship career in the video game industry," Perry says. He also added “Everyone wins. They get to learn how to make professional games, and if they get anything in, they get a real professional credit on their resume.”

Acclaim CEO Howard Marks likened the project to a reality TV show, saying,

'Top Secret' is like 'The Apprentice' meets 'American Idol' meets 'The Video Game Industry'. We’re giving our players a chance to work on an online game that we will actually develop and publish. Our community really loves these games and knows what it takes to make a hit. And it will be a dream come true for one lucky star that shines the most throughout the project.

Acclaim Games is happy to announce that it has started the Closed Beta testing for the upcoming David Perry-developed MMORPG, 2Moons.

As mentioned in an earlier post, 2Moons was designed exclusively for adult gamers (meaning age 17 and up) as the game features "extreme fantasy violence", and massive dose of profanity - all within an action-packed epic story. The lucky users who were able to sign up for the closed beta (registration began August last year) will be given an all-exclusive AND confidential first look at the game.

But of course, being the chosen ones always comes with certain responsibilities, so they'll also be asked to report whatever bugs, issues, and glitches they encounter in the game so that the dev team can work on fixing these glitches. For those who don't know, 2Moons is based on the book written by Henry Jones, and the game will combine traditional RPG elements and arcade-style combat. So if you're one of those lucky people who successfully registered for the beta, soon you too will be showing "no mercy for the weak, no pity for the dying, and no tears for the slain". Enjoy!

Months ago, MMORPG maker Acclaim announced their newest creation, 2Moons. It's just a sad thing that not much was heard from it ever since it was unveiled, but to make up for lost time and opportunity, game director David Perry sat down and answered some questions about their recent ultra-violent MMORPG built for adult gamers.

In the interview, Perry mentions that he's been playing with the idea of making an MMO that would be easy to understand, funny and witty at some points, but could still make you feel like a meanie. He mentions that the game is based on GameHi's Dekaron- a South Korean MMORPG.

In our first and last report about it, it was mentioned that the game could be played free of charge. Yup, no subscription fee whatsoever and that everything would be taken care of by advertising. Perry answered that in his personal opinion, "game advertising sucks", and that nothing is still certain for now. He also tackled a test that they conducted with gamers with regards to rewards in exchange of turning on the ads and he was surprised when 97% of gamers agreed to it. For now, specific issues about in-game ads (size rules and source) are still up on the air.

He then went ahead and talked about the storyline of 2Moons. Basically, the story is focused on a humongous, supernatural door that becomes the passageway for beasts to get into the setting called Haran and kill almost everyone. Two cities remain unscathed and once you get out of them, you'll be in grave danger. What to do next is up to you. There will be six classes that you could choose from- Warriors, Knights, Summoners, Magicians, Hunters and Healers - all of them have different skill trees so that'll be a challenge.

The game is definitely designed for adults but he mentions that violence has an "unfair stigma in games." For now, he and Acclaim are looking for gamers who's not afraid to discuss on the game's every feature such as balance, interface, cameras and controls to help them out on things to improve in the game.