#123 - Gavin Price Interview (Playtonic Games, Rare, QA Testing, Yooka Laylee, Management etc.)

Gavin Price was previously employed at Rare for over 15 years and started off as Quality Assurance Tester before moving into game development. He has now cofounded Playtonic Games and overseen the Yooka Laylee games.

#rare #yookalaylee #donkeykong

 

TIMESTAMPS

 

00:00 - Intro

01:07 - Staying At Rare For So Long

01:51 - Doing Quality Assurance And What It Entailed At Rare

04:00 - How Gavin Ended Up Working For Rare

05:45 - Common Bugs Found In Game Testing

07:30 - Mickey’s Racing Was Bug Free

08:13 - Seriousness Of Testing & Shipping A Game/Crystal Caverns Bug

09:44 - Process In Development When Testing Starts

10:29 - Game Release Schedule At Rare In Early Days

12:13 - Competitiveness Of Rare

12:48 - How Rare Changed When Microsoft Bought It

14:10 - Gavin Was A Little Overwhelmed When Moving From QA To Development

16:13 - The Stampers Game Process Vs Microsofts Game Game Process

18:50 - Why Gavin Founded Playtonic Games/Rare Redundancies

22:11 - Pitching Playtonic To His Colleagues

23:54 - Kickstarter Campaign Catching Gavin Offguard/Early Days Of Playtonic

27:45 - Developing Yooka Laylee With The Hype Surrounding It

29:01 - Hindsight Of Yooka Laylee/Naevity Of Business

31:45 - Performance Was The Challenge Of Yooka Laylee

33:08 - Camera & Bosses Were The Hardest Parts To Develop For With Yooka Laylee

34:34 - Difficulty Spikes & Developing For That

36:24 - In The Early Days Playtonic Didn’t Have Enough Time To Research Before Starting Development

37:46 - Mario Odyssey/Accessibility/Quick Resume Modes

41:27 - Challenges Of Developing An Exclusive Game Vs Multi Platform

42:50 - Game Growth/Competition/Quality Bar

44:05 - Digital Games/New Game Business Models

45:05 - Distribution/Being Ahead Of The Curve

47:26 - Staying Up With Technology/Responsibility Of Employees Livelihoods 

49:08 - Unpopularity Of Certain Management Decisions/Hierarchy System Of Playtonic

51:45 - Methods Of Avoiding Crunch

53:03 - Playtonic Wants To Make A Lot More Genres Of Games/Improving On Rare’s Legacy

54:40 - Yooka Laylee In Smash Bros Needs To Be Earned

55:55 - Where To Follow Playtonic Games/Future Endeavours For Playtonic