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#123 - Gavin Price Interview (Playtonic Games, Rare, QA Testing, Yooka Laylee, Management etc.)
Episode 123
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
Published on 3 years, 10 months ago