#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