Gary Penn

Gary Penn
Born
Berkhamsted,[1] England
OccupationHead of Development at Denki

Gary Penn is a former British games reviewer who wrote for Zzap!64[2] in the 1980s and is a video game industry veteran. He later was editor of The One from 1988 to 1990[3] and was Creative Director at DMA Design where he supervised the release of the first Grand Theft Auto game in 1997.[4] Penn has described the game as taking years to develop and almost being cancelled.[5]

Penn won the Games Media Legend award in 2007.[6]

As of September 2011, he is head of development at Denki.[4] Penn claims his magazine background helped him setting up a "Hollywood-style" studio system there:[2]

"It is something that was born of having a magazine background," he explains. "You don't have slippage, you're doing the same thing 12, 13, 14 times a year, so you get more practiced. It's like the notion of repertoire in the theatre, you have these tools, these methods of doing things, whereas in the game development business we always seem to be re-inventing the wheel."

Penn is the author of the book Sensible Software 1986–1999.[7]

  1. ^ "The ZZAP! Reviewers". Zzap!64, Issue 2 (republished at gamebase64.com). June 1985. Retrieved 19 October 2011.
  2. ^ a b "The Denki Difference: how one small studio is bringing back the spirit of DMA Design..." The Guardian Games blog. 30 January 2009. Retrieved 19 October 2011.
  3. ^ https://uk.linkedin.com/in/garypenn [self-published source]
  4. ^ a b Stuart, Keith (2 February 2009). "Gary Penn on the rules of game design". The Guardian Games blog. Retrieved 19 September 2011.
  5. ^ "Gamasutra - The Replay Interviews: Gary Penn". 31 January 2011.
  6. ^ "Games Media Awards". The Guardian Games blog. 12 October 2007. Retrieved 19 October 2011.
  7. ^ Wilson, Jonathan; Osborn, George; Smyth, Rob; Fryer, Rupert; Young, James (1 December 2016). The Blizzard - The Football Quarterly: Issue Twenty Three (in Danish). Blizzard Media Ltd.