Brett W. Sperry

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Brett Wesley Sperry (* Newington (Connecticut) , United States ) is an American computer game developer , entrepreneur and gallery owner. Together with Louis Castle he was the founder of Westwood Studios , where he was largely responsible for the concept of the title Command & Conquer , which helped the genre of real-time strategy games to break through. The genre name is also traced back to Sperry.

Life

Sperry says he has been interested in computers and computer games since childhood. Nevertheless, he only completed a degree in psychology and architecture at Arizona State University . In 1979 he came to Las Vegas with his family from Connecticut . There he met the seller Louis Castle in 1983/84 in the Apple Store Century 23. In March 1985, in their early twenties, Sperry and Castle founded the development studio Westwood Associates (later renamed Westwood Studios) in Las Vegas. Before founding Westwood, Sperry worked as a programmer for Applied Computer Technology in Las Vegas, where he and Peter Filiberti performed game conversions for Activision , Imagic and other companies. One of his main tasks was porting the game Impossible Mission to the Apple II . Sperry took on design, production, support, packaging and content responsibilities at Westwood. For the marketing of the title Dune 2 , Sperry created the genre name real-time strategy game to describe the game concept. Together with Joe Bostic, he developed the design concept for Command & Conquer , which finally gave the genre its breakthrough and drew a large number of imitators.

From 1997 to the takeover of Westwood by the US publisher Electronic Arts , Sperry worked as President and CEO of Westwood and President of Worldwide Development for Westwood's parent company Virgin Interactive . In 1996, the US online game magazine GameSpot was ranked number 3 of the most influential people of the year in the PC game industry and number 6 of the most influential people of all time. In 1997, the US game magazine Computer Gaming World also listed Sperry as the sixth most influential game designer of all time. Sperry left Westwood in 2003 after the five-year employment contract agreed with EA when it took over the studio in 1998 had expired. In the same year, Westwood Studios was dissolved by EA and the previous activities and the C&C franchise were bundled in Studio EA Los Angeles .

In 2007 Sperry opened the Brett Wesley Gallery in Las Vegas, where he has been co-curator ever since. In 2008 he also founded the development studio Jet Set Games together with Adam Isgreen, Joseph Hewitt and Rade Stojsavljevic.

Ludography

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A New Dawn: Westwood Studios 15th Anniversary ( English ) In: GameSpot . CNET . Retrieved January 13, 2013.
  2. ↑ Steinhauer, Adam (September 19, 1996). "Fun and Games: Company capitalizes on creativity with computer animation", Las Vegas Review-Journal , p. D1.
  3. ↑ Edge editorial team: Retrospective: The Making of ... Dune II ( English ) In: Edge magazine . Future Publishing. December 9, 2008. Archived from the original on January 16, 2013. Retrieved on March 29, 2011.
  4. ↑ Bruce Geryk: A History of Real-Time Strategy Games . GameSpot. Archived from the original on January 10, 2004. Retrieved March 31, 2008: " It wasn't until some time after the game was in development that I decided to call it" real-time strategy "- it seems obvious now, but there was a lot of back and forth between calling it a "real-time war game", "real-time war", "wargame", or "strategy game". I was deeply concerned that words like "strategy" and "wargame" would keep many players from even trying this completely new game dynamic. Before 1992, wargames and strategy games were very much niche markets - with the exception of Sid Meier's work - so my fears were justified. But in the end, it was best to call it an "RTS" because that is exactly what it was. "
  5. ↑ Las Vegas Review Journal ( Memento of the original from June 24, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (May 1, 1997). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.reviewjournal.com
  6. ↑ LinkedIn : Brett Sperry's profile
  7. ↑ The Most Influential People in Computers Games of 1996 ( English ) Add: GameSpot . CNET . Archived from the original on April 10, 2010. Retrieved January 13, 2013.
  8. ↑ The Most Influential People in Computer Gaming of All Time ( English ) In: GameSpot . CNET . Archived from the original on February 21, 2005. Retrieved January 13, 2013.
  9. ^ The Most Influential People in Computer Gaming . (Article scan) In: Computer Gaming World . No. 159, October 1997, p. 56.
  10. ↑ Chris Morris: EA buys Westwood ( English ) In: CNN Money . Time Warner . August 17, 1998. Retrieved January 13, 2013.
  11. ↑ a b Dean Takahashi: Brett Sperry's Jet Set Games to launch Highborn game for iPhone, iPad ( English ) In: GamesBeat . VentureBeat . March 29, 2010. Retrieved January 13, 2013.
  12. ↑ Brett Wesley Gallery: About Brett Sperry ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.brettwesleygallery.com
  13. ↑ Las Vegas Talent Mag: Brett W. Sperry ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lasvegastalentmag.com
personal data
SURNAME Sperry, Brett W.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sperry, Brett Wesley (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American computer game developer
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century
PLACE OF BIRTH Newington, Connecticut