David Perry: Selling Earthworm Jim was the "dumbest move ever"

by Xav de Matos { Sep 30th 2008 at 4:30PM }

When you stop to think about iconic characters for each of the big three a few easy ones come to mind. Master Chief owning on Xbox, Super Mario fighting for Nintendo and Kratos breaking dudes on the PlayStation (or insert your own characters if these examples don't work for you). One character that had the potential to be a huge gaming icon after his introduction was Earthworm Jim.

Jim had it all. Fun games, ridiculous cartoon and even action figures. Then one day the team that owned the rights to Earthworm Jim decided to call it a night and sell the character off for fear they wouldn't be able to bring him into the 3D world. David Perry, founder of Shiny Entertainment, has recently come clean on one of the biggest mistakes his company ever made; letting Jim get away.

"[Selling the rights of Earthworm Jim to Interplay] turned out to be the dumbest move ever," Perry said in an interview with Kikizo. "There's been other versions of Earthwork Jim done that were done without our permission really, licensing deals, and I was very unhappy about them." We'd be happy enough to see the original titles added to the Xbox Live Arcade or any news on the announced fourth title in the series.

You know, it's funny to hear losing Earthworm Jim was the biggest mistake in Shiny's history. We could have sworn it was just being involved with Enter the Matrix. Just saying.

Tags: david-perry, earthworm-jim, interplay, shiny-entertainment

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Merk @ Sep 30th 2008 6:08PM

Dude that game rocked! for the sega good times good time

JAmerican @ Sep 30th 2008 6:12PM

I never liked Earthworm Jim. The cartoons, video games and the concept all sucked IMHO! He made the right choice IMHO! The show was pretty disturbing as a youth. I mean a space suit using the worm head to swing to places. Pretty nasty.

MakoXL @ Sep 30th 2008 10:02PM

Enter the Matrix was sweet.

Swagman @ Sep 30th 2008 10:20PM

I remember reading somewhere back in the day, about how the first Earthworm Jim sold over 7 million copies, and how the sequel sold over 5 million copies.

Considering both games came out almost 15 years ago, those are extremely impressive numbers. But then Shiny Entertainment had been building up to that point with many of their other awesome titles: Mick and Mack: Global Gladiators, Cool Spot, Disney's Aladdin (Genesis), etc. Each game was a million seller, and each selling more than the last title they made.

Of all of them, Jim was the first franchise they owned. Collectively between the first two titles (the only two made by Shiny), it sold over 12 million copies, and won tons of game of the year awards. They really were crazy to let that go.

I remember reading the news when they sold it, and being stunned. In this business, selling of your precious IP is like selling your children into prostitution. For that is about all most publishers who buy IP, think about them - something to be whored out relentlessly until it bleeds . . . and then whored out some more for good measure.