| Perfect Entertainment | |
| Type: | Proprietary limited company |
| Foundation: | 1991 |
| Location: | London, United Kingdom |
| Key People: | Angela Sutherland, CEO and Co-founder Gregg Barnett, Creative Director and Co-founder Colin Fuidge, Producer Paul Mitchell, Art Director |
| Num Employees: | 70 |
| Industry: | Video games |
| Products: | See complete products listing |
Perfect Entertainment was an independent British computer game developer, which ceased production in 1999.[1] It began in 1991 as Teeny Weeny Games headed by Angela Sutherland but changed names when merging exclusively with Gregg Barnett's Perfect 10 Productions, a company previously known as Beam Software (UK).[2] [3]
Perfect Entertainment is notable for its popular point-and-click adventure games Discworld, and Discworld Noir, which are based on the Terry Pratchett novels. Teeny Weeny Games was the initial funding source of Perfect Entertainment's speculative product demo of Discworld. Perfect Entertainment produced the majority of Psygnosis games ported to the Sega Saturn, since Sony (who owned Psygnosis at that time) wasn't willing to fund games for a rival console.
Perfect Entertainment's Manchester offices were destroyed in the 1996 IRA bombing. They were developing Discworld II and Saturn port of FIFA 97 at the time.[4]
Most of the assets, staff and risks of Perfect Entertainment were absorbed into what became Teeny Weeny Games' second incarnation in 1999 on the completion of the Discworld Noir. Partly due to a costly and protracted legal dispute with Psygnosis over unpaid royalties and fees which were eventually settled out of court and partly due to arguments at board level, it was decided to scale the company down to allow unhappy stakeholders to leave. Tantalus Entertainment (now Tantalus Media) in Melbourne, Australia was sold back to its original directors. In early 2000, Teeny Weeny Games was contracted by 20th Century Fox to supply "The World's Scariest Car Chases" on a $3,600,000 contract, a game already under development for over a year. The producer of this project and various other staff bought a majority shareholding and took over the company. Teeny Weeny Games closed a year later.
Perfect Entertainment's shrinking and subsequent demise came largely due to the aforementioned court case with Psygnosis/Sony Entertainment. Originally it was believed Perfect had signed contracts for a multi-game deal with Sony, but issues arose when it was contested three of these games should have been Discworld titles. When negotiations broke down and Discworld's third title, Discworld Noir, was not offered to Sony, the court case ensued. While in development staff payments became late, the deadline for Noir was heavily rescheduled and staff began to leave amid fears of job security. By the time Discworld Noir was finished the development team was running at half the size it was when it began. Discworld Noir was eventually released by GT Interactive in 1999, it was the last game Perfect Entertainment developed that was to be published.