David Perry has himself become a very influential figure in the games industry.

He was the founder of games developer Shiny Entertainment, most famous for its Earthworm Jim games.

After a stint as Chief Creative Officer at Acclaim Games he co-founded cloud gaming service Gaikai, which would later be sold in 2012 for $380 million.

Five years later, the influential industry veteran been named as the CEO of a new influencer platform called Vyrl, described as “a community of creators and tastemakers collaborating with brands to share products and experiences they love”.

Despite enjoying his time at Gaikai - and staying far longer than he had expected following the Sony acquisition, which would rename the platform PlayStation Now - Perry felt like the time was right for something new.

“I like the entrepreneurship stuff; I like the hustle and the craziness of it all,” Perry tells InfluencerUpdate.biz in an interview shortly after the announcement of his appointment.

“I like finding talent, I like a major challenge and I really like taking on stuff that's considered hard.”

Ambitious plans

He first came into contact with the Vyrl team through a school entrepreneurship program. Impressively the Chapman University alumni, which included the likes of Cade Proulx and Jason Goldberg, had already built up a company, raised money, committed many hours of research in the space and, importantly, already brought in the support of influencers and brands.

But Perry saw potential to make the company much bigger.

"There's two key things: one is becoming a platform and number two is going global,” he says. “So those will be the default steps. We will be doing some things that will be surprising too.”

You can read the full interview on our sister-site InfluencerUpdate.biz.