Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming December 2016 14 Tony Industry profile Inside Asian Gaming: Before we talk about your career in the gaming industry, can you tell us a bit about your background? Tony Payne: I grew up in Los Angeles and spent most of my life there. I went to university in LA and then moved to San Francisco, studied biology and then moved to film. I went to film school, graduated and went into the film industry where I planned on making my living. I worked my way up in the industry and became an associate producer so I was often responsible for budget scheduling and that sort of thing. Oddly enough, I had the opportunity from working on different films to wrangle small parts for myself. The benefit of that wasn’t actually becoming an actor but being able to get health insurance through the Screen Actors Guild! It was a big plus. IAG: So at that stage gaming was the furthest thing from your mind? TP: Yeah. I actually worked in the film business for quite some time and then in the early 90s I was recruited by a traditional game company doing games for Sega and so on. They were looking for people that had some production experience and an appreciation for high production values. We wanted to raise the bar for traditional video games away from games like Pong – introducing full motion graphics and that sort of thing. So I went to work for a great start-up company in Silicon Valley and it’s where I really think my entrepreneurial spirit was fostered. I consider myself a start-up specialist. I’m not suited to big companies and I like the adventure of getting to wear a lot of different hats, work around a lot of people who are motivated and high energy. IAG: So how did you go from traditional gaming to gambling? TP: I was told by a recruiter that there was another company that had its own hardware looking for someone. My first reaction was that I wasn’t interested because at the time Sega, Sony and 3DO were really trying to fight it out and there was so much battle going on for the market I knew a new company had no chance. But the guy said, “Come on down anyway, I think you’ll be interested in this.” So I went down to Palo Alto and met with this company and it turned out they were doing slot machines – some of the first President of Shanghai-based slot machine manufacturer Aspect Gaming, Tony Payne , tells IAG about his fascinatingly unorthodox journey into the gaming industry. Eastern Aspect