An interview with David Perkinson - Producer of NFL 2K and World Series Baseball on the SEGA Dreamcast

Before 2K Sports, It Was Simply: SEGA Sports.

Some of us like to think that science is apolitical. We like to imagine that global, collaborating scientists choose to ignore the lines in our Apple or Google Maps that trace the boundaries of sovereign nations all in the name of research. And sometimes we are right.

It follows then that the inception of SEGA Sports' World Series Baseball on the SEGA Dreamcast is a story of in-house rivals sharing ideas across miles of oceans. This was possible partly because game design is its own science; its own language — not limited by geopolitical or even cultural constructs. Perhaps it is no wonder then that SEGA of America and SEGA of Japan shared SEGA Dreamcast technology that would become the foundation to iconic SEGA Sports game franchises.

Before the corruption of 2K Sports as we now know it, it was SEGA Sports. I spoke with former SEGA Sports producer David Perkinson (World Series Baseball, NFL 2K, Heavy Rain) to discuss how SEGA Sports was shaped in its defining Dreamcast era.

Credit: Sega Retro

Steven Montani: How did you end up at SEGA?

David Perkinson: Yeah, that’s a good question! I graduated from college in the Spring of ’93. I went to school in Ohio, and my sister and her husband lived in San Francisco. My sister had been doing some work at the time with kind of a small, wannabe-publisher, and they had a few games they were working on. At the time, CES was the big gameshow pre-E3. At the time, CES was in Chicago, and I was in Ohio and they wanted somebody to work the booth. I did some work for this company, and I was not being asked for too much. I helped people play, rebooted systems, and handed out pamphlets. CES ended and they asked me if I wanted to come work for them in the Bay Area for the summer. So I did. I flew out there and I began working for them without any real defined terms. Neither party knew if it would be a long-term thing, short-term thing or whatever. I worked there a couple of months at the time, sending reviewable builds out to media people and general stuff around the office. I just graduated from college and my friends had graduated from college and it was going to be our last summer together so I decided I was going to head back home. I left that gig. And then committed myself to moving back to the Bay Area. My sister was there. I had an easy in. I drove from Ohio, got to the Bay Area on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend.

I saw an ad in the paper that said: “growing software publisher needs testers.“ It did not say who it was. Since I just had done that, I decided to apply. Applied on Monday. Got the job on Tuesday. And then I was around SEGA in different incarnations, always working on SEGA stuff, for about ten years. I started out in [quality assurance], spent maybe about a year in QA, and then moved into production. I always had an affinity for the sports stuff, so I began working on the Genesis sports stuff. That transitioned into 32X and the Saturn, and then into Dreamcast, and ultimately into publishing SEGA Sports or ESPN video games even, developed by SEGA and Visual Concepts for other platforms.

My role kind of increased. I was assistant producer, associate producer, producer, and then doing all kinds of stuff. Like taking on projects from SEGA of Japan, working with developers in the United States on stuff from scratch. Almost all of it in the sports realm.

NFL's Greatest: San Francisco vs. Dallas 1978-1993 - one of the earliest games David worked on as a tester.

Did you have a passion for sports beforehand, before entering the game industry? Or did it develop while you were there?

I played an embarrassing amount of Techmo Bowl in college. Blades of Steel, Double Dribble on Nintendo Entertainment System was kind of a fun one. It had that hook shot from the corner that was kind of a bug that the shot was never missed. I was always a huge sports fan growing up — it was a passion of mine and so I kind of fell into it naturally. When I got on sports games working in QA, I just had a good connection with them and built really good working connections with the production teams on the SEGA side, and developers on development side.

So that was an MBA of sorts in production, in game development, and in publishing during your time there…

Yeah! One of the great things about it was that the group of people working there — it was a really eclectic group of people, a lot of whom got their start at the same time as I did, who were still in there doing really cool stuff. They accomplished great things in games, or whether they moved into other areas of software development. We had writers, actors, musicians, just the gambit of creative people that worked there. We were kind of like-minded. I consider myself incredibly fortunate, right place at the right time.

That’s one part of it. The other part of it that made it so interesting and kind of challenging — every hardware generation, the rules completely changed. The expectations would change. The technology would change. The things you had to work on and think about and the tools used to develop the games and the complexity and the visual improvement — all of it was constantly evolving. You could always apply lessons before of making successful products, but there was a fair amount of improvisation in every hardware generation. You really had to think quickly and problem solve, and find a way to execute the best product given the constraints. Super-fun.

That is in line with some of the documentaries I’ve seen on SEGA. Where SEGA had been considered, maybe back in those days, like how we'd see modern indie studios — an eclectic personality to the entire studio. People were not afraid to take risks, explore avenues with their creativity and mess with different mediums mixing different disciplines.

Even outside of the sports stuff, you had all of types of creativity coming from SEGA of Japan. Just legendary designers making incredibly famous products. There was a fearlessness and spirit of innovation that led them to take risks. Even if the games did not blow out sales, those innovations would drive something else that would show up in some other product that could make that successful and shine. At SEGA of America, even outside of the sports world. I think of stuff like Ecco the Dolphin. Incredibly creative game.

NBA Showtime - For The Industry

Designed and published by Midway Games, Inc for the Sega Dreamcast in 1999, NBA Showtime is still worth playing in 2024, and its 128-bit graphics are worth preserving — for character artists and gamers alike.

When we position NBA Showtime on the Dreamcast amongst today’s sports games, something interesting happens. Showtime feels surprisingly fresh with its simple controls and tight playing moves. That is because Showtime is accessible in a way that modern NBA 2K purposefully never will be.

What’s more, Showtime’s old-school graphics and big time dunks led me to a major premise — design choices can impact the lives of the people who create and consume a game. That is because design choices made by big tech directly impact game budgets, development staffing decisions, and can even manipulate player spending habits, too. Powerful.

Without question, economical and responsibly made sports games are needed in the 2024 sports game market. NBA Showtime is a reminder of what is possible on hardware from over 20 years ago; and its 128-bit design may serve as a prescription in the face of an industry profiting billions off of gambling mechanics in sports games.

NBA Showtime’s Economical Design

Showtime’s economical design for the Dreamcast illustrates why arcade sports games are still worth playing. "The NBA on NBC", as it was known in the arcades at the turn of the millennium, is fun and super competitive without complex gameplay controls.

I did not expect to play Sega Dreamcast sports games in 2024. And upon powering up, I did not anticipate Showtime’s orchestral strings to invoke such strong emotions about its standing. But when we position it amongst today’s lineup of sports games, nothing actually compares. Whereas NBA 2K, the top selling NBA Basketball game series of the last decade, adopts a model of endless combinations and movesets, Showtime has just four buttons. Easy. One of those buttons is capable of launching three point shots high into the atmosphere, where the basketball seems to sky just long enough to remind yourself to breathe. Hence, the game does fun things with the sport through its iconic presentation — taking a three-pointer and turning it into an exciting event to replay over and over.

More importantly, Showtime is offline, and thus not connected to your credit card. It feels honest — unlike today’s games ruined by wallet exploits and complicated control schemes. The NBA 2K series, a prime culprit, builds its obfuscated player ratings and movesets into its game economy systems. Yes, the NBA’s flagship game has endless shops of in-game items to purchase. Everything is for sale.

Moreover, sports gamers today are at the mercy of the engineers at 2K Sports because 2K’s gameplay is constantly patched, often without notice — an unethical and potentially illegal business practice. For example, an animation purchased in week one of a game release might lose all value by week ten. Thus, 2K’s confusing layers of ratings systems are purposeful, designed to extract maximum funds out of players’ pockets.

Contrasting with 2K, Showtime’s rosters are locked in at specific ratings, and the game features a handful of player archetypes. Bigs, mids, and guards. That is it, and it works. Showtime is a game to enjoy, and its designers emphasized quick-hitting matches to keep the gameplay loop moving. For arcade machines, the gameplay loop was profitable, but on Dreamcast, players can play endless matches for a flat fee. For context, I purchased the game on eBay for the fitting price of $19.99 in late 2023.

Additionally, Showtime provides an abundance of what it calls its “coaching tips” in-between quarters that provide insight into the game’s AI and logic. Hence, we know a good deal about how Showtime works. And Showtime is not going to unilaterally change its player ratings any time soon via an online update.

When we look at Midway's arcade baller today, its simplicity comes across as a bit underrated. The graphics are blocky, the animations — awkward. But that is part of its charm, and the game can still hammer home the dunks on the genre to remind everyone it is still fun.

A 128-Bit Prescription for the Industry

Perhaps more importantly are the moral and ethical benefits of 128-bit gaming in 2024 in its various polygonal forms. In a word: remasters.

Remasters of 128-bit polygon arcade games like Showtime may be a compromise for all parties to the sports gaming ecosystem. That is because NBA Showtime’s art-style is highly affordable for the industry to adopt in 2024. As such, a remaster of an NBA Showtime in 2024 would be less laborious on designers, and cost less than most AAA games. For an industry known to run artists into the ground, a remaster is a win. While this argument glosses over the issue of obtaining the requisite licensing for all the players, there are always solutions when there is money to be made. We can trust in that notion.

The benefits of 128-bit games also extend to graphic designer and artist employment terms. Silicon Valley’s unethical practice of hiring and firing artists in waves is unnecessary when a 128-bit game costs a fraction of a major simulation sports production in 2024. The 128-bit graphic design choice is an act of acknowledgement to the artists from generations ago. Remasters can take us back to our roots, and maybe that is something the industry needs right now.

Lower development costs for a 128-bit production also thereby lessen big tech’s need to exploit players through in-game monetization systems. And while we cannot conclusively draw a line between development costs and microtransactions in our games, we can certainly argue the correlation. Lower costs have numerous benefits on the industry. Art direction matters.

Thus, remasters of classic sports games like Showtime represent a path towards dignity for everyone the game touches. Remasters can honor the original artists of NBA Showtime, while treating the artists of today with dignity. And remasters lessen the need for companies to build in morally bankrupt gambling modes into sports games. The premise is simple — companies should have a profound respect for persons and dignity. Human rights should be a part of our game design choices and the industry as a whole.

When we revisit NBA Showtime in 2024, it is less about nostalgia and more so about what the game now represents in the sports genre. The use of 128-bit graphics in sports games in 2024 is a practical path to more humane treatment of game artists and sports game players.

Let’s take a look at the Sega Sports 2K1 Bible Editions

An actual book on the coffee table.

The Sega Sports 2K series is probably a lesser discussed set of games here on the Junkyard blog due to our predominantly UK-centric staff. The series formed a key part of the install base and marketing of the US Dreamcast campaign, and at least when I was active on the Dreamcast Junkyard Facebook group, it felt like every other week one of the 2K games would be cited as a favourite or a key memory of new members from the US side of the Sega sphere.

Whilst some of the 2K titles did get a European release, it's the Japan-exclusive 2K1 “Bible” releases that I am looking at here, and to be honest this is more of an accompanying article for the below YouTube video that looks at them in greater focus.

In short, these Bible releases are a re-packaging of both NBA 2K1 and NFL 2K1 that include not only a copy of the game, but a lovely printed booklet explaining not just the actual game, but the sports and their respective teams. The booklets themselves are rather large (especially that of NFL 2K1), which explains the "Bible" naming. At least from what I can discern from the loose amount of camera phone-based translations, these accompanying tomes are much more in-depth than you'd probably expect.

The booklets themselves both follow roughly the same layout: starting with instructions on how to actually play the games, before leading straight into set plays, formations and information breakdowns about the respective sports. As I mention in the video, my knowledge of basketball pretty much starts and ends with things I've learnt from either NBA Jam or the original Space Jam movie. However, as I’m much more au fait with NFL, I can appreciate how useful this guide - or at least an English variant - might have been at the time of release as it was around then that I was getting back into the NFL as a student in my early 20s.

Anyway, check out my video below:

If you don’t feel like listening to my droll “raised by Scottish people in the East Midlands before living in Sheffield for 20 years” tone (and who would blame you) then feast your eyes on these hastily taken snaps below instead.

The NBA 2K1 game and Bible packaged together.

The NFL 2K1 game and Bible packaged together.

Both Bible Editions side by side (kind of).

The "NBA Data Bank" section of the NBA 2K1 Bible.

Information on Miami Heat and their starting line up.

Information on San Antonio Spurs and their starting line up.

A glossary of basketball terms.

Different types of NFL plays.

Baltimore Ravens players.

Cleveland Browns players.

Seattle Seahawks players.

Were you aware of the Bible versions of NBA 2K1 and NFL 2K1? Would you have liked to have seen an English version of these booklets for the Western releases of these games? Let us know in the YouTube video comments or the comments section below!

Retrospective: Nettou Golf - a Golfing Hidden Gem for Dreamcast

Given the plethora of Golf titles available on virtually all Sega systems leading up to the Dreamcast, it’s somewhat of an oddity that, even with the Dreamcast's shortened lifespan, there was only a mere three golf titles released worldwide, one of which was a sequel. 

Tee Off was the only golf title released in PAL regions (meaning a poor showing for the home of Golf itself!), as well as NTSC, and isn’t a terrible game. While its name change (from Golf Shiyouyo) and cover reworking completely belie its cutesy presentation and characters, it's still a reasonable enough effort. Its sequel never left Japan.

Whilst there were stories and news reports that Sega had been in the process of converting their arcade title Virtua Golf, no real evidence that this was actually in the works exists from what I can see. For more information about Virtua Golf, check out Dreamcast Today's article.

There was another golf game, however, that is probably not as well-known by many. Step forward Nettou Golf.

A Dreamcast version of this with a trackball controller would have been incredible. 

Nettou Golf isn't well-known to us Dreamcast gamers in the West due to its Japan exclusivity, but, in my opinion, it’s rather good, and surprisingly playable without needing an English translation of any sort. The fact it was published by Sega themselves (it was developed by Data East) is vaguely curious to me considering its lack of a worldwide release. Given that the name derives from "NetGolf", because the game had online capabilities, it's even odder considering Sega's global touting of online play as a big marketing push for the Dreamcast, but it was apparently decided we weren’t considered as a territory for the game. Seems like a bit of a missed opportunity at the very least given how little in the way of a translation would have been needed to cover a game in this genre.

As previously mentioned, Nettou Golf is very accessible despite the language barrier. Not only does Google Translate do a very competent job of allowing you to understand the menus and modes, but I discovered this handy site (pictured below), that despite now being defunct, appears to be a couple's attempt to provide others with enough understanding to functionally navigate through certain less heralded Japanese games that were likely never going to get a localisation of any kind. They only translated seven games prior to stopping, but luckily for us, one of them is Nettou Golf.

Xtreme (virtual) sports

Long time no posting, I see... Well, with so many consoles and so many work to do it gets hard to give my little Dreamcast the attention it deserves. But lately I've actually been playing a little on it, mainly extreme sports games. Don't ask me why, maybe it's withdrawal symptoms for not playing some Tony Hawk in a long time. The thing is, I never got THPS2 for my Dreamcast, since I already have it for the PC and PSX (yes, I know what you're all thinking, OMG I play PSX too!!!). I had other things, though, neglected things, games I bought without giving them much attention. Until now, that is. So, without further adue (that's what I meant to say, isn't it? I sometimes mess up with english expressions...), here's what I've been playing:

Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX


This one is pretty similar to Tony Hawk, which is no surprise since they both run on the same engine. There are a few key differences, though, mainly because here you have a bike instead of a skate, so the jumps are shorter, the tricks are more difficult to do and you can't ride backwards. These are not necessarily problems, and they don't break the game, but something else does: the controls. The gameplay sucks, not because of the mechanics involved but because it's hard to properly control your bike. That's not to say the game is rubbish, and it should please the more hardcore Tony Hawk games/ real-life BMX fans, but the others should at least try it first.



Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX


Another take on virtual BMX, this one distinguishes itself from the Mat Hoffman's game due to its more realistic approach. If, like me, you've played that one first, you'll need some time and practice to get used to this game. The jumps are shorter and the tricks aren't as fluid and easy to execute, but when you do nail them you'll feel like a pro. But, of course, that can also be seen as a flaw, since most people will throw out the controllers in frustration when they fail again and again and the objectives of the game get really hard, really soon, so unless you're a pro you'll get stuck pretty early. A game for the hardcore.



MTV Skateboarding


OMG this game sucks... What? It's true! It actually started out quite well the first time I played it, with this song in the background, but the gameplay is so fucking obtuse. It's rigid, unresponsive, "un-fun" and it just plain sucks. Seriously. With a rather great (or so I hear) Tony Hawk game on the system there's just no excuse to play this one.



Razor Freestyle Scooter


The surprise of the bunch. I think Tomleecee already talked about this one, but I can't remember what his opinion was. Anyway, I liked it, a lot. Maybe because I had no expectations. Despite the "vehicle" you control, a scooter in this case, the gameplay is completely TH-style, and if you've played that game you'll have no problem adapting to it. The progression and objectives are in the same style, and it's almost as fun as that game. Despite the kiddy look, some objectives are rather hard to accomplish (get a 6,000 points combo? WTF? I can barely get a 4,000 one!), but you only need to achieve a, usually somewhat low, highscore to unlock the next stage, so you probably won't get stuck easily. Also, the graphics are not exactly the best the system has to offer, but the game compensates some lack of detail and the bland textures with a big resolution and constant framerate and overall it looks good, even on my big-ass 37" HDTV.