Crystal Dynamics

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Crystal Dynamics
Type
Founded 1992
Headquarters San Francisco, California
Key people Judy Lange

Madeline Canepa

Dave Morse
Industry Computer and video games
Parent Eidos Interactive,
Website http://www.crystald.com/

Crystal Dynamics is an American video game developer based in the San Francisco Bay area. It was acquired by Eidos Interactive, a British video game publisher, in 1998, and is still part of the Eidos group. Eidos Interactive has been subsequently acquired by British entertainment company SCi in 2005.

Crystal Dynamics was formed in mid-1992 by Sega veterans Judy Lange (sales and acting CEO), Madeline Canepa (marketing) and Dave Morse (Amiga). Crystal was the first licensed developer for 3DO, a gaming hardware platform simultaneously funded by Kleiner Perkins.

In 1993 Strauss Zelnick, then president of 20th Century Fox's film studio, was hired to run Crystal Dynamics. This made national news and helped to touch off the frenzy of multimedia investments of the mid-1990s.

3DO's launch during the 1993 Christmas season was a commercial failure, undermining Crystal's one-platform software strategy. Zelnick, Lange and Mark Cerny all resigned at about this time.

The next strategy was to become a leading publisher for two new 32-bit, 3D-capable consoles, the Sony PlayStation and the Sega Saturn. Randy Komisar was hired away from LucasArts in 1994 to replace Zelnick as CEO. Crystal Dynamics expanded to a staff of 140, and shipped some of the world's first PlayStation and Saturn games for Christmas 1994. However, losses continued to mount.

Sony Computer Entertainment of America, which had the power to set both retail price and cost of goods for licensed publishers of Playstation games, dictated a reduced retail price for such games. This reduced the contribution margin of Crystal Dynamics games to a point where the company could not make money on its existing sales and cost structure.

In May 1996, with more than $80m gone and no route to profitability in sight, Kleiner Perkins pulled the plug on the publishing strategy laid out two years earlier. Komisar and most senior management resigned within a few days, and forty percent of the staff was laid off. Crystal was recast as a boutique game developer, and buyers were sought. Eidos finally bought the firm in 1998.

Several of the company's guiding lights, including Zelnick, Komisar and Cerny, do not mention Crystal Dynamics on their resumes or official bios.

Crystal Dynamics has developed games both for the PC and for various consoles. At one time, Crystal Dynamics was also a publisher; mostly publishing games that it had developed itself. However, it also published several games developed by other companies.

Crystal Dynamics is most well known for developing the Legacy of Kain and Gex series, but in 2006 the studio finished development of Tomb Raider: Legend and is now believed to control the reigns of the best-selling Tomb Raider franchise.

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