Naughty Dog

Naughty Dog, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Santa Monica, California.^[1] Founded by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin in 1984 as an independent developer, the studio was acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment in 2001. Gavin and Rubin produced a sequence of progressively more successful games, including Rings of Power for the Sega Genesis and Way of the Warrior for the 3DO. The latter — a very low-budget but still plausible offering — prompted Universal Interactive Studios to sign the duo to a three-title deal and fund the expansion of the company.

Mark Cerny, who had produced Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for Sega, convinced Naughty Dog to focus its new resources on creating a character-based platform game that would fully exploit the 3D capabilities of the new systems. Ultimately, this led to the release of Crash Bandicoot for the PlayStation on August 31, 1996. Naughty Dog developed three Crash Bandicoot sequels over the next several years. In January 2001, it was announced Sony would acquire Naughty Dog. After developing Crash Team Racing, the company began working on Jak and Daxter for PlayStation 2.

In 2004, Naughty Dog's studio president and co-founder, Jason Rubin, left the company^[2] to work on a new project named Iron and the Maiden.^[3] In addition to their inhouse game team, Naughty Dog is also home to the ICE Team, one of Sony's World Wide Studios central technology groups.^[4] The company's first PlayStation 3 title, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, was released in 2007, its sequel, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, in 2009, and Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, released in November 2011. Naughty Dog is also infamous for having a history of not only developing one game at a time, but only one franchise per console; a trend that has garnered heavy amounts of criticism amongst fans.^[5] This lasted until Naughty Dog announced a new IP called The Last of Us at the Spike Video Game Awards on December 10, 2011 on the PlayStation 3, which was in development by a second team at the studio.

On November 21st, 2011, it was announced on Sony's PlayStation Blog that the Jak and Daxter series would be re-released on PlayStation 3 as part of an HD collection. ^[6] Due for release in February 07, 2012, the collection is being handled by Mass Media Inc., bringing "720p high definition with crisper visuals, smoother gameplay animation, full stereoscopic 3D to the series", along with support for the PlayStation 3 trophy system.

Company overview

High school students, Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin, having experimented with Lisp and C++, teamed up to create video games and founded "Jam Software" in 1984. Rubin and Gavin chose to only create software for the Apple II and decided to create a skiing game for their second title. During production of the game, Gavin accidentally copied bootleg games over the only copy of the skiing game they had. Rubin then created a new skiing game called Ski Crazed (originally titled Ski Stud) within the weekend. Because the game played slowly, Gavin reprogrammed the game to play quicker. The game was later picked up and published by Baudville, who bought the game from Jam Software for $250. Rubin and Gavin then created an Apple IIGS graphic adventure game titled Dream Zone, which was released in 1988 and ported to the Atari ST, Amiga and personal computer.^[7]

In 1989, Rubin and Gavin released another game titled Keef the Thief, which was published by Electronic Arts for the Apple IIGS, Amiga and personal computer. To make a fresh start and to dissolve their relationship with Baudville, Rubin and Gavin renamed Jam Software as Naughty Dog. In the early 90's, Naughty Dog created Rings of Power, which was published by Electronic Arts for the Mega Drive/Genesis in 1991. By that time, Rubin and Gavin were in college and Naughty Dog was bankrupt.

Rubin and Gavin (along with friends) then produced the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer title Way of the Warrior and presented it to Mark Cerny of Universal Interactive Studios (later Vivendi Games, now defunct). Cerny was pleased with Way of the Warrior and signed Naughty Dog on to Universal Interactive Studios for three additional games. Rubin and Gavin devised a plan to create a three-dimensional action-platform game. Because the player would be forced to constantly look at the character's rear, the game was jokingly codenamed "Sonic's Ass Game".

Production of the game began in 1994, during which Naughty Dog expanded its number of employees and invented a development tool called "Goal Oriented Object LISP", to create the characters and gameplay. Cartoonists Charles Zembillas and Joe Pearson were recruited to create the characters of the game, which resulted in the titular character Crash Bandicoot. After 14 months of development, the game was shown to Sony Computer Entertainment, who then signed on to publish the game. Crash Bandicoot was shown to the public for the first time at E3 and went on to become one of the highest-selling titles for the PlayStation console, selling over 6.8 million copies to date.^[7]

Since 2007, Naughty Dog has worked on the Uncharted series, and thus made their first official approach to realistic worlds and characters, in contrast to their Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter series, which featured fantastical worlds set in a completely fictional setting, in the past. The Uncharted franchise has been universally praised for its cinematic quality and technical proficiency, and has sold nearly 13 million copies worldwide as of November 2011.^[8]

Games

as Jam Software

as Naughty Dog

Partnerships with other developers

Insomniac

Since working together in the same building on the Universal Interactive Studios backlot, Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games have had a close relationship. Producer Mark Cerny has worked extensively with both companies. They have made similar types of games. For example, in the late 1990s, Naughty Dog's Crash Bandicoot series and Insomniac's Spyro the Dragon series both competed on the PlayStation as character-heavy platforming games with imaginative environments. With the release of the PlayStation 2, the two series were left in Universal's hands, and both developers continued in friendly competition after the creation of their new flagship franchises (Jak and Daxter and Ratchet & Clank, respectively).

With the release of the PlayStation 3, both developers changed focus, with Naughty Dog's action-adventure series Uncharted and Insomniac's sci-fi first-person shooter series Resistance, although Insomniac continued to work on the Ratchet and Clank series. Both Naughty Dog and Insomniac have stated that they don't have plans for making a game together, even though, holding the publishing rights to both the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon characters, there have been a pair of crossover games released between the two, while Sony announced PlayStation Move Heroes, a PS3 game which featured both Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank characters in the same game as well as characters from Sucker Punch's Sly Cooper series.

Ready at Dawn

Didier Malenfant, a former developer of Naughty Dog, left the company in 2003 to form a new development company, Ready at Dawn, with various former members of Blizzard Entertainment.

References

External links

• Naughty Dog's official website