Naughty Dog - Company Overview

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.

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.

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 17 million copies worldwide as of April 2012.

During the 2011 Spike TV Video Game Awards, Naughty Dog unveiled a new intellectual property, The Last of Us, described as a "post-apocalyptic third-person action-adventure game", following the plight of a teenage girl, Ellie, and her adult protector, Joel, in a post-apocalyptic Pittsburgh overrun with humans infected with a disease reminiscent to the infection caused by Cordyceps unilateralis.