Naughty Dog is an American video game company founded by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin in 1986. It is based in Santa Monica, California. It was acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment in 2001.

Early years Edit

Naughty Dog's origins go back to 1986, when the company was named "JAM". Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin, who were 16 years old at the time, had their first commercial game published: Ski Crazed for the 8-bit Apple II series. Two years later they moved up to writing software for the then next-generation Apple IIGS with the game Dream Zone, which was popular enough to be ported to several other platforms. By 1989, they wrote Keef the Thief for the Apple IIGS and with that title, officially changed the company's name to Naughty Dog.

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 was created with 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 designed and programmed Marble Madness at Atari and 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.^[1]

PlayStation years Edit

On August 31, 1996 Naughty Dog released Crash Bandicoot for the PlayStation. Naughty Dog developed two Crash Bandicoot sequels and a racing game over the next three years. The sequels were: Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back and Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped. After developing Crash Team Racing in 1999, the company left the Crash series behind never to go back again.

PlayStation 3 years Edit

In 2007, two years after Naughty Dog left the Jak and Daxter series behind, they began working on the Uncharted series for the PlayStation 3. they released Uncharted: Drake's Fortune for the PlayStation 3, their first game on the console, which met with numerous positive reviews and sold one million copies in its first ten weeks on sale. In 2009, they released a sequel to Drake's Fortune titled Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, which received universal critical acclaim and cemented the character of Nathan Drake as a Playstation 3 poster boy. It was announced on 9 December 2010 that another sequel was in the works, titled Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, which was released in early November 2011 to universal acclaim on par with Uncharted 2.

The success of the Uncharted series led to Sony desiring to develop more games using Uncharted's game engine, but it was found that the engine worked best using Naughty Dog's unique management style and distinct lack of hierarchy and demarcation. Because of this, Sony supported Naughty Dog in expanding to create two teams to work on multiple games simultaneously. The second team was built up while Uncharted 3 was in development, and their first game will be The Last of Us, a post-apocalyptic game announced on 29 November 2011, and has already undergone some major development.

The Last of Us has been announced to be released in May 2013. Furthrmore, it is currently unknown whether the team that worked on Uncharted 3 will be working on another Uncharted game, or a new imprint.

Works Edit

Uncharted series Edit

• Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3, 2007)
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3, 2009)
• Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception (PS3, 2011)
• Uncharted: Golden Abyss (PSV, 2011) (Naughty Dog only had a supervisory role in developing Golden Abyss, and most of the development was done by Sony Bend Studio.)

Other works Edit

As an independent developer

• Ski Crazed (Apple ll, ????)
• Dream Zone (Apple ll GS, Amiga, Atari ST, PC, 1988)
• Keef the Thief (Apple ll GS, Amiga, PC, 1989)
• Rings of Power (Sega Genesis, 1991)
• Way of the Warrior (3DO, 1994)

As a Sony subsidiary

• Crash Bandicoot (PS, 1996)
• Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (PS, 1997)
• Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (PS, 1998)
• Crash Team Racing (PS, 1999)
• Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (PS2, 2001)
• Jak II: Renegade (PS2, 2003)
• Jak 3 (PS2, 2004)
• Jak X: Combat Racing (PS2, 2005)
• Jak and Daxter Collection (PS3, 2012)
• The Last of Us (PS3, 2013)

TriviaEdit

• Naughty Dog employees playing the Uncharted 2 Multiplayer will have the Naughty Dog logo beside their PSN name.
• It is possible in the Uncharted series that Naughty Dog, and NDI, may be brand names judging by the appearances on pieces of clothing.

External links Edit

• Official website
• Official blog
• Official forum

References Edit

1. ↑ http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-bandicoot-part-1/