In 2001, Naughty Dog was acquired by Sony for an undisclosed amount after the two companies had worked together on Crash Bandicoot in the 1990s. Recently, one of the co-founders of Naughty Dog, one of the most iconic modern gaming studios, revealed exactly why the studio was happy to be acquired by Sony.
In a post on LinkedIn, Andrew Gavin explained that it was all down to the stress of managing budgets.
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Andrew Gavin and Jason Rubin founded Naughty Dog in 1984, creating a few forgettable (or never-heard-of) titles before moving into the success stakes with the likes of Crash Bandicoot in the 1990s. From there, the studio blossomed, with the team coming up with Jak and Daxter, Uncharted, and The Last of Us.
For the longest time, Naughty Dog has been a Sony studio. It was one of the earliest acquisitions made by the tech titan, and it has proven to be one of the most fruitful purchases the Japanese firm ever made.
In a recent post on LinkedIn (found by Gameranx), Andrew Gavin, one of the co-founders of Naughty Dog, explained why they were eager to accept an acquisition by Sony in 2001:
Back in 2000, we were still self-funding every project, and the stress of financing these ballooning budgets independently was enormous. It wasn’t just us. This was (and still is) a systemic issue in the AAA space. Developers almost never have the resources to fund their own games, which gives publishers enormous leverage.
Selling to Sony wasn’t just about securing a financial future for Naughty Dog. It was about giving the studio the resources to keep making the best games possible, without being crushed by the weight of skyrocketing costs and the paralyzing fear that one slip would ruin it all.
Looking back, it was the right call. AAA games have only gotten more expensive since then. Today’s big budget games can easily cost $300, $400, or even $500 million to develop.
Gavin went on to suggest that Naughty Dog might have been able to ‘keep up’, but selling to Sony allowed the studio ‘to thrive’.
Today, Naughty Dog is one of the most recognised and awarded studios on Earth.
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