Naughty Dog has been one of Sony’s strongest developer studios and has since been responsible for some of PlayStation’s iconic exclusives. Looking back at Naughty Dog’s achievements, one of its co-founders has thus explained how the studio made the right and crucial call more than two decades ago. Sony’s decision to buy out Naughty Dog turned out to be the best, despite some of the more recent controversy surrounding the studio.
Andrew Gavin, the Naughty Dog co-founder in question, took to LinkedIn to answer some burning questions as to why Naughty Dog sold to Sony back in 2001. Gavin’s post is rather long, and he even recalls a trend for their games where the budget and cost to produce them kept rising over the decades.
In the end, Gavin assured everyone that Naughty Dog made the wise decision of letting Sony acquire them. Because by 2004, Jak 3‘s development cost had ballooned up to around $50 million. It was a far cry from their early 1980s games, which only cost $50,000 to develop. Naughty Dog’s budget for games only started going into the millions with Crash Bandicoot in 1994.
Of course, the issue was not just exclusive to Naughty Dog but to all AAA games in general. It was an expense trend that we’re also seeing now but on a much more extravagant scale.
“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,” as Andrew Gavin recalled.
Nowadays, Gavin also mentions that AAA games have become exponentially more expensive. Sony’s Concord, for example, was the most expensive video game blunder to date, costing around $400 million to make but only generating around $1 million in revenue.
Naughty Dog Has Other Problems Than Budget Now
Gavin then surmises that had they not sold the studio to Sony, Naughty Dog could’ve possibly gone bankrupt as it might not have been able to keep up with the rising development costs. Sony certainly has the money to spare, seeing as it was able to bet on projects like Concord.
As far as some of the upcoming Naughty Dog games go, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is likely the most polarizing one. One of the main complaints with Intergalactic is the character design, with some even comparing it to Sony’s failed Concord in terms of theme and aesthetics.
Naughty Dog even had to disable the comments on their social media posts and promotions for Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. However, it’s too early to tell what kind of game Intergalactic will be, and Naughty Dog seems confident with its choices and with its pedigree as a game developer.
Neil Druckman, Naughty Dog’s studio head, is also confident that Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is a return to Naughty Dog’s roots.
