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Speaker 1: Get in text with technology with tech Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer over

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Speaker 1: at How Stuff Works, and I love things that are

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Speaker 1: technologically oriented. I'm the technology guy. Fun story. The reason

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Speaker 1: I'm the tech guy is because many years ago at

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works, we had decided that all the writers

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Speaker 1: were going to specialize in different fields, and we're all

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Speaker 1: liberal arts graduates, and it turned out I was the

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Speaker 1: one guy who wasn't afraid of technology. That's how I

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Speaker 1: landed this gig. Actually, I argue that I had the

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Speaker 1: best gig out of everybody, because technology either works or

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Speaker 1: it doesn't. Everything else is a lot more fuzzy. Today,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about a topic that gets a little

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Speaker 1: fuzzy at times. Uh, We're gonna talk about a video

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Speaker 1: game company. Now. A few years ago, this particular video

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Speaker 1: game studio got started by two teenage boys, and just

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Speaker 1: a just a couple of years ago, it hit its

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Speaker 1: thirtieth anniversary. If you had picked up the first couple

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Speaker 1: of games that that studio produce, you probably would not

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Speaker 1: have predicted that the company would go on to create

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Speaker 1: some of the most popular games for Sony's PlayStation consoles,

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Speaker 1: which makes sense because at that time PlayStation didn't even exist,

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Speaker 1: So how could you predict this? But the studio was

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Speaker 1: Naughty Dog, and this is its story, and the story

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Speaker 1: is so big, so epic, and I'm not making that

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Speaker 1: up that this is going to be a two parter.

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Speaker 1: So in this first part we're going to focus on

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Speaker 1: the formation of Naughty Dog and how it grew into

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Speaker 1: a big studio. Now that those two teenage founders were

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Speaker 1: actually not even teenagers when they first met one another.

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Speaker 1: Their names are Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin. They met

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Speaker 1: when they were twelve years old. They were attending Hebrew

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Speaker 1: school and preparing for their individual bar mitzvahs. Now, Ruby

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Speaker 1: and Gavin shared a common passion which was video games.

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Speaker 1: Actually it was a little broader than that. It was

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Speaker 1: computers and video games. Both of them had a fascination

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Speaker 1: with them and had each worked independently to learn how

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Speaker 1: to program computers and build their own video games. Now

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Speaker 1: they each had Apple two computers, and they had been

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Speaker 1: building these little programs using those computers. Gavin had actually

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Speaker 1: gone to the trouble of learning assembly language programming. Rubin

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Speaker 1: largely programmed in Apple Basic, and they, along with a

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Speaker 1: couple of other classmates at Hebrew School, would have these

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Speaker 1: little quick conversations about games and programming, and they focused

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Speaker 1: on that a little bit more than they were their

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Speaker 1: actual studies in preparation for their apartments, because they found

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Speaker 1: it really fascinating and fun and they were passionate about it,

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Speaker 1: and Gavin and Rubin soon discovered that their individual skills

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Speaker 1: would complement the others, where one person might not be

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Speaker 1: as strong the one was, and so they ended up

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Speaker 1: realizing that they could form together to create a sort

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Speaker 1: of computer vultron Andy Gavin was the better programmer of

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Speaker 1: the two, and his games would typically run pretty well

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Speaker 1: with very few bugs or glitches, but he was not

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Speaker 1: a very strong artist. He had not developed artistic skills,

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Speaker 1: and so his games often didn't look like much. Jason Rubin,

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Speaker 1: on the other hand, was a very gifted artist, but

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Speaker 1: his code wasn't the tightest and his games would often

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Speaker 1: crash or run slowly. So the two decided that it

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Speaker 1: made the most sense to work together and have Reuben

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Speaker 1: concentrate on graphic design and Gavin would focus on game

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Speaker 1: engine and mechanic design. Now, this was in the early

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. Now that was a time when it was

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Speaker 1: possible for maybe one or two people to make a

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Speaker 1: full game from start to finish. So games like the

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Speaker 1: early Ultimate Titles were proof of this. That was the

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Speaker 1: work of Richard Garriott, primarily in the first few games.

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Speaker 1: It took some imagination and skill to create a compelling game,

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Speaker 1: but the relatively low bar for technical requirements meant that

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Speaker 1: things were not yet so complicated that it would require

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Speaker 1: specialized talent to pull it off. The machines that were

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Speaker 1: running these games were fairly primitive, especially by today's standards.

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Speaker 1: They they're more primitive than the most basic version of

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Speaker 1: a smartphone out there. So being that simple, comparatively speaking,

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Speaker 1: was a benefit for anyone who wanted to make content.

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Speaker 1: You had restrictions you had to work within, and you

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Speaker 1: couldn't try and tackle a game that was too complicated

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Speaker 1: because there literally weren't any machines that could run those games,

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Speaker 1: so you could be a generalist and find success. This

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Speaker 1: was an era before the World Wide Web. The Internet

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Speaker 1: itself did technically exist, but it was very young and

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Speaker 1: limited to eggheads and research facilities and universities. Jason Reuben

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Speaker 1: and Andy Gavin didn't even have the benefit of a

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Speaker 1: large library of computer programming books to pull from, because

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Speaker 1: it was still a pretty young yield. There were books

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Speaker 1: on programming, but they were few and far between and

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Speaker 1: they weren't necessarily easy to find, so they did their best.

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Speaker 1: They worked together. They read a magazine called Bite Magazine

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Speaker 1: that had a lot of programming tips inside of it,

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Speaker 1: and they would occasionally consult with other people on computer

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Speaker 1: forums that were on bulletin board systems and things like

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Speaker 1: that in order to get a little more information. Uh

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Speaker 1: Reuben would refer to them as Gandolf's. There would be

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Speaker 1: someone who would have at least a little more information

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Speaker 1: than you did, and they were happy to share it.

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Speaker 1: And they learned largely through this process and through teaching themselves.

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Speaker 1: Their first real collaboration was a faithful port of an

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Speaker 1: existing game. That game was Nintendo's Punch Out. It took

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Speaker 1: them somewhere between a year and a year and a

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Speaker 1: half to make this game. They did a really good

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Speaker 1: job of copying the game. They painstakingly studied every single

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Speaker 1: frame of animation so that they could recreate it in

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Speaker 1: their own version, but then reality popped in to give

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Speaker 1: the two boys their first lesson. Jason's father was a

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Speaker 1: lawyer who specialized in intellectual property law, and he told

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Speaker 1: the boys that copying someone else's game might be a

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Speaker 1: good way to practice programming, but you couldn't actually legally

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Speaker 1: sell it because you'd be infringing on copyright. Now, initially

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Speaker 1: that did not actually stop them from working on the game,

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Speaker 1: but then fate stepped in and forced them to change

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Speaker 1: because while making a backup copy of a working, almost

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Speaker 1: perfect part of the game, they accidentally erased it. They

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Speaker 1: erased the whole game. See, in those days, we would

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Speaker 1: store these games on floppy disks, external floppy disks. You'd

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Speaker 1: put one in the disk drive. You would save your

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Speaker 1: work to the floppy disk and it would exist there.

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Speaker 1: And apparently what happened was they accidentally copied a blank

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Speaker 1: disc over top of their master disc holding the code

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Speaker 1: for the game, and they erased it. It overwrote the data.

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Speaker 1: If you listen to my episode about the process of deleting,

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Speaker 1: you know, one to overwrite data on a on a

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Speaker 1: piece of media, it's gone. And that's what happened. They

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Speaker 1: got rid of the source code for their game. And

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Speaker 1: erased all of that work that had taken more than

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Speaker 1: a year to put together, and so the teenagers went

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Speaker 1: back to the drawing board. Their goal was to create

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Speaker 1: a game that they could potentially sell to someone. So

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Speaker 1: they worked on another game for the Apple two, and

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Speaker 1: they had our working game ready to go in night five.

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Speaker 1: It was an educational title and it was called math Jam,

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Speaker 1: and they had also come up with a name for

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Speaker 1: their company they incorporated in four. Actually that name was

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Speaker 1: JAM Software. Jam was an acronym that stood for Jason

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Speaker 1: and Andy's Magic. They self published this game, math Jam.

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Speaker 1: That meant at the time that you would create a game,

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Speaker 1: you would put it on a floppy disc, you would

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Speaker 1: make copies onto other floppy disks, you'd throw those copies

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Speaker 1: into ziplock bags, put a cop a photo copy sheet

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Speaker 1: of instructions in the bag with the game, and then

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Speaker 1: you would try and sell it to various customers. Typically

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Speaker 1: it was a computer store, but sometimes it was something else.

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Speaker 1: And because it was educational, they were hoping to see

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Speaker 1: if they could get the game accepted into school curricula

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Speaker 1: and sell it to school systems. They figured that was

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Speaker 1: a big market, that it was a pretty sure thing.

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Speaker 1: But while they did not count on is that schools

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Speaker 1: have typically a pretty bureaucratic organization with layers of approval

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Speaker 1: that were necessary for any game to be accepted into

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Speaker 1: the school system. And rather than try and navigate that,

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Speaker 1: the two boys decided that they would cut their losses

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Speaker 1: and walk away from math Jam and create something else.

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Speaker 1: They wanted to regroup and create a different title. Now

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Speaker 1: this time, they wanted to create an original title, something

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Speaker 1: that wasn't a copy of an existing game, and they

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Speaker 1: wanted to just be a game first and foremost not

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Speaker 1: necessarily an educational title, because it would mean that they

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Speaker 1: would work on something that they both loved and there

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be any bureaucratic roadblocks in the way. There's no

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Speaker 1: approval process, or at least there wasn't at the time

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Speaker 1: to get a game that you created out to market

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Speaker 1: if it was just for a general audience. Now, Ruben

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Speaker 1: had an earlier project he had been working on that

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Speaker 1: he was inspired to create after his family went on

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Speaker 1: a ski trip, and the original title for this project

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Speaker 1: was Ski stud It featured the enlightened plot of a

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Speaker 1: skier who's going down a mountain slope and your job

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Speaker 1: is to get to the bottom and then relax in

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Speaker 1: a hot tub with a couple of really attractive women.

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Speaker 1: That was the concept behind the game, so you know,

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Speaker 1: teenage fantasy stuff. Gavin suggested that they revisit Ruben's game

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Speaker 1: idea and punch it up. So Gavin took Reuben's original game,

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Speaker 1: which had been programmed in Basic, and he said, this

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Speaker 1: is too slow. The game is not very fun to

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Speaker 1: play because everything's moving at a crawling speed because you've

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Speaker 1: you've programmed it in Basic. So he took the idea

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Speaker 1: and he reprogrammed it in Assembly language, which had the

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Speaker 1: benefit of speeding everything up and making the game feel

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Speaker 1: more like you know, a game now. Reuben had used

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Speaker 1: a few tools to create the art for this game.

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Speaker 1: One of them was a tool setiment for a totally

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Speaker 1: different type of game. It was called Pinball Construction Set

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Speaker 1: and it was published by Electronic Arts. Ruben used a

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Speaker 1: tablet device to input changes to art, so it was

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Speaker 1: directly connected to his computer and he would try and

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Speaker 1: draw things on this tablet. It was not as precise

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Speaker 1: as he would like. There was like a three pixel

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Speaker 1: in precision there, so if you're trying to do some

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Speaker 1: fine detail it was very easy for a pixel next

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Speaker 1: to the one you wanted to create to pop up,

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Speaker 1: so there's a lot of racing and trying again, and

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Speaker 1: racing and trying against very slow process. Also, to make

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Speaker 1: it more challenging, there was no native solution to exporting

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Speaker 1: the art to incorporate it into their game because it

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Speaker 1: wasn't meant to be used to create art for other games.

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Speaker 1: So in order for him to get his art off

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Speaker 1: this tool set and to import it into the game,

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Speaker 1: he would actually have to do a hard reset on

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Speaker 1: his Apple two computer. So in other words, he had

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Speaker 1: to turn his computer off, turn it back on, and

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Speaker 1: then the art he had created would be stored in

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Speaker 1: the cash memory of the computer, so before he could

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Speaker 1: do anything else, he would pull that data off of

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Speaker 1: his machine. Which is a pretty janggie way of creating

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Speaker 1: graphics for your computer game, but it was really one

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Speaker 1: of the few options that they had. The other tool

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Speaker 1: they were using came from a Michigan based company called

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Speaker 1: Baudeville b a U d V I l l E.

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Speaker 1: That company had a policy which was if you wanted

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Speaker 1: to use their their tools to create a game, you could,

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Speaker 1: but in order to publish that game. You had to

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Speaker 1: get permission from Baudeville, and you had to pay a

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollar licensing fee, essentially, So the two

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Speaker 1: submitted the game their Ski Game to bod Bill, and

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Speaker 1: Bobyville's response was, hey, nice game. Tell you what, We

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Speaker 1: can publish this game for you, So we'll take over

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Speaker 1: the publishing, which the boys thoughts sound like a great idea.

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Speaker 1: All the hard work of copying the game onto disks

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Speaker 1: and getting that distributed to different stores would be on

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Speaker 1: the publisher side and not on their shoulders. In return,

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Speaker 1: Bodeville offered jam Software the princely sum of two hundred

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Speaker 1: fifty dollars for the game, plus a two dollar royalty

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Speaker 1: for every copy sold, and they jumped at this opportunity.

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Speaker 1: They were over the moon when the game came out

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Speaker 1: because it was in a box and everything. It was

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Speaker 1: like a real game. And these are two teenagers. Remember

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Speaker 1: they're like fourteen fifteen years old at this point. There

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Speaker 1: are no zip block bags. It was actually a legit product.

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Speaker 1: The game sold around one thousand, five hundred copies, which is,

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Speaker 1: you know, laughable these days, you would call that a

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Speaker 1: colossal failure in to day's days, day's numbers rather, but

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Speaker 1: Gavin Rubin felt like they had the jackpot. They got

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Speaker 1: two dollars out of every copy sold in fifteen copies

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Speaker 1: meant three grand is fifteen hundred dollars apiece. When you're

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Speaker 1: fourteen or fifteen years old. Fifteen hundred dollars is a

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Speaker 1: heck of a lot of money. So they were able

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Speaker 1: to actually take that money and reinvested into their company.

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Speaker 1: They bought new computers when they needed them. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: they felt like they were rolling in it. They were like,

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Speaker 1: this is this is real success. What's more, Bodeville was

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Speaker 1: open to publishing more of their games so they could

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Speaker 1: create another one for the same company. Their next title

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Speaker 1: was one called dream Zone. This one would release in

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Speaker 1: n seven, and this was the only other game that

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Speaker 1: the two made under the company name JAM Software. It

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Speaker 1: was the last one, and this was an adventure game

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Speaker 1: in which the player would control a character who has

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Speaker 1: been trapped within his own dream. The title got some

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Speaker 1: critical praise from early computer gaming magazines and propelled the

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Speaker 1: sales to ten thousand units, which meant the two game

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Speaker 1: developers made about fifteen thousand dollars from their work, not

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Speaker 1: bad at all when you're a teenager. But they weren't

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Speaker 1: satisfied with stopping there. They were just getting started and

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Speaker 1: they had a big idea that probably should not have worked,

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Speaker 1: but it totally worked. They made a cold call to

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Speaker 1: the front desk of Electronic Arts. Now that means they

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Speaker 1: didn't know anyone at e A. They just called the

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Speaker 1: reception desk and they said, hey, we would like to

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Speaker 1: make games for you, and so e A, for their part, said,

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Speaker 1: tell you what, fed access a couple of your games.

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Speaker 1: Let us see what you've made so far, and we'll

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Speaker 1: get back to you. So they did. They sent copies

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Speaker 1: of their games to the offices of EA, and then

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Speaker 1: they received a call a little bit later that said,

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Speaker 1: we want you to make games for us. We're ready

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Speaker 1: to sell to to get a contract between us and you.

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Speaker 1: You can make games for us for real money. They

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Speaker 1: were offering a deal that was fifteen thousand dollars plus

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Speaker 1: ten percent of the revenue of the next game they

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Speaker 1: would make, which the two thought wasn't amazingly awesome. My

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Speaker 1: idea was fantastic. They were gonna guaranteed fifteen grand the

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Speaker 1: amount they had made on their previous game, plus ten

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Speaker 1: percent royalty fees and That's how they hit the big time.

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Speaker 1: But e A did have one condition. The company had

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Speaker 1: to change its name because, as it turns out, there

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Speaker 1: was already another company called Jam Software, so they had

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Speaker 1: to come up with something different, and they began to brainstorm.

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Speaker 1: Now sadly, the origins of the name Naughty Dog are

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Speaker 1: lost to time, because neither Reuben nor Gavin can remember

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Speaker 1: who came up with the name or why. They do

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Speaker 1: remember that they had essentially twenty four hours to create

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Speaker 1: a new name for their company because e A wanted

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Speaker 1: that contract signed right away. I wish I could say

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Speaker 1: there was a cool story about a dog eating a

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Speaker 1: floppy disc containing the next game, but we'll just have

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Speaker 1: to accept that at some point during those twenty four

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Speaker 1: hours one of the two of them wrote down Naughty

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Speaker 1: Dog as a possibility, and they decided in the end

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Speaker 1: to go with it, and thus Naughty Dog was officially born.

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Speaker 1: The first game they made for e A was called

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Speaker 1: Keith the Thief. There's a role playing game that came

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Speaker 1: out for the Apple to gs, the Amiga, and the

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Speaker 1: PC systems. The Apple version in particular got a really

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Speaker 1: nasty review. In fact, it got a do not recommend

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Speaker 1: buying review not because of the game itself, but because

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Speaker 1: e A had put on some copy protection on top

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Speaker 1: of the game that the reviewers felt essentially broke the

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Speaker 1: experience of trying to play it. Anyone who has dealt

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Speaker 1: with draconian copy protection strategies knows what this is like,

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Speaker 1: where the protection for the game actually impedes your ability

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Speaker 1: to play the game and can sometimes encourage people to

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Speaker 1: seek out pirate id and broken copies of the game,

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Speaker 1: things where people have broken the encryption around the game

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Speaker 1: just so that you can play the game you want

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Speaker 1: to play. It's one of the reasons why pirates will

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Speaker 1: point to game studios and say they brought this on themselves.

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Speaker 1: I don't think that's necessarily a fair statement. However, I

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Speaker 1: don't blame people for going out and seeking a version

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Speaker 1: of a game that is actually playable. If I bought

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Speaker 1: one of these games and I found that the copy

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Speaker 1: protection was making it impossible to play, I imagine I

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Speaker 1: too would look for a different solution, one that perhaps

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Speaker 1: had already had the copy protection broken. So I totally

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Speaker 1: get it. And anyway, they encountered this and that really

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Speaker 1: kind of hurt their sales figures. They didn't do too

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Speaker 1: well with Keith the Thief. However, that was just the

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Speaker 1: first game for e A and largely was kind of

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Speaker 1: swept under the rug. Their next one was A Friend Story.

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Speaker 1: Their second game was the most ambitious of theirs to date,

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Speaker 1: and it was also their entry into the world of consoles.

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Speaker 1: So by now we're getting up to nineteen. The two

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Speaker 1: friends were going off to college, and it was two

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Speaker 1: different colleges in two different states. Jason Rubin would attend

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Speaker 1: the University of Michigan. Andy Gavin got accepted into the

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Speaker 1: Haverford College in Pennsylvania. They collaborated over the phone and

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Speaker 1: they used dial up modems to send information back and forth,

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Speaker 1: but it was a very slow process and to make

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Speaker 1: matters more challenging, they had picked an ambitious project as

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Speaker 1: their next pitch to e A. Originally was going to

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Speaker 1: be a computer game, a PC game, and it was

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Speaker 1: going to be a complex role playing game called Rings

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Speaker 1: of Power. But they had a meeting over at Electronic

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Speaker 1: Arts and when they were at this meeting, Andy Gavin

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Speaker 1: looks over and he sees something interesting. He sees this

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Speaker 1: weird shiny box with a whole bunch of wires coming

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Speaker 1: out of it and it was seeming to run a

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Speaker 1: game from a console system, and he asked the people

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Speaker 1: that e A said, is that A reverse engineered Sega Genesis. Immediately,

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Speaker 1: according to Andy Gavins, some e A officials swept them

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Speaker 1: into an office and said, yeah, we're gonna need you

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Speaker 1: to sign an inn d A, a non disclosure agreement

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Speaker 1: so that you don't tell people that you saw this here,

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Speaker 1: because this is not something that we're ready to talk

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Speaker 1: about yet. So then Gavin says, does this mean we

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Speaker 1: should start developing games for the Sega Genesis? And the

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Speaker 1: guys that e A said, that would be an excellent idea.

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Speaker 1: The second best idea you could have right now. The

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Speaker 1: best idea you could have right now is to sign

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Speaker 1: the in d A. So they did and only talked

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Speaker 1: about it years and years later when no one really cares.

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Speaker 1: But they decided, well, maybe we should develop Rings of

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Speaker 1: Power for the Genesis, not for the PC, and they

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Speaker 1: decided to switch gears. It took some time to at

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Speaker 1: the game together since they were living in different states

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Speaker 1: and also had schoolwork to attend to, although Andy Gavin

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Speaker 1: said he was spending maybe two or three hours a

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Speaker 1: day on his schoolwork and the rest of the time

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Speaker 1: he was working on developing games. But in the end

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Speaker 1: they produced a game that was one of the most

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Speaker 1: robust console based RPGs of its time, and it was

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Speaker 1: largely Andy Gavin's project. It was an idea he was

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Speaker 1: really excited about, and Jason Rubin did a lot of

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Speaker 1: work on it. It's not like he didn't contribute, but

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Speaker 1: it was kind of Andy Gavin's pet project, the one

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Speaker 1: he really wanted to do. It went gold in and

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Speaker 1: it did really well. It sold like a hundred thousand copies.

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Speaker 1: That's not anything to sneeze at, and it had the

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Speaker 1: potential to sell a whole lot more. It was getting

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Speaker 1: great reviews, and then the two hit a problem that

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Speaker 1: almost made them walk away from developing games entirely. What happened, well,

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Speaker 1: I'll tell you, but first let's take quick break to

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Speaker 1: thank our sponsor. All Right, So why would Ruben and

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Speaker 1: Gavin leave game development if they were doing such a

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Speaker 1: great job with Rings of Power? What would make them

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Speaker 1: walk away? The issue came down to a lack of

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Speaker 1: control with politics and economics. Sega Genesis games were on cartridges,

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Speaker 1: so making a cartridge is a hardware manufacturing process. The

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Speaker 1: games are hard coded onto the cartridge itself, so if

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Speaker 1: you contrast that with games on floppy disks or c

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Speaker 1: d s, those are just blank media. You can write

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Speaker 1: to them directly. It doesn't take any special equipment. You're

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Speaker 1: not creating a circuit board, but a cartridge. Essentially that

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Speaker 1: is a circuit board. Then the circuit board, the physical

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Speaker 1: circuit board itself, represents the game. So every cartridge is

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Speaker 1: unique to the specific game. You can't override a cartridge

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Speaker 1: and put a different game on it. So it takes

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00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:03,360
Speaker 1: time and resources to put together cartridges, and that limits

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00:22:03,760 --> 00:22:06,040
Speaker 1: how many you can make. It's all based on your

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Speaker 1: capacity of your manufacturing facility. You're physically limited by that fact. Now,

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Speaker 1: if Rings of Power had been the only major game

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Speaker 1: coming out that season, Sega probably could have put more

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Speaker 1: manufacturing power behind it and turned it into a colossal hit.

393
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Speaker 1: But there was another game that was coming out at

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Speaker 1: that same time and it was an even bigger sensation.

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Speaker 1: That game was Madden. It was an American football game. Uh,

396
00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:35,960
Speaker 1: it's part of an incredibly popular franchise that has gone

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Speaker 1: across multiple platforms and spanned decades. So there's an incredible

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Speaker 1: call for Madden Games. There's a guaranteed audience that's going

399
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Speaker 1: to buy Madden year over year, so that game was

400
00:22:49,359 --> 00:22:52,119
Speaker 1: pretty much guaranteed to sell out. The company had to

401
00:22:52,119 --> 00:22:54,240
Speaker 1: make a choice. Do you go with the game that's

402
00:22:54,359 --> 00:22:56,959
Speaker 1: essentially guaranteed to sell out, or do you try and

403
00:22:56,960 --> 00:22:59,560
Speaker 1: push a game that's doing well but doesn't have a

404
00:22:59,560 --> 00:23:02,440
Speaker 1: built in audience, And they went with the easy money decision.

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Speaker 1: As any company would, they went with Madden. Ruben and

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00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:08,760
Speaker 1: Gavin were discouraged by this decision because they had worked

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Speaker 1: really hard to create what they thought was an extremely

408
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Speaker 1: good role playing game, and they felt that only a

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Speaker 1: fraction of their potential audience was ever going to get

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Speaker 1: a chance to play it because they literally wouldn't have

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Speaker 1: enough copies of it made to meet the demand. So

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Speaker 1: they were ready to focus on their schoolwork and call

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Speaker 1: it quits. They had already achieved a great deal of

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Speaker 1: success in the gaming world, so they felt like it

415
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Speaker 1: wasn't a shame to walk away from it. So any

416
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Speaker 1: Gavin went and enrolled in graduate school at m i T.

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Speaker 1: He was studying computer science and artificial intelligence. Jason Rubin

418
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Speaker 1: moved out to California and he had a goal of

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Speaker 1: getting into the special effects industry while picking up a

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Speaker 1: new skill set that would be surfing, and they figured

421
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Speaker 1: they had retired from making games and that retirement would

422
00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:55,760
Speaker 1: last about half a year. In nine they got a

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Speaker 1: phone call from a guy named William Murray Hawkins, the

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00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:03,639
Speaker 1: third better known as Trip Hawkins. Now, Ruby and Gavin

425
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:07,200
Speaker 1: have described Trip as a phenomenal salesman who has sort

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Speaker 1: of the reality distortion field, similar to what people would

427
00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:15,400
Speaker 1: say Steve Jobs was capable of doing. Tripp had founded

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Speaker 1: Electronic Arts way back in nine two, but he had

429
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Speaker 1: left e A in n to create a new video

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Speaker 1: game console company, and that console company was called three

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00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:28,880
Speaker 1: d O. The console itself was coming out in nine

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Speaker 1: and it was at that time the most powerful console

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Speaker 1: on the market. But Hawkins needed developers to create games

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00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:39,120
Speaker 1: for this new platform, and he felt that Naughty Dog

435
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:41,800
Speaker 1: was the right studio to create a killer game. Now,

436
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:44,959
Speaker 1: despite feeling like they had been burned on their previous title,

437
00:24:45,280 --> 00:24:47,440
Speaker 1: the two agreed that they would develop a game for

438
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:49,760
Speaker 1: the three d Oh system. And one of the reasons

439
00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:53,320
Speaker 1: that they decided this, you know, they had just been

440
00:24:53,320 --> 00:24:55,359
Speaker 1: burned by e A, so they didn't really want to

441
00:24:55,400 --> 00:24:58,359
Speaker 1: do it. But what changed their mind was that Hawkins said, Hey,

442
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:02,399
Speaker 1: here's the thing. We're not using cartridges. You're not going

443
00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:05,520
Speaker 1: to have a rings of power situation here. We're using

444
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:10,280
Speaker 1: compact discs, so we can write information to those discs easily.

445
00:25:10,359 --> 00:25:14,119
Speaker 1: The manufacturing process is a breeze compared to creating cartridges,

446
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 1: so you're never going to run into that situation where

447
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 1: a company is going to make one game more than

448
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:23,280
Speaker 1: another game because of manufacturing issues. That's just not a

449
00:25:23,320 --> 00:25:26,000
Speaker 1: problem here. So with that in mind, the two accepted

450
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:29,359
Speaker 1: a developer machine for the three D O and they

451
00:25:29,400 --> 00:25:32,440
Speaker 1: got to work. Now, developer machines are machines upon which

452
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 1: you can program your games tested on there because it

453
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:38,960
Speaker 1: will run the hard the software just as the consumer

454
00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:42,200
Speaker 1: hardware would, but it has more capabilities than a consumer

455
00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:44,760
Speaker 1: version of the three D O. They looked around and

456
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 1: what was popular in arcades, and they saw that fighting

457
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:52,560
Speaker 1: games were breaking all the records. Games like Mortal Kombat

458
00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:56,359
Speaker 1: and Street Fighter were gobbling up quarters left and right.

459
00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:59,280
Speaker 1: But the two felt that no one had really nailed

460
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:02,040
Speaker 1: it for the home on soul market, and they noticed

461
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:05,480
Speaker 1: that no one had signed up to create such a

462
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:07,679
Speaker 1: game for the three d OH. There was no Mortal

463
00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:09,639
Speaker 1: Kombat that was on its way to the three d O,

464
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 1: no Street Fighter, so there was opportunity there, and they

465
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:17,359
Speaker 1: got to work immediately on a new piece of intellectual

466
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:20,560
Speaker 1: property called Way of the Warrior. And if you look

467
00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:23,719
Speaker 1: at Way of the Warrior, you could immediately say this

468
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 1: was obviously influenced by Mortal Kombat. By influence, I mean

469
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:31,800
Speaker 1: you could argue that it's a distant cousin to Mortal Kombat,

470
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:36,360
Speaker 1: complete with finishing moves that look a lot like Fatalities, uh,

471
00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:40,320
Speaker 1: cast of characters that resemble that sort of Mortal Kombat approach,

472
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:44,600
Speaker 1: and those characters all had backstories and unique move sets

473
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: so similar in many ways to Mortal Kombat. Initially, they

474
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:51,879
Speaker 1: had no publisher for that game. Ruben and Gavin self

475
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:55,440
Speaker 1: funded the development using the money they had earned from

476
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:58,320
Speaker 1: Rings of Power. It took them about a year and

477
00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:01,040
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand dollars of their own money to make

478
00:27:01,080 --> 00:27:04,760
Speaker 1: the game. The characters are actually modeled after their friends.

479
00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:09,359
Speaker 1: A lot of Andy Gavin's classmates are characters in Way

480
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 1: of the Warrior. One of his professors, a guy who

481
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:14,679
Speaker 1: was a leading expert on robotics, is a character in

482
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:17,720
Speaker 1: the game. Another person who became an expert in protein

483
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:21,119
Speaker 1: folding and was a candidate for the Nobel Prize is

484
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: one of the characters in the game. It's one of

485
00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 1: the most illustrious fighting rosters I've ever seen, but only

486
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:29,520
Speaker 1: if you count the people playing the characters, not the

487
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:33,960
Speaker 1: characters themselves. As for the production of the game, they

488
00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:37,919
Speaker 1: really made the most out of their situation. Andy Gavin

489
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:42,200
Speaker 1: was renting an apartment in Boston and Jason Rubin would

490
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:45,400
Speaker 1: go there and work out of that same apartment. They

491
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:48,360
Speaker 1: had their friends dress up in ridiculous costumes that were

492
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 1: made with whatever stuff they happened to have nearby, including

493
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:55,239
Speaker 1: and I am not making this up, hello, cases and

494
00:27:55,320 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 1: containers from fast food restaurants. They made costume pieces out

495
00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:02,200
Speaker 1: of all of this stuff, and that's what the characters

496
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: in the game are wearing now. To the credit of

497
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: the game. It doesn't look as cheesy as I'm making

498
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 1: it sound, but they were really just kind of making

499
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:13,480
Speaker 1: all this stuff up as they were going along while

500
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 1: trying to build out the game. I think of it

501
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:17,280
Speaker 1: as being really kind of cool and dorky at the

502
00:28:17,320 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 1: same time. I totally approve of it. By the way,

503
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:21,640
Speaker 1: now they had no publisher, so they had no one

504
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 1: they had to answer to. But eventually they were going

505
00:28:24,359 --> 00:28:26,800
Speaker 1: to need a publisher because they're going to need someone

506
00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 1: to take over the production side of actually making and

507
00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:32,159
Speaker 1: shipping copies of the game. So it's gonna be for

508
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:34,199
Speaker 1: the three d O, but they needed to partner with

509
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:37,240
Speaker 1: somebody to produce it for the three d O. They

510
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 1: ended up attending a trade show and they began to

511
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:43,920
Speaker 1: shop their game around. They essentially got an eight ft

512
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:46,760
Speaker 1: by eight foot square of the three d O booth

513
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 1: at E three and they demonstrated their game. Now, publishers

514
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: would come up and ask them, Hey, who's publishing this game,

515
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:57,640
Speaker 1: and they said, no one yet, we're actually looking for

516
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: a publisher. And this was something very different rent from

517
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 1: the typical way that things would work at trade shows. Generally,

518
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:09,120
Speaker 1: publishers get pitches from established teams that have an idea,

519
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:12,239
Speaker 1: but they have not actually started a game, or they

520
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:16,320
Speaker 1: certainly haven't finished one, so this was a brand new experience.

521
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:19,920
Speaker 1: They ended up creating something of a bidding war between

522
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 1: publishers because here was a game that was fully finished.

523
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:24,680
Speaker 1: Publishers didn't have to wonder how it was going to

524
00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 1: turn out. They could see the game, and they started

525
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 1: to you know, court Naughty Dog, saying, hey, come over here,

526
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:34,600
Speaker 1: we'll publish the game for you. The winner of that

527
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 1: bidding war was the Universal Studios, as in the movie

528
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 1: production company. Universal was deciding they wanted to get into

529
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 1: the video game business and they started to acquire smaller

530
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 1: companies to create the Universal Interactive brand of computer games,

531
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:53,080
Speaker 1: and they gave the two an offer they couldn't refuse.

532
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 1: The studio would actually provide office space for Naughty Dog.

533
00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:01,480
Speaker 1: They would also provide support staff, and all of that

534
00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:04,920
Speaker 1: would be on Universal's dime. It wouldn't be a charge

535
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 1: to Naughty Dog at all. They would get free studio

536
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 1: space in Hollywood, California, on the Universal Studio's lot, right

537
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:16,800
Speaker 1: next door to the office of a certain Mr. Steven Spielberg.

538
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:20,960
Speaker 1: So they agreed now to take this opportunity. Andy Gavin

539
00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 1: actually had to drop out of graduate school. He had

540
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 1: been working towards his master's degree, and this was not

541
00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: an easy or light decision. His dad was reportedly very

542
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 1: much against this idea, but ultimately he figured this was

543
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: a way he could chase his dream job. As part

544
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:41,440
Speaker 1: of this agreement, the two were signed to create a

545
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 1: few games for Universal. Gavin and Ruben would take a

546
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 1: cross country road trip from Boston to Hollywood with all

547
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 1: of their possessions either in their car or in a

548
00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:55,640
Speaker 1: truck that was following along behind the car. Along the way,

549
00:30:55,720 --> 00:30:59,000
Speaker 1: the two brainstormed ideas for what their next game would be,

550
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 1: and they toss around several possibilities, such as another fighting

551
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 1: game that would take advantage of the three D capabilities

552
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:09,080
Speaker 1: that consoles now could support, because suddenly, with consoles like

553
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:11,960
Speaker 1: the three D O and the next generation of consoles,

554
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 1: you could incorporate three dimensional aspects into your game when

555
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:19,560
Speaker 1: before it was all too D. That opened up a

556
00:31:19,600 --> 00:31:23,360
Speaker 1: world of opportunities. But ultimately they decided to put all

557
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:25,920
Speaker 1: these other ideas on the back shelf and they started

558
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:30,920
Speaker 1: talking about platformers that had traditionally been side scrolling games,

559
00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:36,320
Speaker 1: games like Super Mario Brothers or Donkey Kong Country from Nintendo.

560
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 1: They both loved Donkey Kong Country. They loved the art style,

561
00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:43,080
Speaker 1: they loved the gameplay, and they got to thinking about

562
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 1: the possibility of creating that style of game but using

563
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:48,640
Speaker 1: the capability of going in three dimensions with it adding

564
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 1: real depth to the game, like, what if instead of

565
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 1: running left to right, the character was running forward from

566
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 1: your perspective or towards you. That suddenly opened up new

567
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 1: sabilities for game playing, new challenges, and that got them

568
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:06,200
Speaker 1: really excited. By the time they finally reached California, they

569
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:08,160
Speaker 1: knew their next project was going to be a three

570
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 1: D based platform er, and they even had a general

571
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 1: idea of what the story and setting we're going to be,

572
00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 1: but that's about all they knew at that point. Now

573
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:22,960
Speaker 1: they jokingly referred to the game as Sonics Ass was

574
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: named after Sonic the Hedgehog. The reason they called it

575
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:27,960
Speaker 1: this is they imagine that the game was going to

576
00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 1: be where the player controlled the character, where their back

577
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:33,600
Speaker 1: was going to be to the player's perspective, so you're

578
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:38,360
Speaker 1: always looking at the backside of your protagonist. And it

579
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 1: turns out that that side scroller going to a front

580
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:45,120
Speaker 1: or back scroller would mean this, and since you'd be

581
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 1: looking at the rear end as of this as yet

582
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:51,120
Speaker 1: unnamed character, they chose sonics Ass as a quick descriptor.

583
00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:53,680
Speaker 1: At this stage, they had no idea what form this

584
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:55,840
Speaker 1: character was going to take or what its name might

585
00:32:55,880 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 1: eventually be, but they did have those big ideas, they

586
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 1: only knew that they wanted to have a heavily story

587
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:06,480
Speaker 1: driven game with lots of cut scenes and plot details

588
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:10,280
Speaker 1: interwoven into the experience. Now, ultimately a lot of their

589
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 1: ideas would end up on the cutting room floor, not

590
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:16,520
Speaker 1: because they thought they weren't good ideas, but because the

591
00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 1: consoles they were working on ultimately could not really support

592
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 1: that level of detail or that level of memory requirements.

593
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:30,240
Speaker 1: So just from a technological standpoint, they had to cut back,

594
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 1: but it was a starting point. Universal was putting an

595
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 1: executive team in place to oversee the game development division,

596
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 1: which was not just Naughty Dog and included other divisions

597
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:42,720
Speaker 1: as well other other former companies that were brought on

598
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 1: under a Universal. So Naughty Dog had an executive producer

599
00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:49,520
Speaker 1: from Universal named Mark Sarney, who was tuned into what

600
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:51,520
Speaker 1: was going on in the business of video games. He

601
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 1: was a very smart guy, and he worked very closely

602
00:33:54,320 --> 00:33:56,320
Speaker 1: with Ruben and Gavin to figure out where the team

603
00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 1: would go next. Now, as Reuben would relate later on,

604
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:03,600
Speaker 1: Way of the Warrior became the last of the garage

605
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:07,760
Speaker 1: games produced by Naughty Dog, the last game that just

606
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:10,960
Speaker 1: the two of them would work on independently, sort of

607
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:15,840
Speaker 1: as a scrappy little company that could to take the

608
00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 1: next step, they needed to put a team together and

609
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:21,879
Speaker 1: expand beyond this two man operation. It was suddenly too

610
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:24,560
Speaker 1: much work for just two people to do on any

611
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:27,439
Speaker 1: you know, reasonable time frame. By the time you would

612
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:30,759
Speaker 1: produce a game with just two people, the console you're

613
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 1: developing for would be out of date. So with Serny,

614
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:37,480
Speaker 1: they set out to find a good team. At this point,

615
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:41,399
Speaker 1: Ruben and Gavin were twenty four years old and they

616
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:45,719
Speaker 1: had never hired anyone before. Their interview process was perhaps,

617
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 1: let's say, a little casual. One of the first employees

618
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 1: was a guy Andy Gavin had met in grad school

619
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:54,919
Speaker 1: at M I. T. His name was Dave Baggett, and

620
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 1: he joined the programming team. Taylor Kurosaki was a universal

621
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:01,920
Speaker 1: visual effects artist. He worked in an office a floor

622
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:06,719
Speaker 1: below Naughty Dog, and he would visit Naughty Dogs offices frequently.

623
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:09,400
Speaker 1: He was big into games and really interested in what

624
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 1: they had to do, and he also admired the computers

625
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:14,880
Speaker 1: and software that Naughty Dog had at its access. And

626
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:18,440
Speaker 1: they had some of the most cutting edge computers and

627
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 1: software available at the time, and he really wanted a

628
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:25,480
Speaker 1: chance to work on that type of machinery and that

629
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 1: type of software. It was the sort of stuff that

630
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:30,240
Speaker 1: was used in ground bake breaking visual effects for movies

631
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:33,400
Speaker 1: like Jurassic Park. So eventually Jason Rubin just said, hey,

632
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:34,920
Speaker 1: why don't you just come over here and work for us,

633
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:36,480
Speaker 1: and then you can use these machines all the time.

634
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:41,000
Speaker 1: He said, okay. They also approached an artist named Bob Rothe,

635
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:44,680
Speaker 1: who was being courted by Sega at the time. Rothe

636
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:48,920
Speaker 1: was actually looking at several potential job opportunities, but he

637
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:51,760
Speaker 1: said that Ruben and Gavin had such a bootstrap approach

638
00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:54,160
Speaker 1: and a good attitude that he chose to join Naughty

639
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:56,800
Speaker 1: Dog rather than what could have been a more lucrative

640
00:35:56,840 --> 00:35:59,839
Speaker 1: starting position at a different company. They also went on

641
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:05,160
Speaker 1: who contract higher two animators, Charles Simbillis and Joe Pearson.

642
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 1: They had worked on major cartoons like an American Tale,

643
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:12,319
Speaker 1: you know, the five Old movies. The artists and programmers

644
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 1: got to work. They started to figure out what the

645
00:36:14,680 --> 00:36:17,680
Speaker 1: game would be and who the protagonist should be. Ruben

646
00:36:17,719 --> 00:36:19,920
Speaker 1: and Gavin had already worked out a lot of those

647
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:22,600
Speaker 1: story elements, including thoughts on the setting and the villain,

648
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:25,400
Speaker 1: but they still had not yet nailed down what the

649
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:29,040
Speaker 1: hero was going to be. Around the same time, Naughty

650
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:32,120
Speaker 1: Dog was looking to see which console they'd ultimately developed

651
00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:35,880
Speaker 1: the game for. The three d O despite Trip Hawkins

652
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:39,120
Speaker 1: work was not taking off. It just wasn't doing well

653
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:41,319
Speaker 1: in the market place. It might have been a little

654
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:43,840
Speaker 1: bit ahead of its time. The best known variant of

655
00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:46,319
Speaker 1: the three d O was made by Panasonic, but in

656
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:48,640
Speaker 1: fact the console was a platform that could be licensed

657
00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:52,200
Speaker 1: out to different manufacturing companies, so there were competing versions

658
00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 1: of the three d O on the market. You could

659
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:56,560
Speaker 1: get a Panasonic three d OH, but there were other

660
00:36:56,600 --> 00:37:00,200
Speaker 1: companies that were also making licensed three d O consoles,

661
00:37:00,239 --> 00:37:04,840
Speaker 1: and that maybe confused the marketplace a little bit. It

662
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: was also an expensive system, and while it predated the PlayStation,

663
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 1: it couldn't gain enough traction in the market to be

664
00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:14,600
Speaker 1: a real contender, despite the fact that clearly was more

665
00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 1: powerful than other consoles that were out at the same time.

666
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:20,239
Speaker 1: A little bit later, in nineteen ninety six, the three

667
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:24,440
Speaker 1: d O would go dark for good, but in Sony

668
00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:26,600
Speaker 1: was gearing up to become a new leader in the

669
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:30,560
Speaker 1: industry and rest control away from Nintendo and to a

670
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:34,200
Speaker 1: lesser degree, from Sega. Naughty Dog in Universal turned their

671
00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:37,799
Speaker 1: attention to this newly emerging console, which would be known

672
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 1: as the PlayStation, and Naughty Dog employees got an early

673
00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:44,799
Speaker 1: look at the console at E three and nine, so

674
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:47,400
Speaker 1: they knew which console was going to be home to

675
00:37:47,440 --> 00:37:49,759
Speaker 1: their game. Although originally they were hoping to make it

676
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:53,360
Speaker 1: a multi platform game and sell it across multiple platforms

677
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:56,680
Speaker 1: like consoles and computers, they were eventually convinced to go

678
00:37:57,000 --> 00:38:00,400
Speaker 1: PlayStation exclusive in exchange for a really good deal with Sony.

679
00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:03,920
Speaker 1: Ruben and Gavin were determined that whatever character they made

680
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:07,919
Speaker 1: would be so compelling that Sony would start to think

681
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:11,320
Speaker 1: of it as a mascot for the PlayStation because Nintendo

682
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 1: had Mario, Sega had Sonic, but without a mascot, the

683
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 1: PlayStation was bound to launch without an iconic character. So

684
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:25,600
Speaker 1: they knew they needed a hero. They needed Willie the Wombat.

685
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:28,080
Speaker 1: Are you folks out there who know your video games

686
00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:30,319
Speaker 1: are probably thinking of making a joke, But no, The

687
00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:34,919
Speaker 1: original character that would have inhabited this transformational Naughty Dog

688
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:38,759
Speaker 1: game was called Willie, and he was a wombat. The

689
00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: designers have been flipping through a book about native species

690
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:46,880
Speaker 1: of Tasmania, and they had Tasmanian tigers, Tasmanian wolves, Tasmanian

691
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 1: all sorts of things, including bandicoots and wombats. Joe Pearson

692
00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:54,960
Speaker 1: created the initial design of Willie, who looked kind of

693
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:58,759
Speaker 1: like a weasel wearing a bandit mask. Pearson described the

694
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:02,359
Speaker 1: character as zoro like. The model wasn't that different from

695
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:06,040
Speaker 1: what the ultimate character who spoiler alert is crash Bandicoot

696
00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 1: would look like, but with a ninja mask on rather

697
00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 1: than an uncovered head. Charles Zimbella's took that lanky design

698
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 1: that Pearson and created and gave him sort of a

699
00:39:15,760 --> 00:39:20,160
Speaker 1: hunched over, somewhat manic approach, animating him in a way

700
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:23,880
Speaker 1: that made him look a little crazy. The combination created

701
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 1: an unusual effect that hadn't really been done in video games.

702
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:30,279
Speaker 1: It felt right and a little weird. But something else

703
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:32,920
Speaker 1: that the team felt was weird was the name, or

704
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:36,480
Speaker 1: rather they felt it wasn't weird or memorable enough. Now

705
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:39,719
Speaker 1: there's some memory based confusion over who came up with

706
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:42,560
Speaker 1: the whole thing, but Karasaki said later that he was

707
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 1: pretty sure that he and Dave Baggett came up with

708
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 1: the name Crash, So there may have even been a

709
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 1: brief moment where the character would have been Crash Wombat.

710
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:54,520
Speaker 1: That obviously didn't stick, and so they ultimately decided to

711
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:57,480
Speaker 1: change the character species as well as his name, and

712
00:39:57,520 --> 00:40:00,680
Speaker 1: that's when we got Crash Bandicoot. Now, I've got a

713
00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:02,960
Speaker 1: lot more to say about the development of Crash Bandicoot,

714
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:05,120
Speaker 1: but before I go on, let's take another quick break

715
00:40:05,520 --> 00:40:15,960
Speaker 1: and thank our sponsor. Well. Pearson and Zimbellis were important

716
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:18,640
Speaker 1: in the creation of the world and the characters for

717
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:21,960
Speaker 1: Crash Bandicoot. They were worked for higher employees. They were

718
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:25,279
Speaker 1: not official members of the Naughty Dog team. They also

719
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:28,920
Speaker 1: would later lament their deal that they made, stating that

720
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 1: they agreed to do the work for far less money

721
00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:33,759
Speaker 1: than what it was worth. But they also say that's

722
00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:37,200
Speaker 1: on us. We agreed to the terms, but we should

723
00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:40,200
Speaker 1: have really tried to negotiate for a better deal. After

724
00:40:40,239 --> 00:40:42,799
Speaker 1: this early development of character design, Naughty Dog braun a

725
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:45,799
Speaker 1: few more employees to join their team. They included a

726
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:50,400
Speaker 1: sound engineer named Dan call Morgan. He left a steady

727
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 1: gig at a company called Laser Graphics in order to

728
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:56,320
Speaker 1: join the Naughty Dog team. They also hired Charlotte Francis,

729
00:40:56,360 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 1: who came from the movie industry. She joined the team

730
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:01,840
Speaker 1: as the seventh member of Naughty Dog and the first

731
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:05,960
Speaker 1: woman employee of the company. She became a texture artist

732
00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:09,400
Speaker 1: for the game, and that it didn't stop there. They

733
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:13,200
Speaker 1: actually added one more person, a guy named Justin Monast

734
00:41:13,600 --> 00:41:17,040
Speaker 1: who had applied to work at Universal Interactive as an

735
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:20,720
Speaker 1: associate producer for Mark Sarney, the executive producer that worked

736
00:41:20,719 --> 00:41:24,040
Speaker 1: with Naughty Dog. He did not land that gig, but

737
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:26,399
Speaker 1: while he was applying, he found out that Naughty Dog

738
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 1: was seeking an I T professional to join their team,

739
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:31,960
Speaker 1: and he decided to apply for that and he was

740
00:41:32,040 --> 00:41:36,919
Speaker 1: hired on. Meanwhile, they also had to line up Sony

741
00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 1: as their customer to get this exclusive relationship going, so

742
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:44,080
Speaker 1: they put together a demo reel of the work they

743
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:46,719
Speaker 1: had done on the game so far to make a

744
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 1: real kind of sizzle reel for Sony executives. Karasaki was

745
00:41:50,239 --> 00:41:52,719
Speaker 1: actually able to secure some of the editing bays a

746
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:56,399
Speaker 1: Universal's lot to make it look really slick, so this

747
00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:00,080
Speaker 1: was a a full fledged production here. They got the

748
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:03,719
Speaker 1: tape to Sony executives, who immediately saw the appeal of

749
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 1: this style of game, and E three was coming up,

750
00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:09,360
Speaker 1: and Sony needed a character that could be an iconic

751
00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:13,239
Speaker 1: representation of the brand, and that's how Crash Banditoo Bandicoot

752
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:17,600
Speaker 1: became the unofficial mascot for the PlayStation. Sony would end

753
00:42:17,640 --> 00:42:19,839
Speaker 1: up doing a big pr campaign in which a person

754
00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:23,400
Speaker 1: would actually dress up as Crash Bandicoot. Really more like

755
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:26,800
Speaker 1: a person inside a Crash Bandicoot mascot outfit, because you

756
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:30,240
Speaker 1: could see the guy's face inside Crash, his mouth and everything.

757
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:34,600
Speaker 1: He would stand outside of places like Nintendo US headquarters

758
00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 1: and he would hold a bullhorn and he would heckle

759
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:40,799
Speaker 1: the company. Sony was leveraging this irreverent attitude of the

760
00:42:40,880 --> 00:42:44,840
Speaker 1: character to create buzz for the Sony PlayStation. So Crash

761
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:48,640
Speaker 1: was a video game character with attitude, not some cartoonish

762
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:51,440
Speaker 1: figure for little kids. And I'm saying that in a

763
00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:53,160
Speaker 1: little bit of a tongue in cheek way. Kind of

764
00:42:53,200 --> 00:42:57,520
Speaker 1: reminds me of a Pucci from The Simpsons. He's a

765
00:42:57,640 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 1: dog with attitude. Well, Crash Bandicoot had an interesting approach

766
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:05,960
Speaker 1: to game level design and had a limited three D implementation.

767
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:09,000
Speaker 1: It was on rails, which meant the segments where he

768
00:43:09,040 --> 00:43:11,960
Speaker 1: controlled Crash where he was either running away from you

769
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:15,480
Speaker 1: or running toward you. Were set. You could not just

770
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:18,680
Speaker 1: run freely. You had to either run forward toward the

771
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:21,680
Speaker 1: camera or away from the camera. You could not wander

772
00:43:21,719 --> 00:43:25,279
Speaker 1: out into a fully three dimensional world. Now you contrast

773
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:28,280
Speaker 1: that was something like Super Mario sixty four, which debuted

774
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:31,399
Speaker 1: at the same E three that Crash Bandicoot first made

775
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:33,919
Speaker 1: his public appearance, and you see that there's a big

776
00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 1: difference there. In Mario sixty four, you can control your

777
00:43:37,200 --> 00:43:40,560
Speaker 1: character and run freely through all the environments, but this

778
00:43:40,640 --> 00:43:43,920
Speaker 1: creates a very different type of game experience. So Naughty

779
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:48,040
Speaker 1: Dog had this real philosophical debate early on in the process.

780
00:43:48,120 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 1: They were concerned that if they did not keep the

781
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:53,279
Speaker 1: game on rails, the amount of work they would need

782
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:55,960
Speaker 1: to complete the game would be too much for the

783
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:58,600
Speaker 1: small team that they had in place, and they wouldn't

784
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:01,239
Speaker 1: be able to deliver a good aiming experience, so it

785
00:44:01,239 --> 00:44:04,480
Speaker 1: would be a failure on all accounts. So they chose

786
00:44:04,880 --> 00:44:07,600
Speaker 1: to put some restrictions in place to help guide not

787
00:44:07,719 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 1: only the player through the course of the game, but

788
00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:14,280
Speaker 1: the actual process of game development itself. The team learned

789
00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:16,919
Speaker 1: a lot from this experience. They had to do much

790
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:20,160
Speaker 1: of their work as pioneers, and that included level design.

791
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:22,920
Speaker 1: Kurasaki would later say one of his biggest regrets was

792
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:25,239
Speaker 1: how difficult the game turned out to be. He said

793
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:27,680
Speaker 1: that he made the levels way too hard in that

794
00:44:27,760 --> 00:44:31,120
Speaker 1: first Crash game, pushing the difficulty up further with every level.

795
00:44:31,440 --> 00:44:33,880
Speaker 1: He would amend that in the sequels to the game.

796
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:37,400
Speaker 1: Another thing they learned was how to work within the

797
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:40,200
Speaker 1: constrictions of the platform they were designing for. So the

798
00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:43,399
Speaker 1: PlayStation was capable of supporting a game containing about three

799
00:44:43,440 --> 00:44:47,080
Speaker 1: thousand polygons, individual little shapes out of which you would

800
00:44:47,080 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 1: create larger figures. So Crash was made up of about

801
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 1: five thirty two polygons. Everything on the screen was created

802
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:57,440
Speaker 1: with polygons, so it became important to be as conservative

803
00:44:57,480 --> 00:45:02,080
Speaker 1: as possible. That's why they decided to create crates in Crash.

804
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:04,640
Speaker 1: They needed to have some sort of interactive element in

805
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:09,200
Speaker 1: the environment to make the game more fun. They found

806
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:12,520
Speaker 1: that the game without the crates just wasn't quite having

807
00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:14,160
Speaker 1: the impact they wanted, so they had to come up

808
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:17,240
Speaker 1: with something. Well, that's one of the simplest polygonal shapes

809
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:19,640
Speaker 1: you can make. It's also why many of the creatures

810
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:23,560
Speaker 1: in the original game are relatively simple or primitive in design. Now,

811
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:26,760
Speaker 1: much of the development went relatively quickly. Andy Gavin described

812
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:30,040
Speaker 1: the process of implementing those crates in the game as

813
00:45:30,080 --> 00:45:33,920
Speaker 1: being particularly fun and easy, with most of the functionality

814
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:37,080
Speaker 1: created with just one or two days of work, which

815
00:45:37,120 --> 00:45:40,320
Speaker 1: is phenomenal to think about how something so central to

816
00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:44,040
Speaker 1: the gameplay of the whole title series just came about

817
00:45:44,120 --> 00:45:47,560
Speaker 1: in forty eight hours. The crates created a new aspect

818
00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:50,960
Speaker 1: of the game, allowing them to create puzzles within levels,

819
00:45:51,400 --> 00:45:54,120
Speaker 1: So according to Dave Baggett, it was this development that

820
00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:57,240
Speaker 1: turned the game from functional three D platform or into

821
00:45:57,239 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 1: something that was legitimately fun to play. One challenge they

822
00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 1: overcame presented itself with a secondary problem they did not anticipate.

823
00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:08,120
Speaker 1: So the PlayStation had about two megs of RAM, but

824
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:09,799
Speaker 1: Andy Gavin had to come up with a way to

825
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:12,960
Speaker 1: make levels much larger than what that amount of memory

826
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:15,560
Speaker 1: would allow, and the way he did it was he

827
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:19,000
Speaker 1: would have the console reference the c D more frequently.

828
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:23,280
Speaker 1: Usually a PlayStation would just load whatever information was needed

829
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 1: for a level before referencing the c D again, so

830
00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 1: it would spin up the c D, pull the data

831
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:30,480
Speaker 1: and then stop and just allow the player to play

832
00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 1: the game till the CD needed to spin up again.

833
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:35,920
Speaker 1: That meant all the levels had to be relatively small

834
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:39,320
Speaker 1: or not take up too much memory. Gavin had created

835
00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 1: a system in which the console would frequently reference the

836
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:45,279
Speaker 1: c D, reading it so that it could load in

837
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:48,959
Speaker 1: the images for the levels throughout gameplay, over and over.

838
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:53,359
Speaker 1: But there in lines a problem. Kelly Flock, and executive

839
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:56,600
Speaker 1: with Sony, pointed out that here's the issue. The PlayStation

840
00:46:56,719 --> 00:47:00,480
Speaker 1: was rated for four hundred thousand reads. That meant the

841
00:47:00,480 --> 00:47:03,200
Speaker 1: console was not intended to spin a c D so

842
00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 1: many times over the course of one game. Mechanical parts

843
00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:09,760
Speaker 1: you see we'll wear out over time, and when designing

844
00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:13,000
Speaker 1: the console, Sony had determined that four hundred thousand reads

845
00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:16,480
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand times that this CD ROM would spin

846
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:19,120
Speaker 1: a c D was a decent number to shoot for

847
00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:21,800
Speaker 1: before a system might fail from whear and tear. But

848
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:25,000
Speaker 1: with Crash Bandicoot, the system would engage the CD drive

849
00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:29,080
Speaker 1: far more frequently throughout play, to the point that Andy

850
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:32,680
Speaker 1: Gavin estimated the average gamer would hit four hundred thousand

851
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:37,600
Speaker 1: reads within about three weeks and Sony was not crazy

852
00:47:37,640 --> 00:47:41,080
Speaker 1: about a game that could potentially break their console after

853
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:44,680
Speaker 1: just three weeks of play, As the game neared completion,

854
00:47:45,120 --> 00:47:48,759
Speaker 1: Naughty Dog signed a contract with Josh Mansell and mark

855
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:51,560
Speaker 1: Mother's Ball. Mother's Ball, by the way, was in one

856
00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 1: of my favorite bands from the nineteen eighties. It's called Devo,

857
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:56,719
Speaker 1: and if you're not familiar with them, you need to

858
00:47:56,719 --> 00:47:59,040
Speaker 1: listen to Are We Not Men? We Are Devo? That's

859
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:01,239
Speaker 1: their first album. Anyway, they came on board to create

860
00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:04,920
Speaker 1: the video game's musical score, and voice actor Brendan O'Brien

861
00:48:05,040 --> 00:48:07,719
Speaker 1: came on board to become the voice for Crash Bandicoot,

862
00:48:07,719 --> 00:48:12,360
Speaker 1: as well as Dr Neo Cortex and a few other characters. Meanwhile,

863
00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:17,680
Speaker 1: they discovered, to their great success, that the estimates that

864
00:48:17,719 --> 00:48:20,520
Speaker 1: have been made on how many times the PlayStation could

865
00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:24,960
Speaker 1: reference the CD ROM was way on the conservative side.

866
00:48:25,040 --> 00:48:29,360
Speaker 1: So their game did stress the console beyond what Sony intended,

867
00:48:29,520 --> 00:48:31,680
Speaker 1: but there didn't seem to be any sort of outbreak

868
00:48:31,760 --> 00:48:35,160
Speaker 1: of console failures across the customer base. If there had been,

869
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:37,799
Speaker 1: the story of Naughty Dog might have ended at this

870
00:48:37,880 --> 00:48:40,960
Speaker 1: first big game. Well. The team had been working long

871
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 1: hours to get the game finished fixing hundreds of bugs

872
00:48:44,920 --> 00:48:49,239
Speaker 1: day after day play testing the game extensively. According to interviews,

873
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:53,359
Speaker 1: their average days would last sixteen to eighteen hours at

874
00:48:53,360 --> 00:48:57,239
Speaker 1: the office with no days off including holidays. So it

875
00:48:57,280 --> 00:48:59,920
Speaker 1: was a really tough, grueling schedule, but the small team

876
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:02,880
Speaker 1: was determined to create a really good game. They launched

877
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:07,480
Speaker 1: it on September nine, and it received positive reviews for

878
00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:10,640
Speaker 1: its graphics and level and character design. Some pointed out

879
00:49:10,680 --> 00:49:13,760
Speaker 1: that the difficulty was being a little bit of a barrier,

880
00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 1: so kind of what others had already said about the

881
00:49:17,280 --> 00:49:19,239
Speaker 1: level design. It would go on to become one of

882
00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:21,600
Speaker 1: the best selling PlayStation titles of all time, with more

883
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:24,680
Speaker 1: than six and a half million units sold. It spent

884
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:28,080
Speaker 1: a couple of years on the Top twenty games chart

885
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:33,000
Speaker 1: for PlayStation games before it finally dropped off in Crash

886
00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:35,960
Speaker 1: Bandicoot spun off two direct sequels as well as a

887
00:49:36,080 --> 00:49:39,520
Speaker 1: racing game. The development grew with every single game, and

888
00:49:39,600 --> 00:49:42,440
Speaker 1: they would add on more and more employees over at

889
00:49:42,520 --> 00:49:45,879
Speaker 1: Naughty Dog every single year. I'll talk a little bit

890
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:49,040
Speaker 1: more about that in Part two of this series, as

891
00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:53,759
Speaker 1: well as how Naughty Dog ventured into uncharted territory and

892
00:49:53,800 --> 00:49:56,880
Speaker 1: how the company dealt with a massive shakedown as the

893
00:49:56,920 --> 00:50:01,480
Speaker 1: two founders stepped down while sell the company off to Sony.

894
00:50:02,200 --> 00:50:04,200
Speaker 1: All of that and more will be covered in Part two,

895
00:50:04,600 --> 00:50:07,760
Speaker 1: so be sure to check that out when it goes live. Meanwhile,

896
00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:10,480
Speaker 1: if you guys have suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff,

897
00:50:10,520 --> 00:50:12,279
Speaker 1: I welcome you to get in contact with me and

898
00:50:12,360 --> 00:50:14,560
Speaker 1: let me know what those suggestions are. You can send

899
00:50:14,560 --> 00:50:16,880
Speaker 1: me an email the addresses tech stuff at how stuff

900
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:19,040
Speaker 1: works dot com, or drop me a line on Facebook

901
00:50:19,080 --> 00:50:21,080
Speaker 1: or Twitter. The handle for both of those is tech

902
00:50:21,120 --> 00:50:24,279
Speaker 1: stuff hs W. Remember we're also on Instagram. Go check

903
00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:27,839
Speaker 1: out our Instagram account and don't forget you can come

904
00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:30,879
Speaker 1: and watch me record these shows live at twitch dot

905
00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:34,280
Speaker 1: tv slash tech Stuff. I record on Wednesdays and Fridays.

906
00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:36,399
Speaker 1: The schedule is up there, so go check it out

907
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:38,520
Speaker 1: and join the chat room. I'm happy to see you.

908
00:50:39,160 --> 00:50:47,319
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon for more on

909
00:50:47,360 --> 00:50:49,800
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Because it has staff

910
00:50:49,840 --> 00:51:00,280
Speaker 1: works dot com