WEBVTT - Good Games From a Naughty Dog 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Get in text with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:13.680 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:17.480 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer over 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:20.080 at How Stuff Works, and I love things that are 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:26.440 technologically oriented. I'm the technology guy. Fun story. The reason 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:29.880 I'm the tech guy is because many years ago at 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:33.120 How Stuff Works, we had decided that all the writers 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:36.360 were going to specialize in different fields, and we're all 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.960 liberal arts graduates, and it turned out I was the 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:42.839 one guy who wasn't afraid of technology. That's how I 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:45.760 landed this gig. Actually, I argue that I had the 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:48.519 best gig out of everybody, because technology either works or 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.560 it doesn't. Everything else is a lot more fuzzy. Today, 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:53.640 we're gonna talk about a topic that gets a little 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:56.440 fuzzy at times. Uh, We're gonna talk about a video 0:00:56.480 --> 0:01:00.000 game company. Now. A few years ago, this particular video 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:05.600 game studio got started by two teenage boys, and just 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:07.479 a just a couple of years ago, it hit its 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:10.920 thirtieth anniversary. If you had picked up the first couple 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:13.600 of games that that studio produce, you probably would not 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:16.800 have predicted that the company would go on to create 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:20.160 some of the most popular games for Sony's PlayStation consoles, 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:23.960 which makes sense because at that time PlayStation didn't even exist, 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:27.319 So how could you predict this? But the studio was 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.680 Naughty Dog, and this is its story, and the story 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:33.800 is so big, so epic, and I'm not making that 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:35.959 up that this is going to be a two parter. 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:38.000 So in this first part we're going to focus on 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:41.520 the formation of Naughty Dog and how it grew into 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:46.119 a big studio. Now that those two teenage founders were 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:49.360 actually not even teenagers when they first met one another. 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:53.400 Their names are Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin. They met 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:56.280 when they were twelve years old. They were attending Hebrew 0:01:56.400 --> 0:02:00.000 school and preparing for their individual bar mitzvahs. Now, Ruby 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.720 and Gavin shared a common passion which was video games. 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:06.000 Actually it was a little broader than that. It was 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:09.639 computers and video games. Both of them had a fascination 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.160 with them and had each worked independently to learn how 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:17.720 to program computers and build their own video games. Now 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:21.680 they each had Apple two computers, and they had been 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:26.240 building these little programs using those computers. Gavin had actually 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:30.040 gone to the trouble of learning assembly language programming. Rubin 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:33.680 largely programmed in Apple Basic, and they, along with a 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:36.680 couple of other classmates at Hebrew School, would have these 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:40.880 little quick conversations about games and programming, and they focused 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:42.880 on that a little bit more than they were their 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:46.280 actual studies in preparation for their apartments, because they found 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:50.000 it really fascinating and fun and they were passionate about it, 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:54.200 and Gavin and Rubin soon discovered that their individual skills 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:58.720 would complement the others, where one person might not be 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:02.360 as strong the one was, and so they ended up 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.919 realizing that they could form together to create a sort 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:09.360 of computer vultron Andy Gavin was the better programmer of 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:12.600 the two, and his games would typically run pretty well 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:16.400 with very few bugs or glitches, but he was not 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:20.519 a very strong artist. He had not developed artistic skills, 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:25.200 and so his games often didn't look like much. Jason Rubin, 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:27.640 on the other hand, was a very gifted artist, but 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.680 his code wasn't the tightest and his games would often 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:34.000 crash or run slowly. So the two decided that it 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:37.640 made the most sense to work together and have Reuben 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:41.560 concentrate on graphic design and Gavin would focus on game 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.360 engine and mechanic design. Now, this was in the early 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:47.160 nineteen eighties. Now that was a time when it was 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:50.320 possible for maybe one or two people to make a 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.760 full game from start to finish. So games like the 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.440 early Ultimate Titles were proof of this. That was the 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:59.480 work of Richard Garriott, primarily in the first few games. 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:04.080 It took some imagination and skill to create a compelling game, 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:08.160 but the relatively low bar for technical requirements meant that 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:10.600 things were not yet so complicated that it would require 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.440 specialized talent to pull it off. The machines that were 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:17.240 running these games were fairly primitive, especially by today's standards. 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.960 They they're more primitive than the most basic version of 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:26.080 a smartphone out there. So being that simple, comparatively speaking, 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.320 was a benefit for anyone who wanted to make content. 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.440 You had restrictions you had to work within, and you 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.800 couldn't try and tackle a game that was too complicated 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:39.080 because there literally weren't any machines that could run those games, 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.479 so you could be a generalist and find success. This 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:45.880 was an era before the World Wide Web. The Internet 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:49.000 itself did technically exist, but it was very young and 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:53.240 limited to eggheads and research facilities and universities. Jason Reuben 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:55.120 and Andy Gavin didn't even have the benefit of a 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.679 large library of computer programming books to pull from, because 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:00.960 it was still a pretty young yield. There were books 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:02.840 on programming, but they were few and far between and 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:06.200 they weren't necessarily easy to find, so they did their best. 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:10.120 They worked together. They read a magazine called Bite Magazine 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:12.400 that had a lot of programming tips inside of it, 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:15.599 and they would occasionally consult with other people on computer 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:18.640 forums that were on bulletin board systems and things like 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.160 that in order to get a little more information. Uh 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.360 Reuben would refer to them as Gandolf's. There would be 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:26.880 someone who would have at least a little more information 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:28.720 than you did, and they were happy to share it. 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:33.600 And they learned largely through this process and through teaching themselves. 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:37.600 Their first real collaboration was a faithful port of an 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:41.760 existing game. That game was Nintendo's Punch Out. It took 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:44.240 them somewhere between a year and a year and a 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:47.599 half to make this game. They did a really good 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:52.640 job of copying the game. They painstakingly studied every single 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.400 frame of animation so that they could recreate it in 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.760 their own version, but then reality popped in to give 0:05:58.800 --> 0:06:02.039 the two boys their first lesson. Jason's father was a 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:05.840 lawyer who specialized in intellectual property law, and he told 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:09.279 the boys that copying someone else's game might be a 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:13.320 good way to practice programming, but you couldn't actually legally 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:18.080 sell it because you'd be infringing on copyright. Now, initially 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:20.960 that did not actually stop them from working on the game, 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:24.440 but then fate stepped in and forced them to change 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:28.960 because while making a backup copy of a working, almost 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:32.840 perfect part of the game, they accidentally erased it. They 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:35.800 erased the whole game. See, in those days, we would 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:40.400 store these games on floppy disks, external floppy disks. You'd 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:42.680 put one in the disk drive. You would save your 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:44.839 work to the floppy disk and it would exist there. 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.440 And apparently what happened was they accidentally copied a blank 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:52.679 disc over top of their master disc holding the code 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.480 for the game, and they erased it. It overwrote the data. 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:59.120 If you listen to my episode about the process of deleting, 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:02.279 you know, one to overwrite data on a on a 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:07.120 piece of media, it's gone. And that's what happened. They 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:09.080 got rid of the source code for their game. And 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:11.920 erased all of that work that had taken more than 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:14.480 a year to put together, and so the teenagers went 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:17.000 back to the drawing board. Their goal was to create 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.040 a game that they could potentially sell to someone. So 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.880 they worked on another game for the Apple two, and 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:26.320 they had our working game ready to go in night five. 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:31.160 It was an educational title and it was called math Jam, 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:32.720 and they had also come up with a name for 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.840 their company they incorporated in four. Actually that name was 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:42.200 JAM Software. Jam was an acronym that stood for Jason 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:47.840 and Andy's Magic. They self published this game, math Jam. 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:50.720 That meant at the time that you would create a game, 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:53.000 you would put it on a floppy disc, you would 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:56.320 make copies onto other floppy disks, you'd throw those copies 0:07:56.320 --> 0:08:00.480 into ziplock bags, put a cop a photo copy sheet 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.480 of instructions in the bag with the game, and then 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:06.840 you would try and sell it to various customers. Typically 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:09.560 it was a computer store, but sometimes it was something else. 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:12.760 And because it was educational, they were hoping to see 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:15.560 if they could get the game accepted into school curricula 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:18.320 and sell it to school systems. They figured that was 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:21.920 a big market, that it was a pretty sure thing. 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:25.080 But while they did not count on is that schools 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:30.400 have typically a pretty bureaucratic organization with layers of approval 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:33.720 that were necessary for any game to be accepted into 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:36.480 the school system. And rather than try and navigate that, 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.040 the two boys decided that they would cut their losses 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:41.800 and walk away from math Jam and create something else. 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.760 They wanted to regroup and create a different title. Now 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:48.760 this time, they wanted to create an original title, something 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:50.960 that wasn't a copy of an existing game, and they 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:54.040 wanted to just be a game first and foremost not 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.440 necessarily an educational title, because it would mean that they 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.080 would work on something that they both loved and there 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:02.800 wouldn't be any bureaucratic roadblocks in the way. There's no 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.920 approval process, or at least there wasn't at the time 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:08.760 to get a game that you created out to market 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:11.400 if it was just for a general audience. Now, Ruben 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:14.200 had an earlier project he had been working on that 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:18.120 he was inspired to create after his family went on 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:22.560 a ski trip, and the original title for this project 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:27.880 was Ski stud It featured the enlightened plot of a 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:31.440 skier who's going down a mountain slope and your job 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:34.400 is to get to the bottom and then relax in 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:36.760 a hot tub with a couple of really attractive women. 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:39.680 That was the concept behind the game, so you know, 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:44.280 teenage fantasy stuff. Gavin suggested that they revisit Ruben's game 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:47.360 idea and punch it up. So Gavin took Reuben's original game, 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:51.280 which had been programmed in Basic, and he said, this 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:53.880 is too slow. The game is not very fun to 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:58.360 play because everything's moving at a crawling speed because you've 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.000 you've programmed it in Basic. So he took the idea 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:04.640 and he reprogrammed it in Assembly language, which had the 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.080 benefit of speeding everything up and making the game feel 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:11.480 more like you know, a game now. Reuben had used 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:14.720 a few tools to create the art for this game. 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:16.840 One of them was a tool setiment for a totally 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:20.120 different type of game. It was called Pinball Construction Set 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:23.920 and it was published by Electronic Arts. Ruben used a 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:26.760 tablet device to input changes to art, so it was 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:28.760 directly connected to his computer and he would try and 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.400 draw things on this tablet. It was not as precise 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:34.720 as he would like. There was like a three pixel 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:37.280 in precision there, so if you're trying to do some 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:41.040 fine detail it was very easy for a pixel next 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:42.959 to the one you wanted to create to pop up, 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:45.800 so there's a lot of racing and trying again, and 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:50.040 racing and trying against very slow process. Also, to make 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.720 it more challenging, there was no native solution to exporting 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.720 the art to incorporate it into their game because it 0:10:56.800 --> 0:10:59.320 wasn't meant to be used to create art for other games. 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:02.960 So in order for him to get his art off 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:07.480 this tool set and to import it into the game, 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:10.320 he would actually have to do a hard reset on 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:12.880 his Apple two computer. So in other words, he had 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:16.640 to turn his computer off, turn it back on, and 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:18.640 then the art he had created would be stored in 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.079 the cash memory of the computer, so before he could 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:24.120 do anything else, he would pull that data off of 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:27.280 his machine. Which is a pretty janggie way of creating 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:30.839 graphics for your computer game, but it was really one 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:34.400 of the few options that they had. The other tool 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.560 they were using came from a Michigan based company called 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:40.760 Baudeville b a U d V I l l E. 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:44.920 That company had a policy which was if you wanted 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:48.280 to use their their tools to create a game, you could, 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:50.760 but in order to publish that game. You had to 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:53.240 get permission from Baudeville, and you had to pay a 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:56.720 hundred and fifty dollar licensing fee, essentially, So the two 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:00.520 submitted the game their Ski Game to bod Bill, and 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:04.960 Bobyville's response was, hey, nice game. Tell you what, We 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:07.600 can publish this game for you, So we'll take over 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:12.040 the publishing, which the boys thoughts sound like a great idea. 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:15.120 All the hard work of copying the game onto disks 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:17.960 and getting that distributed to different stores would be on 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:21.400 the publisher side and not on their shoulders. In return, 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:27.199 Bodeville offered jam Software the princely sum of two hundred 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:31.240 fifty dollars for the game, plus a two dollar royalty 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:35.600 for every copy sold, and they jumped at this opportunity. 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.200 They were over the moon when the game came out 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:40.320 because it was in a box and everything. It was 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:43.920 like a real game. And these are two teenagers. Remember 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:46.720 they're like fourteen fifteen years old at this point. There 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:50.080 are no zip block bags. It was actually a legit product. 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:55.760 The game sold around one thousand, five hundred copies, which is, 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:58.440 you know, laughable these days, you would call that a 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:02.600 colossal failure in to day's days, day's numbers rather, but 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:05.160 Gavin Rubin felt like they had the jackpot. They got 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:08.120 two dollars out of every copy sold in fifteen copies 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:11.559 meant three grand is fifteen hundred dollars apiece. When you're 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:15.280 fourteen or fifteen years old. Fifteen hundred dollars is a 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:19.079 heck of a lot of money. So they were able 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:22.240 to actually take that money and reinvested into their company. 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.080 They bought new computers when they needed them. Uh, and 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:27.000 they felt like they were rolling in it. They were like, 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:31.120 this is this is real success. What's more, Bodeville was 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:33.920 open to publishing more of their games so they could 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:37.120 create another one for the same company. Their next title 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:41.400 was one called dream Zone. This one would release in 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:45.400 n seven, and this was the only other game that 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:49.160 the two made under the company name JAM Software. It 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:51.840 was the last one, and this was an adventure game 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:53.760 in which the player would control a character who has 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:56.920 been trapped within his own dream. The title got some 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:00.640 critical praise from early computer gaming magazines and propelled the 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:04.600 sales to ten thousand units, which meant the two game 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:08.280 developers made about fifteen thousand dollars from their work, not 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:10.880 bad at all when you're a teenager. But they weren't 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:14.160 satisfied with stopping there. They were just getting started and 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:17.680 they had a big idea that probably should not have worked, 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:23.640 but it totally worked. They made a cold call to 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:27.920 the front desk of Electronic Arts. Now that means they 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:31.160 didn't know anyone at e A. They just called the 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:34.880 reception desk and they said, hey, we would like to 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:39.440 make games for you, and so e A, for their part, said, 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:41.760 tell you what, fed access a couple of your games. 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:44.120 Let us see what you've made so far, and we'll 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:47.160 get back to you. So they did. They sent copies 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:49.000 of their games to the offices of EA, and then 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:50.920 they received a call a little bit later that said, 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:53.600 we want you to make games for us. We're ready 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:57.720 to sell to to get a contract between us and you. 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:00.160 You can make games for us for real money. They 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:02.640 were offering a deal that was fifteen thousand dollars plus 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:04.680 ten percent of the revenue of the next game they 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:08.160 would make, which the two thought wasn't amazingly awesome. My 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:12.960 idea was fantastic. They were gonna guaranteed fifteen grand the 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:15.720 amount they had made on their previous game, plus ten 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:19.920 percent royalty fees and That's how they hit the big time. 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:24.400 But e A did have one condition. The company had 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:27.240 to change its name because, as it turns out, there 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:32.000 was already another company called Jam Software, so they had 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:35.920 to come up with something different, and they began to brainstorm. 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:40.840 Now sadly, the origins of the name Naughty Dog are 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:45.320 lost to time, because neither Reuben nor Gavin can remember 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:49.000 who came up with the name or why. They do 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:52.320 remember that they had essentially twenty four hours to create 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:54.960 a new name for their company because e A wanted 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:58.320 that contract signed right away. I wish I could say 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:00.480 there was a cool story about a dog eating a 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:03.520 floppy disc containing the next game, but we'll just have 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:05.960 to accept that at some point during those twenty four 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:08.760 hours one of the two of them wrote down Naughty 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:11.600 Dog as a possibility, and they decided in the end 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:15.760 to go with it, and thus Naughty Dog was officially born. 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:19.680 The first game they made for e A was called 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:23.040 Keith the Thief. There's a role playing game that came 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:25.440 out for the Apple to gs, the Amiga, and the 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:30.400 PC systems. The Apple version in particular got a really 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:33.800 nasty review. In fact, it got a do not recommend 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:37.840 buying review not because of the game itself, but because 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:41.480 e A had put on some copy protection on top 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:45.880 of the game that the reviewers felt essentially broke the 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:48.880 experience of trying to play it. Anyone who has dealt 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:53.200 with draconian copy protection strategies knows what this is like, 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:58.120 where the protection for the game actually impedes your ability 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:02.200 to play the game and can sometimes encourage people to 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:06.880 seek out pirate id and broken copies of the game, 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:10.200 things where people have broken the encryption around the game 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:12.240 just so that you can play the game you want 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:15.200 to play. It's one of the reasons why pirates will 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:18.280 point to game studios and say they brought this on themselves. 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:23.040 I don't think that's necessarily a fair statement. However, I 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:26.879 don't blame people for going out and seeking a version 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:30.000 of a game that is actually playable. If I bought 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:32.240 one of these games and I found that the copy 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:35.520 protection was making it impossible to play, I imagine I 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:40.560 too would look for a different solution, one that perhaps 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.840 had already had the copy protection broken. So I totally 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:46.840 get it. And anyway, they encountered this and that really 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:50.880 kind of hurt their sales figures. They didn't do too 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:53.560 well with Keith the Thief. However, that was just the 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:56.800 first game for e A and largely was kind of 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:00.600 swept under the rug. Their next one was A Friend Story. 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:04.600 Their second game was the most ambitious of theirs to date, 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:08.240 and it was also their entry into the world of consoles. 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.760 So by now we're getting up to nineteen. The two 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:13.880 friends were going off to college, and it was two 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:18.080 different colleges in two different states. Jason Rubin would attend 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:21.720 the University of Michigan. Andy Gavin got accepted into the 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:26.560 Haverford College in Pennsylvania. They collaborated over the phone and 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:29.800 they used dial up modems to send information back and forth, 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:32.080 but it was a very slow process and to make 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:35.399 matters more challenging, they had picked an ambitious project as 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:37.639 their next pitch to e A. Originally was going to 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:40.240 be a computer game, a PC game, and it was 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:43.160 going to be a complex role playing game called Rings 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.639 of Power. But they had a meeting over at Electronic 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:49.639 Arts and when they were at this meeting, Andy Gavin 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:51.679 looks over and he sees something interesting. He sees this 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:54.600 weird shiny box with a whole bunch of wires coming 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:57.560 out of it and it was seeming to run a 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:01.000 game from a console system, and he asked the people 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:07.280 that e A said, is that A reverse engineered Sega Genesis. Immediately, 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.960 according to Andy Gavins, some e A officials swept them 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:14.840 into an office and said, yeah, we're gonna need you 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:18.520 to sign an inn d A, a non disclosure agreement 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:21.920 so that you don't tell people that you saw this here, 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:24.480 because this is not something that we're ready to talk 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:27.240 about yet. So then Gavin says, does this mean we 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:31.040 should start developing games for the Sega Genesis? And the 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:34.840 guys that e A said, that would be an excellent idea. 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:38.800 The second best idea you could have right now. The 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:41.640 best idea you could have right now is to sign 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:46.120 the in d A. So they did and only talked 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:48.600 about it years and years later when no one really cares. 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:53.159 But they decided, well, maybe we should develop Rings of 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:56.320 Power for the Genesis, not for the PC, and they 0:19:56.359 --> 0:20:00.200 decided to switch gears. It took some time to at 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:03.359 the game together since they were living in different states 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:07.200 and also had schoolwork to attend to, although Andy Gavin 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:09.800 said he was spending maybe two or three hours a 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:11.680 day on his schoolwork and the rest of the time 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:14.440 he was working on developing games. But in the end 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:16.640 they produced a game that was one of the most 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:20.520 robust console based RPGs of its time, and it was 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:23.480 largely Andy Gavin's project. It was an idea he was 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:26.679 really excited about, and Jason Rubin did a lot of 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:29.600 work on it. It's not like he didn't contribute, but 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:33.120 it was kind of Andy Gavin's pet project, the one 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:37.679 he really wanted to do. It went gold in and 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:40.800 it did really well. It sold like a hundred thousand copies. 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:43.639 That's not anything to sneeze at, and it had the 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:46.080 potential to sell a whole lot more. It was getting 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:50.439 great reviews, and then the two hit a problem that 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:56.840 almost made them walk away from developing games entirely. What happened, well, 0:20:56.880 --> 0:21:01.119 I'll tell you, but first let's take quick break to 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:11.359 thank our sponsor. All Right, So why would Ruben and 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:15.480 Gavin leave game development if they were doing such a 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:17.520 great job with Rings of Power? What would make them 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:20.880 walk away? The issue came down to a lack of 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:27.600 control with politics and economics. Sega Genesis games were on cartridges, 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:31.800 so making a cartridge is a hardware manufacturing process. The 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:35.959 games are hard coded onto the cartridge itself, so if 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:38.560 you contrast that with games on floppy disks or c 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:41.720 d s, those are just blank media. You can write 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:45.120 to them directly. It doesn't take any special equipment. You're 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:48.080 not creating a circuit board, but a cartridge. Essentially that 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:50.800 is a circuit board. Then the circuit board, the physical 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:54.240 circuit board itself, represents the game. So every cartridge is 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:58.160 unique to the specific game. You can't override a cartridge 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:00.240 and put a different game on it. So it takes 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:03.360 time and resources to put together cartridges, and that limits 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:06.040 how many you can make. It's all based on your 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:11.119 capacity of your manufacturing facility. You're physically limited by that fact. Now, 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:14.120 if Rings of Power had been the only major game 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:17.560 coming out that season, Sega probably could have put more 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:20.920 manufacturing power behind it and turned it into a colossal hit. 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:23.840 But there was another game that was coming out at 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:27.280 that same time and it was an even bigger sensation. 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:31.760 That game was Madden. It was an American football game. Uh, 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:35.960 it's part of an incredibly popular franchise that has gone 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:41.840 across multiple platforms and spanned decades. So there's an incredible 0:22:42.040 --> 0:22:46.200 call for Madden Games. There's a guaranteed audience that's going 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:49.320 to buy Madden year over year, so that game was 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:52.119 pretty much guaranteed to sell out. The company had to 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:54.240