In 2001, Naughty Dog was acquired by Sony for an undisclosed sum. This acquisition came after the two companies had collaborated on the development and production of the original Crash Bandicoot trilogy (and Crash Team Racing) in the 1990s.
One of the co-founders of Naughty Dog, Andrew Gavin, recently expressed himself regarding this acquisition via a post on LinkedIn. Here are his words:
In 2000, we were still self-financing every project and the stress caused by this dynamic, with ever-growing budgets, was enormous. It wasn’t just us. This was (and still is) a systemic problem for AAA titles. Developers almost never have the resources to finance their games, which gives publishers enormous financial power.
Selling to Sony wasn’t just about securing Naughty Dog’s financial future. It was about giving the studio the resources to continue making the best games possible, without being crushed by the weight of high costs and the paralyzing fear that one mistake would ruin everything.
Looking back, it was the right choice. Since then, AAA games have only gotten more expensive. Triple-A titles these days can easily cost $300, $400, or even $500 million to develop.
Gavin went on to suggest that Naughty Dog could have “kept up,” but Sony’s part acquisition allowed the studio to “thrive.”
Andrew Gavin and Jason Rubin founded Naughty Dog in 1984, creating some forgettable (and forgotten) titles before going on to success with the aforementioned Crash Bandicoot franchise. The iconic marsupial made the team blossom which, later, gave birth to other successful IPs such as Jak & Daxter, Uncharted and The Last of Us.
Furthermore, during the recent The Game Awards, Naughty Dog showed the world the first images of Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.
