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Naughty Dog

'Naughty Dog' is an American video game production company set up in 1984. It was set up by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin when they were teenagers producing their first game 'Ski Crazed' and they have built up a reputation and company that produces blockbuster games for Sony.

a) Ownership

Andy and Jason became friends because of their common interest in video games and they decided to become game producers themselves. They used a computer bought by Jason's father, Andy's skills in graphics and Jason's coding ability to produce their first game together. 'Ski Crazed' is a 2D skiing simulator which was picked up by the distribution company Baudville who decided to publish the duo's early games.

They started selling cartridges and earning themselves a child's fortune before getting picked up by Electronic Arts (EA), a large, gaming distribution company who hired the two to make games for them, but they needed a name because 'JAM software' was taken. They became 'Naughty Dog' and produced the game 'Rings of Power'. Their next game, 'Way of the Warrior' was published by Universal Interactive Studios.

Andy and Jason sold 'Naughty Dog' to Sony, a huge company that was releasing its own consoles and becoming a major frontrunner in the game industry. They carried on making top games under new supervision.

b) Operating Model

They started off working in their areas of expertise, Jason on programming and Andy on graphics. When they started to hire, they could departmentalise into IT, programming, HR, textures and graphics all lead by the directors. Within the team, they made sure to stay close, spending every lunch together, and focused on the games they were making.

JAM Software (the early form of Naughty Dog) was a third party game developer because they made games then found a publisher. However, Naughty Dog was bought by Sony, making it a first party game developer. Naughty Dog fits in to Sony's vertical integration as the game producers.

c) Products (not including sequels)

'Ski Crazed' - 2D Skiing Simulator - sold 1500 units
'Rings of Power' - Adventure RPG
'Way of the Warrior' - 2D 1v1 Combat
'Crash Bandicoot' - Adventure RPG - Sony produced 18 Crash Bandicoot games, selling over 40 million copies

'Jak and Daxter' - Adventure RPG - series sold over 12 million copies

'The Last of Us' - Zombie, Story-based - over 17 million copies sold

'Uncharted' - Action/adventure RPG - has sold over 40 million units

d) Market Position

They rose from a small company of two people to a famous name in the gaming industry. 'Crash Bandicoot' put them up there as great game producers while their following games at the same high standard sustained them among the best. They now produce some of the best games that can be compared to top names like Nintendo. Naughty Dog was bought by Sony, who get extremely high sales, combined with Naughty Dog's reputation makes the games produced one of the strongest challengers. Uncharted can be directly compared to Tomb Raider as both games are action/adventure products set in similar environments but Uncharted sold over 40 million units compared to Tomb Raiders 8 million.

e) Competitors

When they were being run by Sony, 'Crash Bandicoot' was put up against similar games like 'Mario' and 'Sonic'. They worked with the top game publisher that would give them the advertising and presence alongside other giants like Nintendo, Activision, Microsoft and EA. Working with Sony gets you a lot of sales to compete against the big names, this is also relevant because their games were influenced by the games they themselves played. They compete to attract the customers but Naughty Dog were focused on producing great games which they had shown they achieve.

What are games?

“A game is a rule-based system with a variable and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels emotionally attached to the outcome, and the consequences of the activity are negotiable.” - Jesper Juul

This is what that means to me:

Core Mechanics Game Example

Ninja Theory

a) Ownership

The company was founded in 2000 under the name 'Just Add Monsters' then changed its name to 'Ninja Theory' in 2004.

The company was purchased by Argonaut due to a lack of funding but they later bought it back.

They then sold out to Microsoft.

b) Operating Model

Ninja Theory at the moment are a team of 15 to 20, having previously had over 50 employees. The reason for this loss is an unsuccessful deal with Sony.

They work in small teams on areas of production such as the technology, design and Motion Capture. Team leaders include Nina Kristensen (Head of Development), Tameem Antoniades (Head of Design) and Mike Ball (Head of Technology). The company also hires actors for the voice-acting and Motion Capture, notably working with Andy Serkis.

c) Products

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - A singleplayer, puzzle-solving, psychological horror game that has made over $13 million in sales

Devil May Cry - an action/adventure third person shooter made with Capcom

Heavenly Sword - an action/adventure hack-and-slash game for PS3 that sold over 1.5 million copies

Enslaved

Kung Fu Chaos

d) Market Position

Quite an understated company as their titles are not as big as Naughty Dog, Ninja Theory get comparatively low sales. They have achieved decent success with Devil May Cry (2.4 million copies) and Hellblade ($13 million dollars in sales) but are not overly famous alongside other Triple-A game producers like Rockstar and Sony.

Ninja Theory do compare to 'Valve', producers of Half Life, Portal and Counter-Strike, who are also Triple-A producers. On the other hand, Valve games generally earn a higher revenue, suggesting that Ninja Theory operate in the "Lower Middle Class" of game producers.

e) Competitors

Ninja Theory are owned by Microsoft so develop games for them on the Xbox consoles. This suggests that games they produce will compete against other Xbox games as well as games on the Playstation.

The game God of War, produced by Santa Monica Studios, is a similar style of game to Hellblade. It is an action/adventure hack-and-slash from the fantasy genre, the same as Hellblade, which means that they are probably competing for a similar market of people.