Game Development Giant

Jason and Andy were ecstatic when faced with Jester's invitation. For two twelve-year-old children, they may not realize what Jester's invitation means, nor do they. Knowing that being able to publish games on dreb is the dream of almost any American game company, it is very, very difficult.

Moreover, developing games on dreb is not like developing on Apple or other computers. You can develop it if you want. Let’s not talk about whether it can be officially released. If you want to develop games on a home game platform, you must first have a Development machines, and development machines are also very expensive.

For example, Jester knows that when the PS3 was selling for a few hundred dollars, the price of a PS3 development machine was one million dollars.

Jester's game restrictions on third-party game companies in the United States are similar to Sega's strategy at the time. You must know that in Jester's memory, both Nintendo and Sega adopted similar royalty systems, but there is one thing;;. +. There is a big difference between the two. According to Nintendo's regulations, each game company can release no more than three games per year on FC. However, Sega has no clear limit on the games released per year, but For different levels of companies, Sega gives different total numbers of burning cassettes. The two children who are still called Jam Electronics are just ignorant about this, and they don't need to know so much, because there is no need.

But they know that such an invitation is equivalent to a kind of trust.

There was a slight pause. Jester smiled and watched the two children cheering. After their emotions calmed down, he continued: "Are you interested in setting up a game company? I can provide you with a development machine to invest in it." ...You should know what a development machine is, right? It’s a lot of words.”

The two children nodded. These basic knowledge of console game development have been popularized in "gae", and as these two are loyal fans of this magazine, they naturally know it.

Jester didn't take the initiative to tell them to change their name to Naughty Dog, but after talking to the two children and their guardians, one of them was a copyright lawyer who was setting up a corporate game studio. At that time, we still encountered some troubles. Then Jester told the two children that you need to change your name as soon as possible - but choosing a name for a child is a very complicated matter. Both of them have their own opinions, and neither of them agrees with the other. , Jester simply told them directly.

"I heard that you two have a pet dog. I think it's better to call it Naughty Dog. The company's logo is like this..." Jester said as he put the extremely familiar dog in his mind. The No. 1 gaming company under Sony has that ridiculously cute logo of a dog’s paw.

And this name. They also got Jason and Andy to compromise after being normal for a long time. They both felt that instead of accepting each other's opinions, it would be better to just use this name.

In the newly established game company, Jester holds 50% of the shares. Andy and Jason own 50%, but Jester also promised not to interfere with the normal operation of the game company belonging to these two children, and even gave them a comparison of their own Those studios of Mars Entertainment have more liberal conditions.

The most obvious is financial independence.

After formal cooperation is reached. Jester asked casually in the car taking his two children to the airport: "Although you like playing games, I still have to say that you'd better focus on your studies. Playing games is very important to you now." It’s a hobby, so don’t spend all your time making games, but out of selfishness as a game designer and an investor, I want to ask, do you have any next plans?”

The two children, Jason and Andy, knew everything. They just thought for a moment and told Jester: "When we visited Mars Entertainment, we were most interested in RPG games. Next, we want to make a game." An RPG game.”

Jester nodded after hearing this and asked aloud: "DND style?" The reason why he asked this is that in the past few days of contact, Jester discovered that these two children are two DND die-hard fans, and it is precisely because of this talent that they have become friends with many designers in the company.

The two nodded without hesitation: "Yes, DND style, and it is a very strong DND style RPG game."

Jester's eyes flashed with admiration, because when he introduced them to the difficulty of developing various games in the past few days, Jester told them that RPG games are relatively the most difficult of all games. The type of development, and if you want to make an excellent RPG game, you need a very large team. For example, Jester developed "Fire Emblem" and the number of people in the team that developed "Heavy Soldiers" is close to Twenty people.

At this scale, in this era, unless a company with a free game platform like Nintendo or Mars Entertainment can be established, other companies are simply impossible.

In Jester's memory, Jason and Andy were also invited by EA to visit EA's headquarters, and then they came up with the idea of ​​setting up a specialized game company, and it was at EA's headquarters that , when they visited EA's R\u0026D, they accidentally discovered a very messy black box that had been dismantled. After careful identification, they recognized that it was a Sega D game console.

This surprised them, because EA was Nintendo's third-party game company at the time, but they were secretly developing games for Sega. If this matter was exposed, Nintendo would definitely be furious at such a traitor.

Later, Jester watched the Naughty Dog 30th Anniversary video. Jason talked about this matter with Andy. They laughed very happily when talking about it in the video. According to their own statements, in They discovered that there was a dismantled Sega D game console in EA's headquarters - in fact, the American version is called Gens, but after I used it, EA's people felt like they were facing a formidable enemy. They were taken to a closed office and signed a series of confidentiality agreements about the matter.

In the end, EA funded them to establish a game company, Naughty Dog, and EA did not hold the slightest share in it. That is, after the end of this EA journey, Naughty Dog produced their first game for home platforms. , it is a DND style RPG.

A total of only 100,000 cartridges of this game were burned, and they were sold out in a short period of time.

Jason and Andy seemed a little dissatisfied with EA when they recalled it. They said that the person in charge of EA told them at that time, I have good news and bad news - the good news is about your new game. All 100,000 copies sold, and the bad news is, we won't be burning your game cartridges anymore.

Jason and Andy were extremely dissatisfied when they heard EA's reply. Officially, they completely severed their cooperation with EA because of this incident. Then they started to rely on the money they earned from previous games. The sensual college life.

Many people may ask why EA will no longer continue to burn cassettes and sell them when a game is so popular. Isn't this putting the cart before the horse? It's actually very simple. I've said it before. At that time, Sega had a limit on the cassette burning quota for each game company every year. Instead of burning a game they produced, they still needed to give developers a share. It's better to just burn your own game and lose all the money you make.

Maybe if EA didn't limit the number of burns, Naughty Dog's game might have sold 200,000 or 300,000, but unfortunately, their first home console platform game could only maintain sales of 100,000. In terms of numbers.

After sending the two people onto the plane, Jester's driver asked why he paid so much attention to these two children. Even designers in many companies were not treated as well as these two children who were only in middle school. Even He also told them not to focus on game development, but that the most important thing now is for them to go to school.

Jester couldn't answer these questions. He couldn't say that making games is not an assembly line. It's like painting or movies. It's an act of creating art that expresses the author's thoughts. In Jester, In Stern's opinion, unless you are a thief like him who has countless experiences in later generations, you need talent to go far and succeed in this industry.

Some people, when they first learned how to program in their teens, were able to create jaw-dropping works. Jason and Andy were like that, as were Cards. There are many, many people, including those from Blizzard. The founders, they are just students who have just graduated from college. Samwise, the leader of the Sons of Storm, was less than 18 years old when he joined Blizzard. Jade Raymond, the mother of Assassin's Creed, was conceived of this game. I was less than twenty years old at that time... There are many, many such examples.

As for Jester, Jason and Andy telling them not to put the game first, it can only be said to be a disguise on his part.