Game Development Giant

You know, in the history that Jester knows, Andy Gavin once again received a call from EA, who was disliked by him, after he was a slutty person in college for a few years, and then he devoted himself again without hesitation. He dropped out of school to pursue a career in game development.

At that time, Andy laughed when talking about this past incident. He said that at that time, my father told me angrily, "You will definitely regret it, you know, you are studying a master's program at MIT."

In the end, Jason didn't say whether he regretted it, but Jester knew the answer from the moment he laughed and told the anecdote.

So, in the eyes of such people.

Compared with the game, everything else is nothing.

That's why Jester said what he said to the two people in the car. Did Jester really want them to put their studies first? No, these words are meant for the parents of these two children. As the boss of a game company, Jester certainly hopes that these two children can be together at all times. Nothing wrong. .s. is making a game.

But Jester also knows that this is impossible, kid, it must be fun. When Jason, Andy and EA fell out, not only because EA restricted the number of their games to burn, which made them chill, but also after EA The disgust caused by constantly urging two kids with a lot of money not to enjoy their money but to work hard to make games. In fact, Jester has also thought about it carefully. If EA had not fallen out with Naughty Dog and had maintained the closeness they had at the beginning, Jason and Andy might end up working together on "Crash Bandicoot" and "Jack and the Wild". After "Dust", I felt that my body and mind were a good match. When selling Naughty Dog, I might choose EA instead of Sony.

However, if EA had really invested in Naughty Dog back then, Naughty Dog might not have existed.

For EA, a butcher in the gaming world. Jester is extremely contemptuous of one thing. It is true that he is the boss of a game company, and it is true that he wants to make money by making games, but a steady flow of money and squeezing the potential to make a profit are completely different things.

Perhaps only Sony would have agreed to the conditions proposed by Jason and Andy at that time. It was not monetary, but as the parent company of a wholly-owned subsidiary of its own, it could not interfere in the specific affairs of this company. ——This is an extremely rare thing in the world of acquisitions.

However, Sony at the time fully agreed to this proposal. Shuhei Yoshida, the head of Sony Computer Entertainment in North America at the time, was also the person who later took over SCE after Ken Kutaragi resigned due to the PS3 incident. He also mentioned in subsequent interviews that they had The acquisition of Naughty Dog. I have to say that Sony's performance in this matter is generous enough.

Their non-interference also allowed Naughty Dog to achieve greater success in the future, although Jason and Andy chose to quit Naughty Dog before it reached its peak and when they were about to start climbing to the top. However, in Jester's view, the reason why Naughty Dog has been successful in later generations is precisely because of the words and deeds Jason and Andy taught to people who came to Naughty Dog when they were at Naughty Dog. The passion for the game, the passion for the game, and the fact that no matter how hard it gets, never give up.

If there is no Mark Saini. Jason and Andy may not produce "Crash Bandicoot" that resurrected Naughty Dog, but without Jason and Andy, there would be no Naughty Dog's subsequent gaming culture.

In fact, in later generations, someone was interviewing Jason and Andy. Asked, can you tell me the reason why Naughty Dog is successful.

The answers from these two people were still very modest.

"Because we always find the best people to work with, that's probably the only reason why Naughty Dog is successful."

However, in Jester's view, the most important reason why Naughty Dog was able to become a god in his era was their spirit of never giving up and doing what they said they would do.

This is a very graphic story that reads now. At that time, Naughty Dog had just finished producing the first part of "Uncharted". This game was excellent and received eight nominations for the best game of the year. However, at that time Naughty Dog was nowhere near the dominating position they would be ten years later.

A Naughty Dog employee who attended the award ceremony said half-jokingly to his colleagues: "We will definitely not win a single award." Even though he said this, it was definitely a joke, because After all, there are eight nominations, and even if there are not eight nominations, but only one or two nominations, it is impossible to really think that you will not get one.

After all, this game is the culmination of the hard work of everyone at Naughty Dog.

It is a pity that the final result was that "Uncharted" did not win a single award. Alvin Wells, who succeeded Andy and Jason and was already one of the co-presidents of Naughty Dog, recalled, At that time, he said that every time he read about the awards they were nominated for, his heart immediately jumped to his chest, but after the awards were announced, he instantly fell to the bottom.

It was after this award ceremony that the employees of Naughty Dog, who felt insulted, took the initiative to end their vacation. You know, because game development is a long-term work that requires high concentration, so it is usually after the end of a project. , the company will give employees of the project team one to two months of vacation to repair.

However, this time Naughty Dog employees spontaneously decided to give up their vacation and immediately invested in the development of their next game. This is a work that holds everyone's energy, and they are also developing "Uncharted". During the first film, they found areas that could be made more perfect, perfect and outstanding.

That's it, after winning all the awards, even Naughty Dog later talked about this experience when looking back, saying that even they themselves didn't think they could make a game that surpassed this one. Works, even close to it, are impossible to achieve. "Uncharted 2", which is regarded as a masterpiece by countless players, has begun formal project development.

The significance of this game to Naughty Dog is as phenomenal as "Crash Bandicoot".

These are some of the past events about Naughty Dog that have been buried in Jester's mind. After his intervention, none of these things may have happened. But Jester felt that since Andy and Jason could create such a great game company in the world he remembered, then he would give them better conditions in this world, so why not OK.

This is a certain thing.

The days after that have been uneventful. Maybe Nintendo was also exhausted from the previous head-on confrontation with Jester, so it hasn’t made any big moves in the past six months. The same goes for Jester. His The development process of analog frame arcade games was slow, and it took half a year for the process to be only halfway through. And it's mainly about the hardware. If the hardware problems are not solved, his so-called making a simulation frame game will be a trick.

On the contrary, after Sean Dabbili was scolded by Jester, the arcade "Knights of the Round Table" which was repeatedly modified was officially released. This is also Mars Entertainment's first official game developed on the 16-bit arcade base version. , and the content, graphics, and special effects that far exceed the eight-bit base board make this game a great success.

But these are all side effects to the real home of the video game market. As far as the competition for home game platforms is concerned, the past six months have been uneventful. In the North American market, Nintendo has been unable to succeed after "Metroid". Several games, either their own or those from their third-party gaming companies, didn't make much of a splash.

In the Japanese market, Mars Entertainment has not gained more momentum.

But in the European market. This is because Mars Entertainment and Nintendo entered this market at about the same time, and neither of them has a home field advantage. In addition, European players also play games that have been played in the United States and Japan. The number of games is also extremely sufficient, and the competition between the two parties in Europe is extremely fierce.

Jester just looked through the data sent to him by Claudia. Currently, Mars Entertainment's dreb has a slight advantage in Britain, France and Germany with about 60% of the platform share.

However, at present, the size of the European market is still not as large as that of Japan. Although Europe is much larger than Japan, Jester's main energy is also focused on how to completely open up Japan's situation, but this time the main attacker is not himself.

Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yuji Naka and Hideo Kojima have been back in Japan for half a year, and their development team has also been working in Japan for half a year. The news that Jester received has also entered the final stage.

The fastest one is Hideo Kojima. His "Metal Gear Solid" under Jester's "advisor" has already started white box testing. Basically, if there are no major problems, it can be officially released next month, while Sakaguchi Boxin's "Final Fantasy" is about two months away from release, and Yuji Naka's "Phantasy Star" is the slowest, about three months away.

However, although Jester values ​​Hideo Kojima's talent the most, his concept of movie-based games, especially the category of "Metal Gear Solid", is not mainstream in the current 2D eight-bit computer era, so it may be a bit niche. , if he wants to open up the Japanese market, Jester doesn’t want to rely on them.

What Jester values ​​the most is actually the two pure Japanese RPGs made by Hironobu Sakaguchi and Yuji Naka.

But before Jester could be happy with the news of the completion of "Final Fantasy" for a few days, a new piece of news suddenly made him nervous or excited.

This is the latest news from Nintendo about Lyle.

A newly developed RPG game successfully developed by a game company that submitted its work to Enix caused a great sensation in Nintendo's review department. Although this game has been popular for a long time, especially Akira Toriyama, who After the news came out that Osamu Tezuka, the God of Manga and the most outstanding manga artist after Mushi, served as the artist.