Naughty Dog is the Pixar of the Gaming World

Over the last few generations of consoles, Naughty Dog has done incredibly well at securing their spot on the top ten game developers list. With each new IP announcement leaving people in utter shock and awe it’s clear that Naughty Dog is the Pixar of the gaming world (minus the light hearted stories that are suitable for children)Naughty Dog has gone from the family fun Bandicoot games all the way to the life threatening contagions of The Last of Us, and looking back into their gaming history, most if not all of their games have been critically acclaimed. Naughty Dog has built up a reputation of a model developer that other developers should strive and hope to be like, as their business model must be doing something right. They have seemed to develop their own or gotten a hold of Pixar’s perfect movie formula somehow and adapted it to gaming. Although when you take a closer at these seemingly perfect companies under a microscope, it turns out that they are very lucky to say the least.

Naughty Dog started out their initial roots as Jam Software back before they remained their company in 1989. Founded by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin in 1984, they were an independent developer until Sony Computer Entertainment acquired the studio in 2001. Much like when Pixar and Disney paired up, Naughty Dog and Sony went on to create a storytelling powerhouse that would soon grow as time went on. Naughty Dog and their gifted staff have both the talent and Sony as a great publisher who gave Naughty Dog the time to work on crafting their games properly.Unlike other developer and studio relationships where the studio is putting an enormous amount of pressure on the developer to turn out games faster than they can create them, you can see that Naughty Dog is allowed the proper time to craft each game they make even if it means having to scrap half of their development progress halfway through a game’s completion. That’s not only dedication to creating a great game, but it’s also patience on Sony’s part being able to sit tight and allow them to work their magic rather than setting a end date for working on the project. Each individual project is given special care and time put into it throughout the development process and gamers are rarely ever disappointed.

Maybe the true secret formula to creating great games and stories are not a series of well-timed emotional beats, but time. Time could be the key ingredient after all. Nothing that is rushed ever turns out good and that can be supported by many rushed releases in both movies and video games. In July 2013, Pixar Studios President Edwin Catmull Said, that the studio planned to release one original film each year, and a sequel every other year, as part of a strategy to release “one and a half movies a year.” And if looking back at Naughty Dogs track record since the original Crash Bandicoot game, they seem to follow somewhat closely to that same strategy.Throughout the years, Naughty Dog has showed their well-roundedness and creative touch with their robust gaming library, from their platformers, action/adventures (even that unfortunate Jax-X racing game) and now the seemingly dying genre of the survival horror franchise. Naughty Dog has effectively proven that not only are they able to turn out a great game with any type of genre that is thrown at them, but they have what it takes to be a astronomical contenders for attention to detail and story similar to Pixar. Not many studios or publishers can turn out masterpieces acclaimed by not just the gaming community, but also critics alike.