GIGnews: Interview with Jason Rubin

October 2003

A CHAT WITH JASON RUBIN

GIGnews recruited Melanie Cambron, known by most in the industry as The Game Recruiting Goddess, to use her skills for the good of gamekind and recruit some of the big names in the industry to give us all valuable insight into what they do and how they do it.

In this interview, Melanie chats up Jason Rubin, President and Co-Founder of Naughty Dog. Jason and his partner, Andy Gavin, have been developing games since 1986, and helped make the world a brighter place with the Crash Bandicoot franchise, selling more than 25 million units worldwide. The third installment in the Crash series, Crash Bandicoot: Warped is reportedly the only foreign created and developed title to have sold more than a million units in Japan in the history of video games. Today, Jason and Naughty Dog ready for the anticipated debut of Jak II, the sequel to Jak & Daxter, the game that some have credited for making PlayStation2 the leading console for platform games.

MC: You’ve been in the business since you were 16, about half your life. Have you ever tired of it? Ever a time when you thought you wanted to do something else?

JR: I have been in the business for 18 years, from the early Apple days until today. The best thing about the game industry is that everything is always changing so nothing is ever dull. The worst thing about the game industry is that everything is always changing so you can’t take it easy…even for a second.

The best times for developers are the beginning of the game, when no idea is too crazy to bring up and everything seems possible, and after the game goes gold master. Between these two short periods is a long, painful period of cutting many of the great ideas you came up with at the start and grinding out the contents of the game so that you can reach the end. I think that the video game industry would burn people out even faster than it does if it weren’t for the fact that the afterglow of finishing a game rolls right into the "creative period" for the next. By the time you get off the high of seeing your previous game on the shelf, and realize that the next game isn’t really going to do everything you wanted it to, you are in too deep. The process repeats.

But that’s the game. You have to be a junkie to stay in this industry. The highs, as short as they may be, are worth the inevitable lows. I guess I will check into rehab some day, but I haven’t "hit bottom" yet, as they say.

MC: Almost every attorney I know is trying to figure out something else to do with their life, and while you do see that in games on occasion, the majority seem excited to be working in the industry and many a prodigal developer returns to the fold. What is it about games that keeps you excited and in the industry?

JR: Historically, video game makers were "called" to the industry. You had to love games. You had to pursue games. There was no money in it. There was no fame in it. You couldn’t explain what you were doing to your grandmother if you tried. Lawyers are generally not called to their industry. You don’t do mock courtrooms at seven. You don’t sit in the basement and read legal digests at eleven. You don’t set up a mock practice at fifteen. You do it because you need a career and it seems like a pretty good one. So sure, lawyers are always wondering if they should be doing something else, and game developers wonder how it is that they get paid to do what they love.

But this is changing. With the new financial lure of game making, and the increasing clout that the industry has, we are now attracting career people as opposed to hobbyists. Some artists are jumping back and forth between Hollywood and games, and programmers leave to pursue Internet ventures or come from other disciplines. As time passes, I assume that game making will become less a hobby and more a paycheck. Then maybe we will all wonder whether we should be lawyers.

MC: Not only have you been in games since 1986, you’ve also been business partners with the same guy, Andy Gavin, since that time. Plenty of business partnerships, and certainly personal relationships, don’t last nearly that long. How have you two made it work? What are your respective strengths and how do they balance out?

JR: This has been the miracle of Naughty Dog. It hasn’t really taken much effort to stay partners, and stay friends. I wouldn’t bet even odds that if I get married it will last as long, or be as smooth, as my partnership with Andy has been. It helps that the company was split 50/50 from the beginning. And it helps that we never once questioned that split. Andy is incredibly easygoing. I am not. I benefited from his demeanor. Were I to have partnered with another alpha-male, Naughty Dog would be known as the video game industry’s first double murder rather than one of its most successful developers. On the other hand, my assertiveness comes in handy. There are many developers that fail because they can’t stand up for themselves and not because their games don’t cut it. Universal Interactive Studios would have killed most other teams. The fact that Insomniac and Naughty Dog both survived UIS and are both still successful is no coincidence. It takes strength to survive in this industry.

So we both benefit from each other’s strengths. If that isn’t the definition of partnership then it should be.

Having said that, Andy and I are known for the shouting matches we have at the end of games. I don’t remember the cause of any of them. Probably just blowing off steam.

MC: The de rigeur question for singers is something along the lines of "how did you feel the first time you heard your song on the radio?" In that vein, how did you feel the first time you saw one of your games on the retail shelf or, perhaps, the first time you saw a television commercial featuring Crash Bandicoot telling America how to eat a stuffed crust pizza?

JR: It never gets old. I just found out that Jak II received a 10/10 from the US magazine PSM. I don’t feel any less excited than I did when we got our first good review. It is always cool to see your game out there, or to get a great write-up, or to hear positive things from a fan. That rush keeps us making games.

MC: I read in a recent interview that you said gaming is no longer an industry in which two 16-year-olds can take on the world, that the scale of things today is much greater. I receive countless inquiries from young, aspiring game developers who have a great idea for a game, what do they do? If you were 16 now, how would you go about breaking into the industry?

JR: I get this question all the time. The bad news is that you can’t put together a team in the basement like Andy and I did. The good news is that there is real, honest to goodness training for those that want to get into the game industry. Take classes. Do your homework. Do more than your homework. Do it until it bleeds. And then apply everywhere. You are going to start at the bottom, but everyone did at some point. The time to start your own company today is after you have made a handful of games (with a big team), not before.

MC: Just so you know, it was the demo of Jak II that I brought back from E3 that gave me real street cred with my 12 year old cousin. So, thank you very much. However, the only consumer opinion feedback I can give you in return is "This is so cool! You’re the best cousin ever!" With regard to feedback, I’ve read that Naughty Dog uses focus testing during game development to get feedback on progress. It’s fairly commonly known that a focus group panned The Sims. At the end of the day, how much do you rely on focus groups? And how do you go about putting a focus group together?

JR: There is certainly a trick to using focus groups to your benefit. I would never release a title without focus testing, but on the other hand you can’t consider the results gospel. We focus tested Jak II four times. Players reported that they liked it each time. But we used the focus test to iron out the rough points. We found out where they were dying the most, and watched their faces to see when they were getting frustrated. We also found out where they were getting lost. In fact, I think we look at the players and what they are doing more than we ask how they feel. We find that it is almost impossible to get good answers out of a group, especially at certain ages, and that it is better to watch their reactions to the game. Body language tells all.

The demo disk taught us that the game was too hard, that the board mechanic needed tweaking, that the levels needed continue points, etc. The areas that were on the focus disk are significantly better in the final game.

MC: You have taken a darker, more mature approach with Jak II which has surprised some people. What sort of pressure do you feel when establishing a game’s tone and look, particularly a game that’s a sequel to a wildly successful game? Is there pressure to make it less dark or more dark or some level of dark that would generate more sales? How do you balance the aesthetic with the financial?

JR: Naughty Dog never allows pressure to determine what we are going to do. We believe that we are artists, but we define our art as entertaining the greatest number of people. So when we make decisions that we believe will improve the games overall reception, we do so as an artist would decide what to do with their artwork, and we don’t sweat the fallout. This is a subtle distinction. We knew that we had a multi-million gamer fan base that would have readily accepted a straight Jak sequel. And we knew when we decided to mix it up that we might alienate some of these gamers. But we believed that we were making a decision that would lead to a more appropriate game for October 2003, and ultimately a better game. Initially, we weathered the inevitable counter-reaction to our decision. The reaction that we are getting to the final code from editors in the industry tells us that our gamble will pay off. That is why I say that we aren’t being pressured into change, but rather that we are aggressively deciding to take risks, albeit risk that hopefully leads to better entertainment.

MC: What was the inspiration for this new look? As I recall, inspiration for the Crash characters came from a book on Australian marsupials. Bruce Shelley (Ages of Empires, Mythology) said they occasionally had movie nights in Ensemble’s auditorium to watch Clash of the Titans and other films with mythology elements. From whence have the naughty dogs drawn inspiration for Jak & Daxter and the upcoming sequel Jak II?

JR: Jak 1 was inspired by many sources. Jak and Daxter’s relationship is inspired by Disney characters like Aladdin and the Genie, or Mulan and Mushu. Their city and its residents were inspired by the Asterix and Obelix series by Goscinny and Uderzo. The character look is inspired in part by the artwork of Joe Madureira, especially the Battle Chasers series. And the world was inspired by Miyazaki’s movies, especially The Princess Mononoke. Jak II wasn’t inspired by any specific sources. I guess there is some Blade Runner in there. Some Star Wars. Some Anime influences. We just went with it. I think Naughty Dog is more comfortable going out on its own now. We crack reference books less often.

MC: If you could narrow your success down to three key elements, what would they be? And please don’t say Myoplex. Protein shakes are good, but they’re not that good.

JR: I would like to believe that Naughty Dog’s "secret" is that we 1) accurately assess the desires of the marketplace at the time our game will launch, 2) we create a product that fills that hole better than anyone else, and 3) we do it on schedule.

MC: I understand you have a sweet black Labrador retriever named Morgan that you’re just crazy about. I also have a black Lab, her name is Baci. And a chocolate Lab named Rowdy. And they piss all over my begonias and eat the tops off my day lilies and, in short, maybe my naughty dogs could go to California to visit Morgan for just a bit?

JR: Well, Rowdy and Baci are welcome, but sadly Morgan left Naughty Dog a year ago after 13½ years of service. She came to work with me every day and contributed to every game Naughty Dog has done since Rings of Power in 1991. Andy has a yellow Labrador named Osiris that would be more than happy to play instead.

AUTHOR BIO
Melanie Cambron is a recruiter for game industry leaders such as THQ, Rockstar, and Sony. Featured in Game Design: Secrets of the Sages and Secrets of the Game Business for her game industry knowledge, she also wrote the foreword to the successful book, Game Programming with Direct X 7.0 and its follow-up. Melanie speaks each semester at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of North Texas on the game development industry, and is frequently interviewed by major media such as the Dallas Morning News for her industry expertise. She also serves as a consultant to the City of Austin's Interactive Industry Development Committee. Learn more about the "Game Recruiting Goddess" at www.melaniecambron.com or contact her directly at melanie@melaniecambron.com

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