Andy Gavin: Video Game Creator

I started programming video games in 1980 and along with my partner, Jason Rubin, founded Naughty Dog, Inc. in 1985. We ran the company for almost twenty years and I designed/co-directed/produced the following games: Math Jam, Ski Crazed, Dream Zone, Keef the Thief, Rings of Power, Way of the Warrior, Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, Crash Bandicoot: Warped!, Crash Team Racing, Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Jak II, and Jak 3. I was lead programmer (and sometimes sole programmer) on all of these games except for Crash Team Racing.

Overall, games I’ve been lead programmer on have sold more than 40 million copies worldwide.

More detail about this and the rest of my life can be found in my bio.

I have all sorts of information on making video games (including mine) on the site. Some favorites are in the righthand sidebar and recent topics are below.

The sorted archive of historic video game posts is here or

Making Crash Bandicoot, How Do I Get a Job in Video Games, and WOW Endgame Analysis.

Or find out what I have in development right now!

The Last of Us – Review Roundup

June 5, 2013
1

The Last of Us is almost on us, and with the review ban lifted I round up over 50 reviews…

More Crash for Charity

May 1, 2013
6

Crash super fan Matt Wallace is auctioning off various Crash Bandicoot swag for charity on e-bay…

My first dev unit looked more or less like this

PS2 Memory Lane

April 25, 2013
6

My first PS2 glimpse was hardly typical. In the spring of 1999, I had to go down to LAX and claim my prototype unit…

The Last of Us – Red Band

April 3, 2013
10

April brings us The Last of Us two minute red band trailer… awesome…

Crash Valentines

February 14, 2013
14

In honor of Valentines, I share with you both a cute fan pic, courtesy of die hard fan Daisy Parker, and fan Aaron White’s latest stop motion fan film…

The Last of Us – Zombie Time

February 5, 2013
16

Yes I know, they’re “infected”, but name change or no, it’s still Zombie Time!

WOW Endgames – Mists of Pandaria

January 11, 2013
46

My epic survey of World of Warcraft endgames concludes with a detailed analysis of Mists of Pandaria…

Detailed and Colorful - but most important fun

Crash Live Action Tribute

December 12, 2012
16

A fun “live action” Crash Bandicoot tribute film by 18 year-old filmmaker Mat Hill…

Game Shop Crash

December 2, 2012
5

Game Shop is a cute little episodic SitCom that takes place in a mall video game store. Episode six is all about none other than Crash Bandicoot!

WOW Endgames – Cataclysm

November 28, 2012
18

Blizzard, never afraid to shake things up, literally rocked the whole vanilla world of Azeroth and rebuilt not only the endgame but the rest of the game as well…

World of Warcraft 8th Anniversary

November 20, 2012
4

Blizzard released this cool 8 year anniversary video, which is sort of a walk down memory lane. Given that I’ve been writing up my giant endgame comparison post series, I thought it apropos…

By the end of Lich King, nearly all the major mechanics that Blizzard introduced during the course of WOW evolution had come into play: Badges, the dungeon finder, dailies, reputation hubs, tier acceleration, split difficulties, split raid sizes, profession currencies, separate pvp/pve tracks, achievements, and more…

WOW Endgames – Burning Crusade

November 7, 2012
9

In many ways, The Burning Crusade was my favorite endgame. Not only was it fun (and hard), but it was a time of heavy design experimentation where the Fel Reaver’s share of new gameplay ideas were introduced…

This is pretty much what Rag did to the unprepared!

WOW Endgames – Vanilla

October 29, 2012
23

In this detailed post series, I discuss the evolution of the five World of Warcraft endgames from both a player and game design perspective. We start with Vanilla…

Mists of Pandaria Leveling

October 15, 2012
2

I wasn’t originally going to play Mists of Pandaria, but once I zoned into the gorgeous Jade Forest it was hard to stop…

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Jak & Daxter Q&A

September 12, 2012
28

A series of questions and answers about the origin of Jak & Daxter…

The Last of Us – 15 min of Gameplay

September 8, 2012
10

Fifteen minutes of official gameplay footage…

The Last of Us – August Teaser

August 15, 2012
10

August arrives, and with it another teaser. This continues that cool creepy vibe driven by the bluegrass soundtrack.

Video Games, Novels, and Ideas

August 1, 2012
14

Since I’ve created thirteen video games and written two novels I’m often asked how the process compares between the two. This is a complex topic, but here goes one stab at it, focusing on the generation of the idea. The…

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Crash Bandicoot Fan Film

July 27, 2012
10

One of Crash’s more dedicated fans used the action figure toys to create this crazy little stop motion fan film set in the Crash Universe…

Diablo 3 – The Infernal Barbarian

July 6, 2012
3

Life for the Barbarian in Diablo 3 Inferno mode is brutal. Close in, you have to take the hits, and the hits are hard…

Diablo_3___Barbarian_Wallpaper_by_Lythus

Diablo 3 – Barbarian 1-60

June 8, 2012
17

I played through all five classes in beta and decided to level the Barbarian first. Herein lies my detailed chronicle of the 1-60 level experience and thoughts on Normal, Nightmare, Hell, and Inferno…

The Last of Us – E3 Gameplay Coverage

June 6, 2012
11

E3 has bought us an extensive new gameplay video for Naughty Dog’s post-apocalyptic survival game, The Last of Us. Aside from the recently released Diablo III, this is my most anticipated upcoming game, and I suspect I’m not alone.

New Last of Us Trailer

May 16, 2012
28

The Last of Us, Naughty Dog’s new game in development, has a cool new trailer. Check it out!

What is Diablo 3?

May 12, 2012
1

Only three days to go until D3-day, and in case you don’t know what that means, this little video from Blizzard does a nice job summarizing the game.

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Diablo III: Wrath

May 8, 2012
3

Blizzard has released Wrath, an animated short by directory Peter Chung (Aeon Flux) depicting an ancient battle between the angels of Sanctuary and Diablo. Pretty cool.

Diablo 3 – Commercial

April 29, 2012
10

The geek watch countdown! The new Diablo III commercial.

Diablo 3 – Beta Preview

April 19, 2012
12

Finally, the Diablo 3 beta invite showed up in my mailbox. Unfortunately, by the time I got it downloaded and installed I was headed to Vegas for the weekend, but as soon as I returned, I fired it up, rolled a toon, and cranked through the 1.5-2 hours it took to defeat the Skeleton King and “finish” the beta. Then I rolled another class. Then another.

PostDesk Interview

March 16, 2012
13

I reflect on Crash Bandicoot and Naughty Dog. And also offer some interesting perspectives on the games industry, drawing from my experiences – finally going on to talk about what I’m doing now, as a novelist – and how creating worlds has always been one of my great passions.