Uncharted 3 developer shares secrets with Halo, Call of Duty, Killzone and Resistance devs
Naughty Dog, the studio behind the development of one of this generation’s greatest gaming franchises, have shown that the video game industry is not as cut-throat as the on-going battles between Sony and Microsoft, or Electronic Arts and Activision, may
make it seem.
This comes after the developer revealed that they openly share their development process and code of the Uncharted series with other developers, regardless of which platform or game the ‘competition’ is working on.
Justin Richmond, Naughty Dog’s game director, explained how the video game development community (the triple A title development community to be more specific) were a close group, “Sony's first-party developers are all pretty good friends. Like, we know
the guys at Media Molecule, Guerrilla and all these other people.”
Going on to mention how it was not just Sony’s own first party studios that would get the information made accessible to them, as they would share the secrets of their trade with other developers as well. The only criteria seemingly being that Naughty Dog
had an interest in wanting to play those games themselves in the future.
Richmond continued, “On top of that though, when we released the first Uncharted we also released all of what we used to all of the first-party developers.”
Apparently, the move seemed to have paid off and Naughty Dog decided to do the same with Uncharted 2.
“We did that with Uncharted 2 as well, and we're always open to helping other studios out if they say, 'Hey, how did you guys do this? How did you do that?' We're always happy to tell them what we did, as there's no secret.” Richmond concluded.
Most business men would be pulling their hair out at this moment, wondering why a studio with Intellectual Property as valuable as Naughty Dog’s would be sharing trade secrets with rival game developers. However, it does not seem to be something that is
bothering the studio one bit.
In a cool casual tone, Richmond dropped another bombshell, “And yeah we trade tech secrets and such, and we've spoken to Bungie (the studio behind the Halo series) and the guys at Infinity Ward (Modern Warfare series).”
For those readers who do not understand the significance of what Richmond just said, it can be likened to the equivalent of McDonalds sharing their secret sauce recipe with KFC, Hardees, Burger King, Taco Bell and even the diner down the street for good
measure.
However, Richmond explained that the flow of information was not one way, and that other developers would be more than willing to exchange the favour. Apparently Guerrilla games shared tips on how to improve ‘particle effects’ in Uncharted as well.
All in all, it’s a great feeling, as a member of the gaming community, to know that the developers are all about making great games, and not so much about making money, at least in this one case.
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