Naughty Dog founder speaks on losing Crash Bandicoot and “abysmal” Universal Interactive partnership

Naughty Dog founder Jason Rubin has spoken about the studio’s move away from the Crash Bandicoot series and Universal Interactive, describing the business relationship as “abysmal”.

Speaking to Chris Dring at The Game Business Live, Rubin was asked if it was hard to move on from the intellectual property he helped create. He responded: “It was extremely hard to say goodbye to Crash […] The relationship with Universal was abysmal.

“To give you an idea, one of the people working [at Universal] put a target – that he had gone and shot with real bullets – on the wall, and said to Andy [Gavin] ‘your partner ought to look at this, I’m not a bad shot’ about something. It was abysmal.

“They had us working in a building Andy said was very corporate, he didn’t mention that most of our desks were in a hallway. At night, on the 30-some-odd floor of this building in Universal Studios, the heat would rise.

“They would turn the AC off at 6pm – Crash Bandicoot working hours ended at 4am. So by 4am on a summer’s day on the 34th floor it was over 100 degrees in the building. I’m not exaggerating. I know that to be a fact because our servers would shut down at about 105 degrees. They wouldn’t let us bring in air conditioning on our own, they wouldn’t put the AC on, so we had to bring in ice and a fan to keep Crash Team Racing going.”

Rubin continues: “I want to point out they gave me a little over 100 million dollars in the first few weeks, yet they were still doing this with us. So when we talk about a bad relationship, this relationship was abysmal. The bottom line, the reason for this, was they realised they added nothing but owning the license.

“To be very clear, Mark Cerny at that time was not a part of Universal. As far as I’m concerned, he was always the n+1 Naughty Dog; I don’t include him in that in any way. Beyond that, there was no value we were getting, and they were openly honest with us. Our offices were being built as they were doing this, so it wasn’t that we were asking them to do something they shouldn’t have done: they had an obligation to house us that was in the contract, and they realised they could place us on the 34th floor and do all these things.

“So, there could be a movie about this. It was a crazy time. It was not hard to say goodbye to Universal, but the fact that [Crash Team Racing] existed was Sony stepping up to the plate and doing the right thing for all parties, and it wasn’t going to happen again.”

Rubin goes on to describe a recent trip he took with his daughter to Universal Studios’ Citywalk, and visiting stores there including comic book shops holding Sonic the Hedgehog merchandise, and the Nintendo Store. He then spoke on how unfortunate it is that Crash Bandicoot isn’t present there, when it could have been if working relationships were better.

“I built Crash with Andy and Mark 500 yards from [Universal Studios], and they’re borrowing those other IP now, when Crash was bigger than both of those for five years. That’s crazy to me. Had the relationship worked out better, there could be a Crash ride at Universal [Studios].”

Since the days of Crash Bandicoot, Rubin has gone on to lead THQ games in 2012, and then to head up Oculus VR in 2014. Following Facebook’s rebranding as Meta, Rubin became VP of metaverse content, leaving in early 2026.