Crash Bandicoot Untold Story - July 21
Dave Siller
For the most part, the initial team at Naughty Dog were a great and talented group, even Gavin and Rubin were human. I remember asking Gavin about a technical or programming request that I would have and he would say "Can't be done!". The next morning however, he would show me that he did it! He was in fact quite an amazing programmer. It all started to change as the momentum of the game began picking up speed in the press.
Craig Anthony Perkins
All I know is, Rubin bullied me as if we were still in high school, all for doing my job of finding bugs in their programming. He hated me for some reason, and Gavin was... indifferent to me, but not very pleasant (maybe it's because they were best buds with Mark Cerny, and I had unintentionally insulted Mark during my initial interview... I've got to tell you that story some day!) The rest of the crew were very friendly and supportive to me.
I should have been use to that treatment though... even way back at Philips Media I had a developer come marching down to the game testing floor; demanding I be fired for "falsely" claiming that their game caused such a fatal crash that it permanently bricked the game machine. Once I showed him (and my bosses at the time) the very easy steps to replicate it, and bricked yet another machine (due to the Developer's huge oversight in introducing code that affected the boot ram of the machine) I was made Manager of the department, and that developer never spoke to me in that way again! Developers are always too close to their projects and that's why having a seperate game testing department is so important.
At Universal, I was hired to create the Beta Test department, but before I hired my own employees, it was just me. Then when Sony picked up the game, they also had their test department testing Crash. I remember them getting back to us in the first week saying "so far so good, our 20 testers only found a handful of bugs." Funny, because that same week, I alone found over 100 bugs, several of which were fatal and crashed the game!
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Dave Siller
Rubin himself was quite a character in the beginning, always making voice impressions of Ren & Stimpy, saying "yeah-yeah-yeah!".. He as I were big fans of heavy metal music and we would talk about that sometimes. Rubin was a gifted animator but became way too controlling and paranoid.
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S. Dunn (fan)
I can't help but wonder, why did you decide to release all this info now of all times? It's been a crazy long time to keep all of this under wraps.
Dave Siller
A number of reasons: first a friend of mine in Russia sent me a message saying that I somehow was written out of the Crash Bandicoot Wikipedia site. Secondly, the "Art" book came out and fans and friends were upset that I seemed to have been exorcised from the history entirely. Next my wife died five years ago and I was distraught and depressed trying to deal with that as well. Lastly, I got tired of being "dissed" about this subject so I went into my archives and open the floodgates!
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Dave Siller
Mark Cerny one day should finally admit that he had very little to do with the creation of Crash Bandicoot! He was working with the pre-Insomniac guys on "DISRUPTOR" that was switched from 3DO to the new M2 coming from Matsushita. That game was a "Hollywood Studio" production of a First-Person-Shooter"! Catherine Hardwicke was hired to design the sets (level geometry), so to speak. She was a doll, later directing "The Lords of Dogtown".
Cerny did NOT like the final character art set that we (the entire production team) had created. He said "Not slick enough"! He came into CB when Sony appeared and he only further agitated the relationship between Rubin and me so he could justify his participation. Before I left, he had me working secretly on new design elements that he did not reveal to Naughty Dog!
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Dave Siller
Rob Biniaz was the President of Universal Interactive Studios. He was a great leader and boss while I was there. He was sharp, brilliant and a great man to work for. His history was that of a corporate Entertainment lawyer, While at CBS, he wrote the contracts that many rock bands were signed to. He was the tough negotiator that did the Sony license deal and you wanted him on your side! He made life at UIS fun...until MCA was sold to Canadian Distillery Seagrams and then things changed...
P. Caldora (fan)
Jason Rubin constantly called out this guy in interviews but I personally found it hard to believe since he sugarcoated everything else about the history of Crash. He definitely sounds like a great leader to work with!
Dave Siller
Rubin got Biniaz fired!!!! A fact....
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Dave Siller
Mark Cerny is one of the most brilliant technologist I have ever worked with, and I worked with many great ones. He was so uncanny with his technical genius and I remember when he and I were walking on the lot to a presentation of the new "DVD" technology at one of the Universal offices. He asked me if I thought that one of the big hardware companies would entertain listening to his console ideas. That was almost twenty years ago and look where he is today, chief hardware visionary for Sony PS4. No brag just fact! However, he like so many secretly desired to be an accomplished "game designer"...
