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Jason Rubin (born 1970) is an American video game director, writer, and comic book creator. He is best known for the '' Crash Bandicoot'' and '' Jak and Daxter'' series of games which were produced by Naughty Dog, the game development studio he co-founded with partner and childhood friend Andy Gavin in 1986. He was the president of THQ before its closure due to bankruptcy on January 23, 2013. Rubin is the vice president of Metaverse Content at
Meta Platforms Meta Platforms, Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Meta owns and operates several prominent social media platforms and communication services, including Facebook, Instagram, Threads ...
.


Career

Rubin and Andy Gavin formed Naughty Dog in 1984. Later that year, they published their first game together — a budgetware title called Ski Crazed. In 1989, Rubin and Gavin sold their first game to
Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple Inc., Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry ...
: a
role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, or abbreviated as RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out ...
called '' Keef the Thief''. He took a brief hiatus from school and game design to move to
Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
and attempt a career as a screenwriter, but after little success, he returned to school and game design. While Gavin was an undergraduate in
Haverford College Haverford College ( ) is a private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded as a men's college in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Fr ...
and Rubin was attending the
University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
, they collaborated with each other on their next title: a role-playing game called '' Rings of Power''. The game began as a PC title, but during meetings at
Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple Inc., Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry ...
Gavin spotted a reverse engineered
Sega Genesis The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Sys ...
, pitched a slightly modified version of the title to Trip Hawkins, and the title became the duo's first console game. ''Rings of Power'' still has a cult following today. After much persuasion from Hawkins, Rubin and Gavin took a leap of faith and started designing '' Way of the Warrior'', which was heavily inspired by ''
Mortal Kombat ''Mortal Kombat'' is an American media franchise centered on a series of fighting game, fighting video games originally developed by Midway Games in 1992. The original ''Mortal Kombat (1992 video game), Mortal Kombat'' arcade game spawned Lis ...
'', for the 3DO console. They demoed the game at CES and received interest from Skip Paul, former chairman of
Atari Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French holding company Atari SA (formerly Infogrames) and its focus is on "video games, consumer hardware, licensing and bl ...
's Coin-Op division and then head of the new Universal Interactive Studios. Skip signed the pair to a three title development deal at Universal, moving them out to the Universal Studios lot and introducing them to Mark Cerny, who worked with the pair on the design of their next title, which was a "'' Donkey Kong Country''-inspired" 3D platformer called '' Crash Bandicoot''. ''Crash Bandicoot'' turned out to be an enormous success, and
Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...
used the main character as their unofficial
PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...
mascot for several years. Due to the impressive visuals which the developer was able to achieve from the PlayStation console, the game served as a quality benchmark that all other game developers aimed to match, and the series spawned three sequels by Naughty Dog selling over 26 million units. The series continues with other development teams, having sold more than 40 million units worldwide. After their success with ''Crash Bandicoot'', Rubin and Gavin began working on '' Jak and Daxter'', a franchise that sold 9 million units through the various Naughty Dog incarnations. The series continued with other developers and as of 2017 had sold 15 million copies sold worldwide. Before Jak and Daxter's release, Sony purchased Naughty Dog, which became a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment America in 2001. As a result, '' Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy'' was developed exclusively for the PlayStation 2. In their 18 years running Naughty Dog, they created fourteen original games including ''Math Jam'' (1985), ''Ski Crazed'' (1986), '' Dream Zone'' (1987), ''Keef the Thief'' (1989), ''Rings of Power'' (1991), ''Way of the Warrior'' (1994), '' Crash Bandicoot'' (1996), '' Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back'' (1997), '' Crash Bandicoot: Warped'' (1998), '' Crash Team Racing'' (1999), ''Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy'' (2001), '' Jak II'' (2003), '' Jak 3'' (2004) and '' Jak X: Combat Racing'' (2005). Together these games have sold over 35 million units and generated over $1 billion in revenue. Just days after making a controversial speech at 2004's D.I.C.E. Summit that criticized publishers for not recognizing and promoting talent responsible for creating games, Rubin publicly announced his departure from Naughty Dog. On May 29, 2012, Rubin joined the struggling video game publisher THQ as president, and was responsible for all of THQ's worldwide product development, marketing and publishing operations. At the time Rubin joined THQ, the company had laid off hundreds of its employees and the stock had lost over 99% of its value from its high. According to Game Industry International, "placing Jason Rubin at the company's helm was unquestionably a good move — the Naughty Dog founder has an enviable track record and quite rightly commands the respect of the industry —, but by the time he took the role, THQ's stock had already crashed and layoffs were well underway. The company was mortally wounded; Rubin's failure to resuscitate his terminally ill patient should not reflect in any way on his own talents and abilities". To save the teams and products management took the company through a restructuring. As part of that process, THQ filed for
Chapter 11 Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, w ...
with the intention to sell off its assets at auction. Soon after, THQ management announced a stalking horse bid for the company by Clear Lake Capital for $60 million. Handling the sale of THQ was Centerview Partners Skip Paul, a former colleague of Jason Rubin. Creditors said the proposed sale of THQ in bankruptcy court benefited current THQ management, including Rubin. Early creditor objections and court documents were not kind to THQ management. Though not as widely publicized as the initial criticism, Judge Walwrath put an end to the entire mismanagement line of argument when she called it a "conspiracy theory" on the record. Additionally, same Creditors that made the initial accusations ultimately took the unusual step of releasing THQ Management, including Rubin, of any malfeasance in the company's Official Plan of Liquidation Rubin's public statements made at the time are clear. Management was always open to, and actively seeking, higher bidders at the same time as they tried to hold the company together, both for the benefit of the Company and the Creditors: Judge Mary F. Walrath decided to have an auction for the individual assets, and competing offers for the separate parts of THQ prevailed. Though many employees lost their jobs in the bankruptcy, the development teams at
Relic In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains or personal effects of a saint or other person preserved for the purpose of veneration as a tangible memorial. Reli ...
(bought by
Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...
), Volition (bought by
Koch Media Plaion GmbH (formerly Koch Media) is an Austrian media company headquartered in Höfen, Tyrol, with an additional office in Planegg, Germany. It was founded in 1994 by Franz Koch and Klemens Kundratitz. The company operates video game publishi ...
), and THQ Montreal (purchased by
Ubisoft Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include '' Anno'', '' Assassin's Creed'', ' ...
) remained intact, as did much of Vigil which became Crytek USA, and all of the THQ products in the works survived the bankruptcy have come or are scheduled to come out soon. In December 2012, THQ partnered up with The Humble Bundle Team at Wolfire Games to make the Humble THQ Bundle raising over 5 million dollars, much of it going to charity. Rubin donated over $10,000 to charity as part of the event. During E3 2014 it was announced that Rubin joined
Oculus VR Reality Labs, formerly Oculus VR, is a business and research unit of Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook Inc.) that produces virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) hardware and software, including virtual reality headsets such as the Qu ...
, heading up the Oculus first-party content initiatives in Seattle, San Francisco, Menlo Park, Dallas and Irvine. In 2021, following Oculus parent company Facebook's rebranding as Meta, Rubin became VP of Metaverse Content, leading the company's VR and Metaverse Content production teams, the internal Studios, Publishing, and Developer Ecosystem teams.


Other projects

Rubin also created two comic book series. '' The Iron Saint'', originally known as ''Iron and the Maiden'', was published by Aspen Comics, and including artwork designed by artists as
Joe Madureira Joe Madureira (; born December 1974), often called Joe Mad,Smith, Andrew (May 3, 2002). "Canceled Comics Cavalcade Catch-up". ''Comics Buyer's Guide'' #1485. p. 38 is an American comic book artist and game developer, best known for his work on ''D ...
, Jeff Matsuda, Francis Manapul and Joel Gomez. "Mysterious Ways" was published by TopCow Comics and includes artwork from Tyler Kirkham. Rubin also co-founded an Internet startup called Flektor with Naughty Dog co-founder Andy Gavin and former HBO executive Jason Kay. In May 2007, the company was sold to Fox Interactive Media, which is a division of
News Corp The second and current incarnation of News Corporation, doing business as News Corp, is an American mass media and publishing company headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The company was formed on ...
. Fox described the company as: "a next-generation Web site that provides users with a suite of Web-based tools to transform their photos and videos into dynamic slideshows, postcards, live interactive presentations and video mash-ups." In October 2007, Flektor partnered with its sister company,
Myspace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...
, and MTV to provide instant audience feedback via polls for the interactive MySpace / MTV Presidential Dialogues series with then-presidential candidate Senator
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
.


Video games


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rubin, Jason University of Michigan alumni American video game designers American video game producers American video game directors Place of birth missing (living people) 20th-century American Jews American comics writers 1970 births Living people American video game writers American video game businesspeople Naughty Dog people 21st-century American Jews