P1

Naughty Dog

a) Ownership

Naughty Dog is a video game developing business that was founded 34 years ago by Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin. After creating many games with Naughty Dog, Gavin and Rubin left and sold the company to the now parent company, Sony back in 2001. The new president of Naughty Dog is Evan Wells who appointed Neil Druckmann as his vice president.

b) Operating Model

There are many departments within the operating model at Naughty Dog. For example, there is an art department where you would find people working on different things such as textures and graphics. There is also a marketing department programmers and a Human Resources department. All of these are key in the success of Naughty Dog.

c) Products

Over the 34 years of Naughty Dog's existence, they have created many video games. Some more successful than others. In the early life of Naughty Dog, Gavin and Rubin produced games such as, Rings of Power and Way of the Warrior. These games were successful but not to a great extent. However, in 1996 Naughty Dog released 'Crash Bandicoot'. This game was created exclusively for Playstation but later went on to feature on many different platforms. Gavin and Rubin noticed that Playstation did not have a mascot and believed Crash could become an unofficial mascot for Playstation. Crash Bandicoot was a huge success for Naughty Dog as it was and still is a very popular game and has sold huge amounts of copies. A large majority of people also see Crash Bandicoot as a mascot for Playstation. After this, they went on to create 'Jak and Daxter' which was also very successful and they made many more of these. After Gavin and Rubin left, Naughty Dog and Evan Wells wanted to create something different for the new platform, Playstation 3. As a result, they created 'Uncharted'. The first game that they released in this series was 'Uncharted: Drake's Fortune'. However it was the second release that got people talking, this was called 'Uncharted 2: Among Thieves'. People were blown away by the gameplay, graphics and storyline of this game. They then went on to create many more Uncharted games. The most recent game that Naughty Dog released was 'The Last of Us'. This was a huge step for Naughty Dog as the game was very successful and sold vast amounts of copies, they had sold 3.4 million units within the first three weeks of it's release.

d) Market Position

In the 1990's, Naughty Dog lead the market with Crash Bandicoot being one of the most popular video games at that time. However, things are different now as bigger companies such as EA and Ubisoft have taken over the video games industry. This is mainly because there games are more popular than Naughty Dog ones because the game play and graphics are more advanced.  

e) Competitors

Naughty Dog has many rival companies as the video game industry is very large. Some of these are, Activision, Ubisoft and Treyarch. All of these companies have games that are similar to Naughty Dogs. For example Activision and Treyarch both make Call of Duty games and Ubisoft make Farcry both these games are similar to Uncharted and The Last of Us.

Ninja Theory

a) Ownership

Ninja Theory was founded in March 2000 by Nina Kristensen, Mike Ball and Tameem Antoniades. The company is based in Cambridge. It first operated under the name, 'Just Add Monsters' and was aquired by Argonaut Games soon after its founding. Ninja Theory is a subsidiary, it's parent company is Microsoft Studios. 

b) Operating Model

There are many departments and roles within Ninja Theory. For example, there is the founders - Tameem Antoniades, Nina Kristensen and Mike Ball. As well as being the founders of this company, they all have their individual roles within Ninja Theory. Mike Ball is Chief of Technology, Nina Kristensen is Chief of Development and Tameem Antoniades is Chief of Design. Having many people do different jobs within the company helps make it flow. Within the company, there are many departments that help creating games and managing the business. For example, there is the arts department which creates the graphics for the game. In this department there are several roles such as, environmental art lead, character art lead and concept artist. There is also people within the company who create the audio for the game, some of these include, pre-production sound design, audio lead and composers.

c) Products

Ninja Theory has made many games over it's period of existence. The arguably most popular game that they have produced is 'HellBlade' which is an adventure game, where the character that you control makes her way through a mysterious island; This was released in 2017. Other products include, Devil May Cry (2013), Heavenly Sword (2007), Kung Fu Chaos (2003) and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.

d) Market Position

In the video games market, Ninja Theory is on par with companies such as Jagex. Both of these companies compete closely in the video games market, as they both base a lot of their games on phones. Since the release of 'Hellblade', Ninja Theory has moved up in the market as the game is very popular and has sold a lot of copies. I would say that Ninja Theory are not right at the top of it's market yet they are not down the bottom either, therefore, I'd say the company is based around the middle of their market.

e) Competitors

Ninja Theory has many close competitors such as Gameloft, Jagex and Glu who are based in the same industry (video games). All of these companies make a large amount of mobile games. Ninja Theory created a mobile game called 'Fightback'. This is being rivalled by many of their competitors. Gameloft have a similar mobile game called, 'Gangstar Vegas'. Jagex have 'Old School Runescape' and Glu have created a game called 'Gun Bros 2'. All of these games are very similar to Fightback which means these companies are rivals for Ninja Theory.