Naughty Dog Asked Activision to Let them Include Crash Bandicoot in Fan Art Contest; Got Denied

Naughty Dog is holding a fan art design contest to celebrate its 30th anniversary, prompting fans to create their own artwork related to Uncharted, The Last of Us and Jak and Daxter in order to win some definitely spiffy prizes.

As you probably noticed, there’s at least one relevant name missing from the list, and that’s Crash Bandicoot, which made Naughty Dog popular to begin with in the era of the first PlayStation. Of course fans asked whether the famous character could be included, but Community Strategist Eric Monacelli’s answer was unfortunately negative

[kingtroy]

Denied by their own creation.

[Foraoise]

Actually was only created by two guys a ND, but still correct, nonetheless.

[bouzebbal]

what does Activision do with this licence anyway? it's ridiculous that they don't let them include Crash

[Foraoise]

They bought him and threw him in the trash after using him for those few "Mutant" games or whatever. So, that's where it stands right now unfortunately :/

And LOL @ my disagree.

[CalibriSerif]

@Foraoise:
but nobody disagreed with you so far.

[killer4fun53]

@CalibriSerif
Maybe that why he is laughing?

[SoapShoes]

Somethings fishy here... At th PS4 reveal event they were able to use Crash Bandicoot commercial footage in a montage as well as music from the first game. How were they able to use that and not now? It's owned by activision so even footage of the old games would require permission...

[bmf7364]

Frickin Activision is doing nothing with the license. If they can't make money off of golden titles like Crash and Spyro, nobody can.

[Tito08]

It seems that whenever an existing IP gets on Activision's hands, that IP might be either a failure or would not exist anymore, look what happened to Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero, the many bad Spider-Man games, and even Tenchu which I think they don't own anymore, pretty much what's keeping them alive is COD, I used to buy some of their games during the PS1/2 era, this time, not at all, and they have some great IPs which they're not making good use of, not good, if Activision can't do any good Crash games, they should re-sell the IP to Sony because Naughty Dog still have the best Crash games after all these years...

[sjaakiejj]

@SoapShoes

Pretty sure that would fall under the banner of parody, same laws used to allow for easter eggs. You don't always need explicit permission for those (hence the Masterchief helmet in Duke Nukem Forever for example).

But when you're clearly naming a franchise and allow fans to partake in a competition surrounding it, you're open to legal action.

Otherwise I could now open up a Halo competition and tarnish the brand, if I so wished.

As for the music, I doubt activision owns the copyright to that. The commercials and the music is both owned by Sony, so they can do with it what they please.

[Team_Litt]

Now you know why Insomniac Games chose to stop making games for just Sony, ownership of their creations.

[TFJWM]

Now you know why Bungie chose to stop making games for just Microsoft, ownership of their creations.

OT: Not sure what Activision would lose by letting them do this... cept for the bad press now

[sourav93]

Damn Team_Litt, looks like you just got Litt Uuuupp by TFJWM XD

[D3ATH_DRIV3R_777]

?

[MysticStrummer]

Now you know why to disregard Team_Litt's comments… if you didn't already know.

OT - Activision. Why did they have to be involved with Destiny??? : /

[TheDivine]

Apples to oranges. Sony asks to retain rights to any third party games they help fund ala Ratchet, Sly, Demons Souls, Heavenly Sword, and others. Ms owns Halo because they bought Bungie. It would be like MS asking to own the Mass Effect ip because they helped with it or to own Gears because its on the 360. Sony has always forced devs to sign away their creations, they even tried to make Nintendo sign over all their ip's. Ms usually wants exclusivity for a year or so, not an unfair request IMO especially when they hype up games and advertise the hell out of them.

[badz149]

@Team_Litt

Yeah, because when they make a game and own the rights to it will instantly make it golden, right? You know, just like how they made and still own FUSE!

Insomniac had thrived in this industry by making games funded by big publishers like Activision (Spyro) and Sony (R&C, Resistance) and they have been successful to remain as an indipendent studio using those money publishers gave them. Stop being so ignorant!

Thus is just the case of Activision being a dick as they usually are! It's not like ND/Sony are going to make a game featuring Crash or anything, it's just fan arts to celebrate the huge milestone of the creator. In this day and age when studios left and right are closed or going bankcrupt, instead of being a good guy congratulating and celebrating fellow developers, Activision chose to be a douchebag!

There is nothing wrong letting them put Crash there as long as proper credits to the owner is given. Together with Spyro, all they do with Crash is letting the franchise die in agony!

Looks like my boycott towards Activision will continue this gen too. Last game I bought from them was CoD4!

[Spotie]

Dude, what the hell? Try making sense next time.

Though I know you won't; you're only here to troll.

[trouble_bubble]

@divine
Sony helped fund LA Noire to the tune of millions of dollars and didnt retain rights to squat, so nice try. GTA, MGS, RE, TR, FF have all been Playstation exclusives at some point yet the IP still belongs to rockstar/konami/capcom/square. Sony don't own Spyro or Crash either.

If MS owns Bungie, how are Bungie releasing Destiny on PS3/PS4? MS does own Gears btw, and MassEffect was exclusive on 360 for more than "a year or two". As were DeadRising and Portal1. Still are.

[superscroach]

Trouble Bubble - Sony didn't publish those games. They retain the rights to games they publish.

And Microsoft did own Bungie until Bungie bought themselves back and went 3rd party. Microsoft owns gears because they just bought the IP from Epic. Also, I'm pretty sure I played Portal 1 on my PS3.

[rawz]

@TheDivine

Could you be more fanboy.. How about Ryse 2?

"Crytek's work on the game was cancelled—because of a conflict over who would own rights to the franchise"

Yeah I'm sure it got cancelled because Crytek wanted to hand over the rights and Microsoft wouldn't take them. /s

E: Added the source
http://www.kotaku.co.uk/201...

[Tito08]

Difference being Naughty Dog never worked for Activision, they worked for Vivendi before Activision acquired them, and since Sony lost the exclusive rights to an IP with a lot of potential, they instead bought Naughty Dog, actually that is the reason Sony still keeps the IPs, just like Microsoft did to keep Halo from Bungie and now getting Gears of War from Epic, nothing out of the ordinary.

@badz149 Actually, almost the same situation happened to Insomniac, because as well, they never worked for Activision, just exclusively to Sony under Vivendi, only difference that Insomniac chose to stay independent and keep making games exclusively for Sony well until near the end of last gen when they signed a deal with EA for Fuse, their very first mutiplat game after all these years, and let's not forget, Sony published both games.

[BVFTW]

@trouble_bubble

Some of those games were exclusive, some were not:
* Resident Evil (launched in SATURN and had an "uncensored" PC version, the changes were some minor things like Chris smoking in the intro FMV)
* Original GTA launched first on PC followed two months later by the PSX version and "GTA3" had timed exclusivity for PS2 (6 months) (the only sony exclusives being the "Stories" PSP series, you can experience those on PSVITA and emulation nowadays)
* Tomb Raider (launched in SATURN as well as PC)
* Metal Gear has a lot of platforms under its wings (it began as a MSX PC franchise) and the only exclusive games I recall are "MGS4" for PS3 and "Ghost Babel" for Gameboy Color (and arguably Snake's Revenge for NES)

History is FUN XD

[MajorLazer]

I miss Crash :(

[Legendary-Status]

If I was ND I would make something similar to crash call it a diff. name a shove it their Face...they ain't even doing nadda with Crash at all but made those lame games..but I want a new Jak FR FR I love Jak & Daxter but Crash was the playstation's mario what mario is to the nintendo

[hamzilla]

Just like Mighty No. 9 as a fight against Mega Man! yea I like your post.. ND should make a new one to make Craptivison rethink about Crash!

[zero_gamer]

At least ND has Jak and can create a new IP in the spirit of Jak/Crash. Maybe one day Activision will financially crumble like Capcom and THQ.

[DevilOgreFish]

kingtroy - "Denied by their own creation."

It's Denied to USE their own creation, Crash Bandicoot didn't say no to them.

[ajax17]

Staying classy. They'll soon dethrone EA for worst video game company if they continue this BS

[-Foxtrot]

Selfish dicks...they aren't even doing anything with the IP anymore though and they know for a fact no one likes their Crash games

I think they are a little jelly that people still relate Crash with ND rather then them

[yewles1]

That's the point, a multiplat company holding an IP that's more synonymous with one platform than any other despite previous attempts to spread availability around hurts profit prospects when any game is made ATM. And selling the IP doesn't mean squat for long term profit.

It's amazing people are shocked by Activision when they haven't been any better than EA, Ubi, SE or Capcom since 2009...