Neversoft Entertainment, Inc.

Final logo, used from 2013 to 2014
Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video games
Founded	July 1994; 31 years ago (1994-07)
Founder	Joel Jewett Mick West Chris Ward
Defunct	July 10, 2014; 11 years ago (2014-07-10)
Fate	Merged withInfinity Ward
Successor	Infinity Ward
Headquarters	Woodland Hills, Los Angeles,California , US
Key people	Joel Jewett (studio head) Scott Pease (studio director)
Products	Tony Hawk's series(1999–2007) Guitar Hero series(2007–2010) Full list of games
Number of employees	120 (2014)
Parent	Activision (1999–2014)
Website	Archived official website at theWayback Machine (archived July 20, 2013)

Neversoft Entertainment, Inc. was an Americanvideo game developer based inWoodland Hills, California. The studio was founded by Joel Jewett,Mick West and Chris Ward in July 1994 and was acquired byActivision in October 1999. Initially, the studio worked withPlaymates Toys, where they worked on the gameSkeleton Warriors, which was based on ananimated television series of the same name. Throughout 1996, the studio grew, and worked on projects withCrystal Dynamics andSony Computer Entertainment, but due to internal conflicts, they were cancelled.

After a meeting with Activision in 1998, the publisher agreed to enter into a deal with the studio to createApocalypse, which used thegame engine created by Neversoft for one of the cancelled Sony projects. During the game's development, Activision asked the studio to work on a prototype for askateboarding game, and after an impressed reaction from Activision to the prototype, the publisher released the game asTony Hawk's Pro Skater in 1999 to critical acclaim and acquired Neversoft at the end of that year. Neversoft developed aSpider-Man game for thePlayStation the following year, along with sixTony Hawk's games over the next several years.

In 2004, the company split into two teams to work on two games at once, the upcomingTony Hawk's and a newintellectual property, the westernaction-adventure gameGun. After Activision's acquisition ofGuitar Hero in 2006, Neversoft continued the franchise, working onGuitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, which was released in 2007 to similar acclaim to previous games in the franchise. With the game's success, Neversoft focused on developing newGuitar Hero games, passing development of newTony Hawk's toRobomodo. The last game in the franchise by Neversoft wasGuitar Hero: Warriors of Rock in 2010, which received mixed reviews and sold poorly. Due to this, Activision reduced Neversoft to a support studio for futureCall of Duty games.

Starting in 2011, the studio worked in collaboration with numerous Activision studios onCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, where they worked on the Chaos Mode DLC, and then inCall of Duty: Ghosts, where they worked on the Extinction mode. Following the release of the latter, Neversoft was merged withInfinity Ward on May 3, 2014, and was made defunct on July 10, 2014. The last game the studio worked on wasCall of Duty: Advanced Warfare, developed withSledgehammer Games and released later that year.

Neversoft was founded in July 1994 by three employees of Malibu Interactive (previously Acme Interactive), a division ofMalibu Comics based inWestlake Village, California.^[1] At that time, the primary platforms were thehome gaming consoles, theGenesis/Mega Drive and theSuper Nintendo Entertainment System. Games for these systems could be developed by small teams, anywhere from two to ten developers. As a result, it was much easier than at present to set up agame development company, and several groups of people had already left Malibu to strike out on their own. Joel Jewett, a native ofMontana and aCPA, was at the time head of development at the rapidly shrinking Malibu Interactive. He teamed up withMick West, agame programmer, who had just completed working onBattleTech: A Game of Armored Combat for the Genesis, and Chris Ward, avideo game artist.

In July 1994, Neversoft was formed. They initially found work for Playmates Interactive, a then-division ofPlaymates Toys who were about to release a line of toys calledSkeleton Warriors and wanted a video game to go along with the toys and the cartoon series. Neversoft began work on the game design and moved into offices inWoodland Hills, California. Neversoft worked on the Genesis version for five months. Over that time they hired another artist and a level designer. In December 1994, Playmates cancelled the game. They were not unhappy with the progress, but had decided that they needed to develop the game for theSega Saturn. 1995 was spent developingSkeleton Warriors for the Sega Saturn. Over the course of 1995, Neversoft grew rapidly by hiring three programmers, five artists, a level designer, a tester and an office administrator.Skeleton Warriors was finished in time for the 1995 holiday season and Neversoft began looking for other work while they portedSkeleton Warriors to thePlayStation in 1996.

Neversoft continued to expand during 1996, expanding to over twenty employees. They worked for six months on a game based onGhost Rider forCrystal Dynamics, which was cancelled due to financial problems with the publisher. With some excess capacity Neversoft started to develop a game of their own design, initially calledBig Guns. The technology developed there was used in their next project, a conversion of the PC gameMDK. Towards the end of 1996, Neversoft sold the idea forBig Guns toSony Computer Entertainment and they began development. 1997 was a tumultuous year for Neversoft. TheMDK conversion took far longer than expected, and theBig Guns game (renamedExodus) went through numerous design changes at the behest of Sony and was cancelled in November 1997. The company shrunk back to just twelve employees. Neversoft spent the next few months shopping around their technology, meeting with numerous companies and looking for work.

In January 1998, just as Neversoft was about to run out of money, they had a meeting withActivision, who were looking for someone to re-developApocalypse, a failed internal project. The technology developed forBig Guns turned out to be ideal for the project, Activision was impressed and Neversoft began work onApocalypse. In May 1998,Apocalypse was going very well, and Activision signed up Neversoft to develop a prototype for askateboarding game. This proceeded slowly as they could not spare many people fromApocalypse. The initial prototypes resembled the arcade gameTop Skater.Apocalypse wrapped up in October 1998 and development began in earnest onTony Hawk's Pro Skater for the PlayStation andNintendo 64. By the end of 1998, the game development was in full swing and Neversoft comprised 16 people: six programmers, five artists, three level designers, one producer and Joel, the company's president.

From 1999 to 2007, Neversoft developed nineTony Hawk's Pro Skater games and increased their employees to over 150.

In 2005, Neversoft developed a Westernaction-adventureopen world game entitledGun, alongsideBeenox andRebellion Developments.

In 2006, Activision acquired theGuitar Hero series from Harmonix Music Systems, as well asRedOctane, and chose Neversoft as the developer. Neversoft developed several games in the franchise, breaking several records withGuitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. The games followingGuitar Hero: Warriors of Rock would be developed byVicarious Visions, developers of theWii ports andGuitar Hero: Van Halen.^[2] In light of this, 50 employees were laid off on February 11, 2010.^[3] In May 2014 it was reported that Neversoft had been merged withCall of Duty creatorsInfinity Ward to create what was internally referred to as a "super-studio".^[4]

Neversoft was officially made defunct on July 10, 2014, 20 years to the day of its founding, with the remaining employees attending a burning of a sculpture of the skewered eyeball from their logo that has been part of their offices before.^[5]

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (THPS) was released on the PlayStation in August 1999. Development of a sequel began immediately after its release.Spider-Man was also developed for Activision in 2000. LikeTHPS, the technology for this game was based on theApocalypse engine, which was in turn based on theBig Guns engine. Neversoft was now developing two major games in parallel, and expanded into two large teams. Activision acquired Neversoft in the summer of 1999 in a stock swap deal. The founders of Neversoft and several key employees signed four-year employment agreements.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 andSpider-Man were both released in 2000. Neversoft began work onTony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 specifically for thePlayStation 2. After both teams finished their projects they were merged into one large team.THPS3 was developed using theRenderWare game engine.Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 was released in 2001, followed byTony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 in 2002. In 2003 Neversoft reworked the game with a more story-oriented approach inTony Hawk's Underground, followed by a sequel inTony Hawk's Underground 2 in 2004. In 2005 Neversoft again split into two teams to begin work on the internally developedGun and the seventh version of theTony Hawk's series —Tony Hawk's American Wasteland.

Tony Hawk's Project 8 was developed and released in 2006. This was the first title under Neversoft that was developed as a next-gen title for theXbox 360 and thePlayStation 3.Tony Hawk's Proving Ground was released in 2007. It is the second title for the PlayStation 3 and third for Xbox 360 in theTony Hawk's series. It was the lastTony Hawk game to be developed by Neversoft; the franchise moved toRobomodo.^[6]

After Activision acquiredRedOctane and theGuitar Hero series,Harmonix developed their lastGuitar Hero game,Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, before they were acquired byMTV. Neversoft became the developer for theGuitar Hero series beginning withGuitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for theXbox 360 andPlayStation 3 consoles, using their in-house game engine made from scratch instead of Harmonix's engine. SeveralGuitar Hero series games have been developed by Neversoft since 2007, includingGuitar Hero III: Legends of Rock,Guitar Hero: Aerosmith,Guitar Hero World Tour (incorporating drums and vocals alongside guitar),Guitar Hero: Metallica,Guitar Hero 5,Band Hero andGuitar Hero: Warriors of Rock.

• Neversoft's profile atMobyGames

• Defunct Activision subsidiaries
• Companies based in Los Angeles
• Video game companies established in 1994
• Video game companies disestablished in 2014
• 1999 mergers and acquisitions
• Defunct companies based in Greater Los Angeles
• Defunct video game companies based in California
• Video game development companies
• Former Vivendi subsidiaries
• 1994 establishments in California
• 2014 disestablishments in California

• Webarchive template wayback links
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata