Mark Cerny

Mark Cerny (born August 24, 1964) is an American video game designer, programmer, producer, and business executive. 

As president of Cerny Games, which he founded in 1998, he now acts as a consultant in the video game industry. In 2004, he was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Game Developers Association and was later inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame in 2010.

In the mid-2010s, Cerny served as the lead architect and producer of Sony's PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita video game consoles.

1985–96: First years

Cerny, a fan of computer programming and arcade games, started in the game industry at the age of 17 when he joined Atari in 1982. In those earlier days of professional game development, teams were small and each member was responsible for a wider range of roles than today.

Cerny's first major success is usually cited as Marble Madness in which he, at age 18, acted as designer and co-programmer. For years he worked with Sega in Japan and the United States, where he worked on various Master System and Genesis releases, most notably Sonic the Hedgehog 2. He was the vice president and then president of Universal Interactive Studios.

1996–present: Partnership with Sony

He has worked extensively with Naughty Dog (on the Crash Bandicoot, Jak & Daxter series and the first Uncharted game), Insomniac Games (on the Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet & Clank and Resistance series), and Sony. From his extensive experience on the "dos and don'ts" in the game industry, he has developed a teaching "method" for game development. His method prefers a free-form, pre-production stage that explores a game's viability prior to full development. For example, he advocates that if the first level produced doesn't excite customers, then the game idea should be set aside before too much effort is put into it.

The International Game Developers Association awarded Cerny with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards (IGDA) in 2004. IGDA stated, "It's rare to find a 'jack-of-all-trades' who not only has the high-level vision for great game design but can act as the glue to adhere all the pieces together. His unusual but highly effective methodology has brought us some of the most entertaining games in history." He was described as "a master collaborator". His Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon games have collectively sold more than 30 million units.

In 2010, at the 13th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, Cerny was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. "Mark Cerny is the closest we have come to a modern-day Da Vinci," said Joseph Olin, then-president of the AIAS. "What he does isn't restricted to a single aspect of game creation, he really is a Renaissance man. He is a diversely accomplished game designer, producer, programmer and technologist, fluent in Japanese and one of the foremost Western experts on the Japanese game market. He's also one of the only top-level independents in a business dominated by institutions."

On February 20, 2013, at the global PlayStation 4 unveiling event in New York City Mark Cerny was revealed as the console's lead architect. He also showed in-game footage of his own new game called Knack which he is developing for the console. On September 21, 2013, Cerny was revealed to have been the lead architect of PlayStation Vita. In 2014, he hosted a career retrospective for former Sega game designer Yu Suzuki at the Game Developers Conference; he also hosted a Shenmue postmortem with Suzuki and discussed Shenmue III with him.

Cerny established the Method process in 2002 while consulting with Naughty Dog, Insomniac, and other Sony first-party studios. Cerny observed that there were completely different approaches needed in the preproduction stage and the production stage of video game development and that it was impossible to put a timeline on the creative process. He suggested that the pre-production stage should be freeform, allowing the creative persons to explore a game's viability prior to full development. The end product of the preproduction stage under the Method process should be a "publishable first playable" version of the game that can be used to determine the viability of the title. This version does not need to be content-complete but provide enough to be used in playtesting from potential consumers. If the game at this state does not excite players, then the game idea should be set aside before too much effort is put into it. Once the decision is made to move forward on the game, then Cerny recommends by the Method that the typical use of scheduled milestones and deliverables to keep the project on track.

While working under Sega in Japan in the 1980s and 1990s, Cerny learned Japanese. He met his future wife in Japan, who helped him to establish Cerny Games, which she continues to manage.

The International Game Developers Association awarded Cerny with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards (IGDA) in 2004. IGDA stated, "It's rare to find a 'jack-of-all-trades' who not only has the high-level vision for great game design but can act as the glue to adhere all the pieces together. His unusual but highly effective methodology has brought us some of the most entertaining games in history." He was described as "a master collaborator". His Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon games have collectively sold more than 30 million units.

In 2010, at the 13th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, Mark Cerny was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. "Mark Cerny is the closest we have come to a modern-day Da Vinci," said Joseph Olin, then-president of the AIAS. "What he does isn't restricted to a single aspect of game creation, he really is a Renaissance man. He is a diversely accomplished game designer, producer, programmer and technologist, fluent in Japanese and one of the foremost Western experts on the Japanese game market. He's also one of the only top-level independents in a business dominated by institutions."