Mark Evan Cerny (born August 24, 1964) is an American video game designer, programmer, producer, and media owner. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended the University of California, Berkeley. He left school to work in the video game industry. In his early career, he worked at Atari, Sega, Crystal Dynamics, and Universal Interactive Studios. In 1998, he started his own company, Cerny Games, and worked as an independent consultant. While at Sega, he helped start Sega Technical Institute and worked on games such as Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992).
Later, Cerny worked as a consultant for Sony Interactive Entertainment. He was the lead designer for the hardware of several PlayStation consoles, including the PlayStation Vita, PS4, and PS5. He also worked with Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games, which were created in the 1990s, as well as other Sony studios like Sucker Punch Productions. He developed games such as the arcade game Marble Madness and the Knack series. He is credited for his work on many other games as a consultant.
In 2004, Cerny received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Game Developers Association. In 2010, he was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame.
Career
Mark Evan Cerny was born in 1964 or 1965. He grew up in San Francisco and enjoyed computer programming and arcade games as a young person. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, but in 1982, when he was 17, he was invited to join Atari and left school to take the opportunity. He began working in Atari’s arcade division on January 18, 1982. At that time, game development teams were small, and each team member had many different responsibilities. He worked with Ed Logg on the game Millipede and with Owen Rubin on Major Havoc. Cerny said, “Working at Atari early in my career was an experience I’ll never forget. I got to work alongside game design legends like Ed Logg, Dave Theurer, Owen Rubin, and others during a time when creativity, passion, and competition were high. Original ideas were expected and demanded. As an 18-year-old, I couldn’t have asked for a better start to my career.”
Cerny’s first major success was the arcade game Marble Madness, which he designed and co-programmed at age 18. Around 1985, he became interested in video game hardware, which he later said was simpler than his work with the PlayStation. By the end of the 1980s, he joined Sega, first working at Sega’s headquarters in Japan and then returning to the United States in 1991 to help create the Sega Technical Institute. There, he worked on games for the Master System and Genesis, including Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
In 1992, Cerny left Sega to join Crystal Dynamics, a newly formed company. He worked on 3DO games like Crash 'n Burn (1993) and Total Eclipse (1994). He helped Crystal Dynamics become the first American developer to get a PlayStation development kit from Sony Computer Entertainment. Cerny traveled to Japan to negotiate the deal with Shuhei Yoshida, a young Sony executive. By 1994, the development kit had been delivered to Crystal Dynamics, but Cerny had already left the company to lead Universal Pictures’ new multimedia division.
From 1994 to 1998, Cerny worked for Universal Interactive Studios, a new video game division of Universal. He described it as a “boutique publisher.” He started as vice president of product development and later became president. He had a lot of freedom, saying, “The best part about this was that Universal didn’t really know the business and as a result, I had a great big bag of money to spend and no supervision.” Under Cerny, Universal hired two small studios, Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games, to develop PlayStation games. Cerny helped Naughty Dog create Way of the Warrior and later Crash Bandicoot, which Sony published in 1996. He also helped Insomniac develop Disruptor and later Spyro the Dragon, which Sony published in 1998. When Naughty Dog and Insomniac’s contracts with Universal ended, both studios joined Sony to continue making PlayStation games. Cerny stayed in contact with both teams. In 1998, Universal faced financial problems and stopped hiring for its Interactive Studios group. Cerny left Universal to start his own company, Cerny Games, to keep working with Naughty Dog, Insomniac, and Sony.
Around 1999, Sony was developing the PlayStation 2. Yoshida, now an executive producer at Sony, asked Cerny to help create a graphics engine for the new console. Cerny accepted and worked in Japan for three months, becoming the first American to work on the PlayStation 2. After the engine was completed, Cerny helped Naughty Dog and Insomniac create their first PlayStation 2 games: Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy and Ratchet & Clank, respectively. He also helped with sequels to both games. During this time, Cerny developed his “Method” approach to game development, which became a standard practice in the industry.
Cerny continued consulting for Sony. In 2003, Yoshida became vice president of product development at Sony Computer Entertainment America, where planning for the PlayStation 3 had started. Yoshida asked Cerny to help design the PlayStation 3 so it could share some features with previous consoles to make development easier for game creators. Cerny worked with Sony and Naughty Dog to form the Initiative for a Common Engine (ICE) Team. Some of the team’s goals were achieved, but the PlayStation 3’s new hardware, the Cell processor, was difficult to use. Cerny also helped Naughty Dog and Insomniac create their first PlayStation 3 games, including Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Resistance: Fall of Man, and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. He also assisted with other Sony games, such as God of War III and Killzone 3.
Around 2007, Sony planned the next console after the PlayStation 3, which had not sold as well as expected. A review of the PlayStation 3’s development showed the next console might use either the Cell processor or an x86-based architecture, like those in personal computers. Cerny told Sony that using x86 would make some development tasks harder for first-party studios. He researched x86 architecture and proposed a plan to Yoshida to lead the development of the next PlayStation based on his findings. Yoshida agreed, which helped Sony allow Cerny to stay a consultant while leading the PlayStation 4’s design. Cerny’s work on the PlayStation 4’s design was important, as the console sold over 100 million units by 2019, the second-highest sales in Sony’s history. He also helped develop Knack and its sequel for the PlayStation 4’s launch.
Cerny continued as lead designer for Sony’s future consoles, including the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 5. He said his role as a consultant gives him freedom to work with different groups within Sony and its first-party studios to improve PlayStation designs. He also consulted on game design for titles like The Last Guardian, Marvel’s Spider-Man, and Death Stranding. Since the PlayStation 4’s release in 2009, Cerny has visited most of Sony’s first-party developers and key studios every
The Method process
In 2002, Cerny created the Method process while working with Naughty Dog, Insomniac, and other Sony first-party studios. He noticed that the preproduction and production stages of video game development required different methods. He believed the creative process could not be given a set timeline. Cerny suggested that the preproduction stage should be flexible, allowing creative teams to explore whether a game idea could work before full development begins. The goal of the preproduction stage under the Method process is to create a "publishable first playable" version of the game. This version does not need to include all content but should be complete enough for testing by potential players. If the game at this stage does not excite players, the idea should be abandoned early to avoid wasting time and effort. Once the decision is made to continue with the game, Cerny recommends using scheduled goals and check-ins to keep the project on track.
Personal life
While working for Sega in Japan during the 1980s and 1990s, Cerny learned to speak Japanese. He met his future wife in Japan. She helped him start Cerny Games, which she still manages.
Accolades
The International Game Developers Association gave Mark Cerny the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards (IGDA) in 2004. IGDA said, "It is rare to find someone skilled in many areas who not only has a vision for creating great games but can also bring all the parts together. His unusual but very effective approach has helped create some of the most enjoyable games in history." He was called "a master collaborator." His games, Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon, have sold over 30 million copies combined.
In 2010, at the 13th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, Mark Cerny was added to the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. Joseph Olin, then-president of the AIAS, said, "Mark Cerny is the closest we have come to a modern-day Da Vinci. His work is not limited to one part of game creation; he is a person with many talents. He is a skilled game designer, producer, programmer, and technologist. He speaks Japanese fluently and is one of the leading Western experts on the Japanese game market. He is also one of the few top-level independent creators in an industry mostly run by large companies."