Mark Evan Cerny ( / ˈ s ɜːr n i / SUR -nee ; born August 24, 1964) is an American video game designer, programmer, producer, and media owner.
He was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended UC Berkeley before leaving 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, as an independent consultant. While working at Sega, he founded Sega Technical Institute and helped create games such as Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992).
Since then, Cerny has often worked with Sony Interactive Entertainment as a consultant. He designed hardware for several PlayStation consoles and is known as the architect of the PlayStation Vita, PS4, and PS5. He has also worked with Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games since the 1990s, as well as other Sony first-party studios like Sucker Punch Productions. He created several games, including the arcade game Marble Madness and the Knack series, and has been credited for many others through his consulting work.
In 2004, he 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 when he was 17 in 1982, he was invited to join Atari and left school to take the opportunity. He began working in Atari’s arcade games department on January 18, 1982. At that time, game development teams were small, and each person had more varied responsibilities than they do today. His first projects were working with Ed Logg on Millipede and Owen Rubin on Major Havoc. Cerny later said, “Working at Atari early in my career was an experience I’ll never forget. I worked with game design experts like Ed Logg, Dave Theurer, and Owen Rubin during a time when creativity, passion, and competition were strong. Original ideas were expected and required. 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 later 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). Cerny helped Crystal Dynamics become the first American studio to receive a PlayStation development kit from Sony. He traveled to Japan to negotiate the deal with Shuhei Yoshida, a Sony executive at the time. By 1994, the development kit had arrived, but Cerny left Crystal Dynamics to lead Universal Pictures’ new multimedia division.
From 1994 to 1998, Cerny worked at Universal Interactive Studios, a new video game division of Universal. He described it as a “boutique publisher” and had a lot of freedom to manage the division. He hired two small studios, Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games, to develop PlayStation games. Naughty Dog created Way of the Warrior and later Crash Bandicoot, which Sony published in 1996. Insomniac developed 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 remained in contact with both teams. In 1998, Universal faced financial problems, and Cerny left to start his own company, Cerny Games, to continue working with Naughty Dog, Insomniac, and Sony.
Around 1999, Sony was designing the PlayStation 2. Yoshida, now an executive at Sony, asked Cerny to help create a graphics engine for the new console. Cerny worked in Japan for three months and was the first American to work on the PlayStation 2. After completing the engine, he helped Naughty Dog and Insomniac develop their first PlayStation 2 games: Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy and Ratchet & Clank, respectively. Cerny also developed his “Method” approach to game development based on lessons from his career. This method is now a standard practice in the industry.
Cerny continued to work as a consultant for Sony. In 2003, Yoshida became vice president of product development at Sony Computer Entertainment America, where plans for the PlayStation 3 were starting. Yoshida asked Cerny to help design the PlayStation 3 to share some features with previous consoles, reducing costs for developers. 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, though the PlayStation 3’s new hardware, the Cell, was difficult to use. Cerny also helped Naughty Dog and Insomniac create their first PlayStation 3 games: 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 that the next console might either keep the Cell processor or switch to an x86-based system used in personal computers. While the x86 system would make some tasks easier, Cerny told Sony it was not yet good for developers because it limited access to low-level functions. Cerny studied the x86 architecture and proposed a plan to Yoshida for him to lead the next PlayStation’s development. Yoshida agreed, and Sony allowed Cerny to stay a consultant while working as the PlayStation 4’s lead designer. Cerny’s design helped the PlayStation 4 sell over 100 million units by 2019, second only to the PlayStation 2 in total sales. He also led development of the PlayStation 4’s launch game, Knack, and its sequel.
Cerny continued as lead designer for Sony’s future consoles, including the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 5. He said his consultant role gives him freedom to work with multiple groups within Sony and its first-party studios to improve console 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 two years to learn about hardware challenges and future needs. These visits help guide the design of new consoles.
The Method process
In 2002, Cerny created the Method process while working with Naughty Dog, Insomniac, and other Sony game studios. He noticed that the early planning stage of game development needed a different approach than the main development stage. He believed it was not possible to set a strict schedule for the creative process. Cerny suggested that during the early planning stage, teams should work without strict rules to explore whether a game idea is worth developing. The goal of this stage, according to 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 future players. If this version does not excite players, the game idea should be abandoned before too much work is done. After deciding to continue with the game, Cerny recommended using scheduled goals and tasks to help keep the project on track.
Personal life
While working for Sega in Japan during the 1980s and 1990s, Cerny learned Japanese. He met his future wife in Japan. She helped him start Cerny Games, which she still manages.
Accolades
In 2004, the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) honored Mark Cerny with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards. IGDA noted, "It is uncommon to find someone skilled in many areas who not only has a clear vision for creating great games but can also bring different parts together effectively. His unique and successful approach has led to some of the most enjoyable games ever made." Cerny was called "a master collaborator." His work on the games Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon has sold more than 30 million copies combined.
In 2010, Mark Cerny was added to the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame during the 13th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards. Joseph Olin, then-president of the Academy, 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 truly is a Renaissance man. 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 organizations."