Toys For Bob are a small video game developer founded in 1989 by Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford. The name Toys for Bob has no particular meaning; it was chosen just because the founders liked it.[1]
They are the developers of Pandemonium! and Pandemonium 2.
History[]
Star Control and its sequel Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters were their first games. After these they went on to create a number of games for Crystal Dynamics, including the hectic combination of action and strategy, The Horde, Pandemonium! and The Unholy War (as well as Little Witching Mischiefs in Japan for Bandai). This relationship with Crystal Dynamics ended in 2002, and the company was bought by Activision on May 3, 2005. It is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Vivendi. The employees and management team have all signed long-term contracts with Activision, which is owned by Vivendi, and Toys For Bob will remain in place in Novato, California. [2]
After completing work on Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam for Nintendo's Wii console they revealed that they were currently working on a reinvention to one of the licenses in the Vivendi group [3], they notably said that it was not Star Control or Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure.[4]
From 2003-2008, Toys For Bob had its normal variant where the rocket is flying around the logo
In 2011, It was revealed that ToysForBob had in fact solely been working on the now hugely successful Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. The game not only received glowing reception, but was the third most profitable game in NA & EU by the first quarter of 2012 [5] and the sales of the toys were two to three times higher than Activision had originally expected [6].
From 2020, A new logo will first appear on Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time where a girl is about to splash into a lake with her rubber ring and while she is in the water, Her ring turns into an O with the Toys For Bob logo appearing
Games developed[]
- Star Control (1990)
- Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters (1992)
- The Horde (1994)
- Pandemonium! (1996)
- Pandemonium 2 (1997)
- The Unholy War (1998)
- Majokko Daisakusen: Little Witching Mischiefs (1999)
- 102 Dalmatians: Puppies to the Rescue (2000)
- Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure (2003)
- Madagascar (2005)
- Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam (2006)
- Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008)
- Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure (2011)
- Skylanders: Giants (2012)
- Skylanders: Trap Team (2014)
- Skylanders: Imaginators (2016)
- Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy (2017) (Additional development support)
- Spyro: Reignited Trilogy (2018)
- Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time (2020) (First game to feature a new normal logo variant)
Notes and references[]
- ↑ See this log of Fred Ford's mails to fans.
- ↑ "Activision purchases Toys for Bob"
- ↑ Rewarding Skylanders Flight
- ↑ See this IRC chatlog, search for "we're working".
- ↑ Skylanders, third most profitable game in NA & EU
- ↑ Skylanders exceeds Activision's expectations