Toys for Bob, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Novato, California. The studio originated as a partnership between Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford. They had separately attended the University of California, Berkeley in the late 1970s, before entering the video game industry in the early 1980s. They later met through mutual friends in 1988, when Reiche was seeking a programmer to develop Star Control for Accolade. This led to the creation of their partnership in 1989 and the debut of Star Control in 1990. The release was considered a landmark science fiction game and led to the 1992 sequel Star Control II, which greatly expanded the series' story and scale. Star Control II is celebrated as one of the greatest games of all time and is featured on several "best of" lists for music, writing, world design, and character design.
The studio adopted the name Toys for Bob, as a way to stimulate curiosity and differentiate themselves from other studios. With Crystal Dynamics as their publisher, they developed several games, including The Horde, Pandemonium!, and The Unholy War. In the early 2000s, the studio transitioned to working on licensed games before being laid off by Crystal Dynamics. With Terry Falls as a co-owner, Reiche and Ford incorporated the studio in 2002. Activision became their publisher soon after, and eventually acquired the studio in 2005. Toys for Bob created the Skylanders series when Activision merged with Vivendi Games and acquired the Spyro franchise. The developers at Toys for Bob had already been experimenting with using physical toys to interact with video games and believed that this technology would be ideal for Spyros universe of characters. Credited with inventing the toys-to-life genre, the 2011 release of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure was considered a technological and commercial breakthrough. This led to a spinoff series with several successful games, generating a billion dollars in revenue for Activision in the first 15 months and winning several awards. In 2018, Toys for Bob assisted with the development of the remaster compilations Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy and Spyro Reignited Trilogy, earning a reputation leading a revival of properties from the original PlayStation.
After the release of Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time in 2020, Reiche and Ford left the company to start an independent studio. Toys for Bob took on new leadership under Paul Yan and Avery Lodato while working on the Call of Duty series. After Activision's parent company, Activision Blizzard, faced lawsuits over workplace harassment and discrimination, Microsoft announced a $68.7 billion deal to acquire the holding in 2022.
History
Partnership and Star Control success
Toys for Bob began as a partnership between Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford. The two founders separately attended the University of California, Berkeley, around the same time, and both entered the video game industry in the early 1980s. Ford started his career creating games for Japanese personal computers before transitioning to more corporate work, but after a few years working at graphics companies in Silicon Valley, Ford realized he missed working in the game industry. Meanwhile, Reiche had started his career working for Dungeons & Dragons publisher TSR before developing PC games for Free Fall Associates. Reiche's producer at Free Fall took a new job at Accolade and helped Reiche secure a three-game agreement with the publisher. At this point, Reiche needed a programmer and Ford was seeking a designer/artist, so their mutual friends set up a board game night to introduce them. Those friends included fantasy artist Erol Otus, as well as game designer Greg Johnson, who hosted the meet-up. Soon after, Reiche and Ford formed their studio in 1989.
Reiche and Ford's first collaboration was Star Control, released for MS-DOS in 1990. Originally called Starcon, the game began as an evolution of the concepts that Reiche first created in Archon: The Light and the Dark. Archons strategic elements were adapted for Star Control into a space setting, with one-on-one ship combat inspired by the classic 1962 game Spacewar!. During production, Reiche and Ford spent time working on their collaborative process, and this was partly why the game was limited in scope compared to its sequel. Upon its release, Star Control was voted the "Best Science Fiction Game" by Video Games and Computer Entertainment, and decades later, it is remembered as one of the greatest games of all time, with numerous game developers citing it as an influence on their work.