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Santa Monica Studio is an American video game developer based in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

. A first-party studio for Sony Interactive Entertainment, it is best known for developing the ''

God of War A war god in mythology associated with war, combat, or bloodshed. They occur commonly in both monotheistic and polytheistic religions. Unlike most gods and goddesses in polytheistic religions, monotheistic deities have traditionally been p ...

'' series. The studio was founded in 1999 by Allan Becker and was located in

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to ...

, until relocating to Playa Vista in 2014.

History

Santa Monica Studio was founded in 1999 by Allan Becker, a long-time

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

employee who wanted "to break out of the corporate

Foster City Foster City is a city located in San Mateo County, California. The 2020 census put the population at 33,805, an increase of more than 10% over the 2010 census figure of 30,567. Foster City is sometimes considered to be part of Silicon Valle ...

group" of Sony Computer Entertainment. The studio was established in an office next to the developer Naughty Dog before moving into a brick building in the suburbs of

. The building at Penn Station would be occupied for fifteen years. For its first game, the

racing In sport, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific go ...

title '' Kinetica'', Santa Monica Studio decided to skip the PlayStation console and built the game for the console's then-upcoming successor, the PlayStation 2, instead. A

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term "software engine" used in the software ...

was developed "to give the layStation 2some legs" for ''Kinetica'' and future releases. While the game was developed during the studio's team building phase, producer Shannon Studstill focused on the game's release to prove to Sony that Santa Monica Studio was capable of delivering a product on schedule and within budget. ''Kinetica'' was released on time in 2001, with the studio staying under the allocated budget. After publication, Santa Monica Studio shifted to its next project, ''

'', while re-using the engine from ''Kinetica''. The External Development group, a department within Santa Monica Studio separate from internal development teams, acts as both a

video game publisher A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that have been developed either internally by the publisher or externally by a video game developer. They often finance the development, sometimes by paying a video game developer ...

and

business incubator Business incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a fullscale range of services starting with management training and office space and ending with venture c ...

for indie game studios, notably Thatgamecompany and its game '' Journey.'' Other incubated teams include

Broodworks SuperBot Entertainment (formerly known as Broodworks) was an American independent video game company formed in 2009 by Shannon Studstill and Chan Park, who both worked for Santa Monica Studio. The studio, based in Culver City, California, relea ...

Eat Sleep Play Eat Sleep Play, Inc. was an American video game developer, formed in 2007 by Scott Campbell and David Jaffe, director of the ''Twisted Metal'' series and ''God of War''. Eat Sleep Play entered into an exclusive platform deal with Sony requiring th ...

Fun Bits Fun Bits Interactive, LLC was an American video game developer based in Seattle. It was founded in 2010 by the core team formerly of Titan Studios. In 2010, three of the team members from ''Fat Princess ''Fat Princess'' is an action real-tim ...

, Giant Sparrow, Incognito Entertainment, Q-Games, and Ready at Dawn. Becker left Santa Monica Studio in 2011. By March 2012, Becker had joined Sony's Japan Studio, while Shannon became Santa Monica Studio's "Senior Director of Product Development". In January 2014, Santa Monica Studio announced that it would move from their Penn Station offices to The Reserve, a 20-acre facility on Jefferson Boulevard in

Playa Vista, Los Angeles Playa Vista is a neighborhood in the Westside area of Los Angeles, California. The area was the headquarters of Hughes Aircraft Company from 1941 to 1985 and the site of the construction of the Hughes H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" aircraft. The ...

. The of office space were "four or five times the size" of their previous Santa Monica office, according to Studstill. At the time, the studio employed roughly 240 people. An undisclosed numbers of staffers were laid off in February that year due to the cancelation of a new

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

, including

Stig Asmussen Stig Asmussen is an American video game developer, known for his work on the ''God of War'' series for Santa Monica Studio. He is currently working for Respawn Entertainment. Biography Asmussen graduated from The Art Institute of Pittsburgh ...

, who headed the canceled project. The studio relocation was completed on July 22, 2014, coupled with a new logo, dubbed SMS "Vanguard". In March 2020, Studstill left Santa Monica Studio to lead a new development studio under Stadia. Subsequently, a long-time employee and previous director of product development for Santa Monica Studio, Yumi Yang, was installed as the developer's

studio head Studio manager, studio director, or studio head is a job title in various media-related professions, including design, advertising, and broadcasting. Design and advertising A design or advertising studio manager's responsibilities will typically ...

Games developed

External Development games

References

External links

* {{Authority control, state=expanded 1999 establishments in California American companies established in 1999 Companies based in Los Angeles Companies based in Santa Monica, California First-party video game developers PlayStation Studios Video game companies based in California Video game companies established in 1999 Video game companies of the United States Video game development companies