Left Field Productions

Left Field Productions, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Ventura, California. Founded in 1994 by industry veterans John Brandwood, Jeff Godfrey and Mike Lamb, both of them were vetarans of the shrinking independent game developer Malibu Interactive, during the mass layoffs at the company. Left Field is best known for developing the critically acclaimed Nintendo 64 game Excitebike 64 for Nintendo. The company's first game they developed was the Slam 'n Jam basketball games from Crystal Dynamics, but interest soon built enough attraction from Nintendo to develop a basketball game for Nintendo 64. On April 23, 1998, Nintendo announced the purchase of a minority interest in Left Field Productions, allowing them to expand operations and ensuring a steady flow of exclusive content from the developer. In 1999, the company expanded to develop games for the Game Boy Color handheld. In 2000, the company designed its pinball game engine, used for The Little Mermaid II: Pinball Frenzy, and the Game Boy Color version of 3-D Ultra Pinball: Thrillride. Also that year, the company became an early adopter of Nintendo GameCube's development tools. In September 2002, after months of speculation, Left Field bought out Nintendo's stake in the company, once again becoming a fully independent third-party developer.