PF Magic

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PF Magic was a video game developer founded in 1991 and located in San Francisco, California. Though it developed other types of video games, it was best known for its virtual pet games, such as Dogz and Catz. It was bought out in 1998 by Ubisoft Entertainment who therefore now owns the copyright on its Petz, Oddballz and Babyz titles.

One of PF Magic's earliest efforts was the 1994 video game Ballz published by Accolade. The innovative game featured main characters composed completely of spheres. This attribute would carry over into many of their following games, such as Petz. This early game, however, failed in the marketplace due to Accolade's botched marketing.

The company also produced Max Magic, the world’s first electronic magic kit, which represented a breakthrough in interactive 3D character design.^{[citation needed]} Max Magic received numerous prestigious awards for its uniquely intuitive way of entertaining and teaching children and adults about magic.

PF Magic's designer and programmer, Andrew Stern, went on and created an experimental project with Michael Mateas along with others for five years. The project became Façade, a freeware game where you can interact with a couple whose 10-year marriage is in trouble. The interaction system is said to be a spiritual successor to Babyz, on which Andrew Stern worked.

[edit] PF

Many people speculated on what the "PF" in the company's title stood for, until someone asked. This was the answer they gave:

Pure F---ing Magic

Such was an old saying from my days at Atari. That ultimately our customers cared not for our slick technical skills. They really didn't give a hoot about how clever our engineers are. What they REALLY cared about was the overall EXPERIENCE they were having with our products.

Like who CARES how the software that is running inside your PC works, all that matters is that it makes you believe that a living DOG is running around your desktop?

From the perspective of a customer it's simply pure f---ing MAGIC. That’s all they need to know. So such reminded us that all we care about is that our customers are ENCHANTED and not to get overly in love with our own technology, which is a real problem in some companies.

But we told people different things over the years depending on who was asking

Positive Future (told to Venture capitalists)

People Find (told to strategic partners, such as AT&T)

Partially Funded (told to people we owed money to)

Perpetually Fighting (told to employees, when they asked why everything seemed so difficult at times, and why did so many smart people have so many different opinions)

Hope that helps

Cheers

Rob Fulop

Co-Founder and Creative Director of PF.Magic