Neversoft was founded in July 1994 by three employees of Malibu Interactive (previously Acme Interactive), a division of Malibu Comics based in Westlake Village, California. At that time, the primary platforms were the home gaming consoles, the Genesis/Mega Drive and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Games for these systems could be developed by small teams, anywhere from two to ten developers. As a result, it was much easier than at present to set up a game development company, and several groups of people had already left Malibu to strike out on their own. Joel Jewett, a native of Montana and a CPA, was at the time head of development at the rapidly shrinking Malibu Interactive. He teamed up with Mick West, a game programmer, who had just completed working on "" for the Genesis, and Chris Ward, an artist.