Naughty Dog created their own version of lisp called GOAL to control game objects. Scripting languages are common in games, but the "heavy lifting" is done in C/C++, as is the case in Jak and Daxter and Crash Bandicoot. Naughty Dog don't use GOAL any more. Have their games gotten worse?

Also note that the effect on performance and throughput are cited as downsides of using GOAL.[1][2]

I met the Naughty Dog team back then and Crash was an awesome game. Their use of a custom scripting language for so much of a real-time game (as opposed to an RPG) was pioneering. They did other innovative things, like baking in radiance transfer to their models to get the lush levels in the game. But at the end of the day, when the Lisp evangelists left Naughty Dog, they stopped using it almost immediately. Apparently, despite using Lisp, and learning from "one of the best lisp programmers in the world", none of that rubbed off on what appears to be an excellent programming team.

The only explanations are:

a) In 7+ years of working with a foremost Lisp programmer, that knowledge did not transfer, or

b) It did transfer, and the other programmers did not see a net advantage.

The OP would like us to believe that the answer is (a). Subsequent games from Naughty Dog would suggest that it is (b).

[1] http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LispInJakAndDaxter

[2] http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2985/postmortem_naught...