Toys for Bob, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Novato, California. It was founded in 1989 by Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford.

The studio began as a partnership between Reiche and Ford. The two had separately attended the University of California, Berkeley in the late 1970s before entering the video game industry in the early 1980s. They later met through mutual friends in 1988, when Reiche was seeking a programmer to develop Star Control for Accolade. This led to the creation of their partnership in 1989 and the debut of Star Control in 1990. The release was considered a landmark science fiction game and led to the 1992 sequel Star Control II, which greatly expanded the series' story and scale. Star Control II is celebrated as one of the greatest games of all time and is featured on several "best of" lists for music, writing, world design, and character design. The studio adopted the name Toys for Bob as a way to stimulate curiosity and differentiate themselves from other studios.

The studio pitched their next game to Sega, but their contacts at the company had already left for Crystal Dynamics, which led the studio to pursue a publishing agreement with them instead. Around this time, the studio was operating with Reiche, Ford, and Ford's brother Ken, with additional freelancers hired for key tasks. Whereas their previous games were released as a partnership under their legal names, their subsequent games began to refer to their studio as Toys for Bob. They initially wanted a name that would distinguish them from their competitors. Reiche's wife Laurie suggested the name "Toys for Bob", which was chosen to stimulate curiosity and allude to Reiche and Ford's appreciation for toys.

The studio's first game under Crystal Dynamics was The Horde (1994), a full-motion video action and strategy game. Aiming to take advantage of Crystal Dynamics's Hollywood connections and the increased storage size of CD-ROMs for the video scenes, they hired a cast of professional actors including Martin Short and Kirk Cameron. The game received two awards from Computer Gaming World: "Best Musical Score" for Burke Trieschmann's music and "Best On Screen Performance" for Michael Gregory's role as Kronus Maelor.

As the studio prepared to release The Unholy War in 1998, Crystal Dynamics was acquired by Eidos Interactive.

Soon after the release of Disney's 102 Dalmatians: Puppies to the Rescue, Crystal Dynamics decided to fire the entire Toys for Bob team. After operating as a partnership for more than a decade, Reiche, Ford, and Terry Falls incorporated Toys for Bob in 2002, and announced that they were seeking a new publisher after parting ways with Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Interactive.

Soon after re-establishing their studio as an independent company, Reiche and Ford released the source code for the 3DO version of Star Control II as open-source software under the GNU General Public Licence (GPL) and enlisted the fan community to port it to modern operating systems. The result was the 2002 open source game The Ur-Quan Masters, released under a new title since the Star Control trademark was owned by Atari, who had acquired Accolade.

Toys for Bob secured Activision as their new publisher, thanks to an introduction from former staff who had founded Shaba Games and sold it to Activision. Working with Activision, Toys for Bob continued to focus on licensed games, such as Madagascar. Their growing relationship with the publisher led them to be acquired in 2005: the studio became a wholly owned subsidiary under Activision, and the management team and employees signed long-term contracts under the new corporate structure.

Activision asked the studio to generate a new idea, and the company felt pressure to find the right opportunity. One idea came from Toys for Bob character designer I-Wei Huang, who had been creating toys and robots in his spare time. The company saw the potential to adapt these toys and character designs into a game, with technical engineer Robert Leyland applying his hobby in building electronics. Coincidentally, Activision merged with Vivendi Games in 2008, and asked Toys for Bob to create a new game around Vivendi's Spyro franchise. This culminated in the 2011 release of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, which became a breakthrough success.

Founders Reiche and Ford left Toys for Bob at the end of 2020 to create an independent studio and commence development on a sequel to The Ur-Quan Masters. Paul Yan and Avery Lodato became Toys for Bob's studio heads, and the studio continues to operate with an estimated 180 employees.

Throughout 2021, allegations of workplace harassment surfaced at Activision's parent company, Activision Blizzard, and Toys for Bob employees were among 500 employees calling for the resignation of Kotick.

On January 18, 2022, Microsoft announced that it intended to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. Microsoft promised to strive towards safer and more inclusive working conditions among Activision's studios, including Toys for Bob. As the CEO of Microsoft's gaming division, Phil Spencer expressed interest in having Toys for Bob revive older game properties now owned by the conglomerate. Kotick also expressed his long-term desire to revive the Skylanders series, believing this was now possible thanks to Microsoft's hardware manufacturing and supply chain. As part of 1,900 job cuts instituted by Microsoft in January 2024, 89 people were laid off from Toys for Bob and the studio's offices in Novato were closed down. The remaining staffers transitioned to work from home. On February 29, Toys for Bob splits from Activision and becomes independent.