Prehistoric Kingdom had its origins in a fan project originally titled Jurassic Park: Operations, an attempt at an unofficial successor to Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis. The project was later rebranded to Jurassic Genesis, presumably to avoid copyright issues. Nonetheless, the project was stifled by accusations that the game's lead, Will Loudermill, stole game assets from various third party sources, and that the game's co-lead, Matt Willson, allegedly attempted to auction the project off to the highest bidder through PayPal. It was these controversies with the project's management that prompted a handful of the development team to break off and create their own prehistoric-themed park building game, which became Prehistoric Kingdom.