Insomniac Games Expands Eastward

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Ted Price here. I’m founder and CEO of Insomniac Games, the studio behind Resistance: Fall of Man and many of the Ratchet & Clank games, including Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. While we’re busy at work on Resistance 2, I wanted to stop by to share some exciting news about the future of Insomniac.

As you may have seen this morning, Insomniac is launching a new studio in the Raleigh-Durham area in North Carolina. It will focus on developing both current and new intellectual property, and will open its doors in January 2009. The North Carolina group, which will also be known as Insomniac Games, will receive administrative and engine, tools and technology support from the team here in southern California.

Insomniac Games

Veteran Insomniac Art Director Chad Dezern will serve as the North Carolina studio director, while Resistance 2 single player Lead Programmer Shaun McCabe will act as the studio’s production director. However, both will continue to work on Resistance 2 until it launches this Fall. We’re focused on making R2 amazing – that’s our top priority right now.

The move to North Carolina allows Insomniac to keep our size at a level we like in Burbank, while also giving us an opportunity to grow and attract some of the top talent that resides on the East Coast. We’re already beginning the process of looking for good people to join us in Raleigh-Durham, so if you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail us at info@insomniacgames.com.

We are all incredibly excited about this news, and we’re looking forward to bringing you more great games. And for those Resistance fans that are dying for more R2 information, make sure that you tune into Spike TV for Gametrailers TV with Geoff Keighley on June 13th. The show will reveal the first Resistance 2 gameplay footage in an episode shot here at Insomniac Games.

As always, thanks for all of your continued support!

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71 Comments

  • R2 better be amazing! :D

  • congratulations on opening a new studio hope u guys keep pumping out awesome games as u always do cant wait for the new resistance. oh by the way gamesblow your comment is retarded why go multi platform when their games sell so well on playstation for i dont know how long let me guess you only own an xbox and r hoping u actually get a good game besides gears.insomniac i hope u never go multi platform your loyal fan bigfnrabbit.

  • Insomniac Games is definatley my favorite developer. I can’t wait to see the new ip’s that might could come out of this new studio.

    Burbank pumps out Resistance and Ratchet games one after another. With this new studio, Insomniac Games could possibly have 2 games a year!

  • I also agree with bigfnrabbit. I hope Insomniac Games never go multiplat. I hope they stay on PS products.

  • hey Ted this is bpowter i met you in burbank last year im glad to see you guys are expanding, you built a great company by surrounding yourself with great people. I’m hounered to play your games.

    ps. im gonna try and be the first to complete RFOM2 as I did in RFOM.

  • thats great news

  • hey guys, any way if we live close by to get a tour? my daughter would love to see the people that helped make her fav game (ratchet)

  • I want a job at INSOMNIAC

  • sounds good. best of luck.

  • Good job guys your one of the best developers if its not the best

  • Amer_Amer_Alliance_Creative_Entertainment_Productions_UMICH_Alumni

    Are my comments showing up because i can’t see them?

  • Amer_Amer_Alliance_Creative_Entertainment_Productions_UMICH_Alumni

    Dear Ted Price and all of Insomniac Games (IG) employees,

    First i would like to address this to all of IG, especially Ted price. Before i start saying what i want and think of your company, i would like to congratulate you and all of IG on the expansion news. Now with that out of the way, here’s what i think of your company. For one, it is way overrated in terms of the quality and respect it is getting for its games and products. I say this with confidence in that when an outside objective person compares IG to say Naughty Dog (ND) or say independent developer Ninja Theory (NT) in terms of the quality of its games and products they put out, then one would agree that your are good company, but not one of the “best companies” out there.

    I mean ND’s Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, its first game on PS3 completely blew your first two games on the PS3 in terms of graphics, animation, character development, gameplay mechanics, the depth of immersion of the user experience, musical score, story telling, and so forth. The same can be said about NT’s Heavenly Sword in most of the same categories, especially in the animation, graphical quality, story telling, immersion, and that amazing unique musical score that encompasses a mix the European lute and Middle Eastern oud instruments. In ND set the graphical bar for all other games out there on the PS3 and other systems in terms of it’s graphics, pixel quality, and animation as well as what could be achieved so far on the PS3 until say MGS4 comes out.

    In fact, they have set the bar so high for other developers that I think it will be a long time before anyone including you can match ND’s achievement in this area, even from the already released info, screens and gameplay impressions from the media for Resistance 2. By the way, what I have seen so far of Resistance 2 doesn’t impress that much considering it runs at 30 fps, when you said that all games from now on from IG would be 60 fps. I mean if call of duty 4 can run at 60 fps without a hitch online, offline and still manages to match and in some cases supersede the graphical quality of Resistance 2 is really a testament to the skill set that IG can deliver in its games compared to other developers.

    Additionally, when you say on your website that “East Coast here we come! Stay tuned for job openings in our new North Carolina location (opening January 2009),” it is a really really arrogant statement to say because you think that your so good at what you would that your going to take over the East Coast game development presence by attracting a lot more people to your studio there because of the corporate culture that you have designed for your employees, which a lot seem to like? I say this with confidence because already well established development studios, both independent and non-independent already resided on the East Coast for a long time and still put out better quality products out there in terms of above said categories since they have a better skill set of people than you currently have in the West Coast and will ever have in the East Coast. Let me name a few of those companies:

    Epic Games (Independent Company)
    2K Boston (Non-Independent Company)
    Rockstar NYC (Non-Independent Company)
    Bethesda Softworks (Independent Company in the game arena based in Rockville, MD)
    ***** and many more to list.

    In fact, when you look at the metacritic score of those companies of their games it seems to be higher than that of your games released so far and will continue to do so in the near future when Resistance 2 is released in the fall. For example,

    Epic Games (Gears of War = 94)
    2K Boston (BioShock = 96)
    Rockstar NYC with Rockstar North in England (Grand Theft Auto IV = 98)
    Bethesda Softworks (Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion = 94)

    Lastly, on your application website after it has been fixed to recognize previous applicants, yet it is still messed up in that it doesn’t allow you to upload your resume in the format you want and can’t allow you to apply for multiple positions says the following currently, “Multiple submissions from candidates (even if applying for different positions) will automatically be discarded. We believe in hiring the most talented individuals and will evaluate your application against current open positions and future positions for up to one year from the date of your online submission. Your best opportunity to be considered for a position is to complete the application form accurately and completely.” With that in mind, when I compare this to other companies such as Factor 5, Foundation 9 including all of its studios or Activision and all of its studios such Treyarch, Infinity Ward, and so forth that have a system in place to do the following easily through the Taleo web application career system then it really shows me the skill set of what IG can do and can not do in today’s fast growing economic culture where job applications are now most done electronic and easily. Maybe you can do it and are just lazy to do so, and if that’s the case then it shows the mind set of your company to potential candidates. In the end, we live in America, a country that prides itself on everything “Freedom” related from freedom of views, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to express any view you want, freedom to bear arms, and so forth. I say this because if my post gets deleted or I get a letter from your corporate lawyer Stephen Rubin saying that my views are “hostile, aggressive to your and all of IG’s employees” or whatever lame excuse you can come up with to threaten me that I will be “restrained by the local authorities in my area,” then really what country do we really live in? In fact, if this happens then it just shows you [including all of IG’s employees] and everyone who gets a chance to read this who you [IG] really are, a company that can’t take criticism at face value yet makes arrogant statements such as “(jokingly) We’ve actually made it a big focus to include more churches and now synagogues and mosques in Resistance 2” and claims to best in the business with a friendly corporate culture that’s loyal to it’s fans, employees, and potential employees, which to me sounds like a paradox.

    In conclusion, when IG first started until Resistance: Fall of Man was released, I thoroughly thought of you and IG all highly and a respectable company that produces products with real substance and different views that actually add to the overall experience of game and the user. However, after that and with statements like the ones above, I have begun to really think of you differently, especially after beating Ratchet and Clank: Future Tools of Destruction on my PS3, as a company with no real substance.

    P.S. It’s not funny to jokingly joke about something like this that really adds no real significance value

  • Amer_Amer_Alliance_Creative_Entertainment_Productions_UMICH_Alumni

    References:

    1) Joking statement about religion:

    http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/resisting-acquisition

    2) Metacritic scores: http://www.metacritic.com/games/xbox360/

  • Amer_Amer_Alliance_Creative_Entertainment_Productions_UMICH_Alumni

    References:

    1) Joking statement about religion:

    gamesindustry.biz/articles/resisting-acquisition

    2) Metacritic scores:

    metacritic.com/games/xbox360/

  • hope this brings more IPs to the PS3 (maybe even the psp?) But if insomniac decides to go multi-platform, it’s cool as long as they continue brining games to PS3

  • Insomniac games is the best developer on the PS3 and the dude with a long username is gay.

  • I wish Sony would just do what’s right and pay Insomniac for their hard work, dedication and loyalty to the Sony brand. If they lose Insomniac, I’m gone. Simple as that… while some people care about Square-enix, konami, capcom and what not… I care about Insomniac and have bought and supported every single game they’ve ever released. I don’t want them to walk about from Sony cause they’re the last great thing about Sony and set their systems apart from everyone elses.

    I hope this means more games per year but for sony only.

  • Finished RFoM and loved it.
    Now I’m just trying to reach Supreme Commander status. Right now I got three stars :)

  • I hope the trailor for R2 on Spike will be better than the that sneak peek. I also hope the Online multiplayer isn’t too laggy with 60 people playing.

    This game needs to be the shlt to compete with SOCOM in September.

  • Does this mean there will be enough employees to do some updates on R:FOM?

  • In R2 will we be able to use vehicles because thats the only reason me and some friends play halo and its time to take out my ps3…there needs to be vehicles

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