Insomniac Games

Insomniac Games, Inc.

Company type	Private
Industry	Video game industry
Founded	1994
Headquarters	Burbank, California, USA
Key people	Ted Price (CEO)
Number of employees	180
Parent	Independent
Website	www.insomniacgames.com

Insomniac Games, Inc. is an independent American video game developer founded in 1994 that has released titles for the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation 3 video game consoles. They created Disruptor, the first three hugely successful Spyro the Dragon games, and the Ratchet & Clank franchise, which have combined to sell over 25 million copies worldwide and have won dozens of awards. Insomniac released Resistance: Fall of Man in 2006, a first-person shooter and PlayStation 3 launch game. In 2007, Insomniac released Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, their first Ratchet & Clank title for the PlayStation 3. In 2008, the company released their first title for the PlayStation Network, Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty, and their third PlayStation 3 title, Resistance 2. At the moment they are currently finishing developing Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time. Insomniac Games have sold a total of 32 million games for the PlayStation series.

Company overview

File:Insomniac Games Logo.png

The original logo for Insomniac Games

Insomniac was founded in 1994 as an independent video game developer and is now based in Burbank, California. Its initial game, a first-person shooter called Disruptor for the PlayStation, was released on November 20, 1996, and received critical success. Since then, the company has released eight more games in two series (both of which were created by the company) for the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation 3 and all have been both critical and commercial successes. After the company produced the first three Spyro the Dragon games, the company sold the Spyro license to Universal Interactive, now know as Vivendi Games. They later went on to create the Ratchet & Clank series. The first Ratchet & Clank has the notable distinction of being the first western-produced game to be officially bundled with the PlayStation 2 in Japan. This was a result of Ratchet & Clank being the first western video game to make Japan's top 100 list.

The company has been named as one of the top 10 Best Small Companies to work for in America for 3 years in a row for their relaxed environment and flexible hours.

In 2003, a few of Insomniac's staff members left the company to create a new company called High Impact Games.

In 2006, Insomniac released an M-rated PlayStation 3 first-person shooter, very unlike its other works. Its name during production was I-8, but it was later renamed Resistance: Fall of Man. The game's futuristic weapons seem to be influenced by the company's Ratchet & Clank series.

At the 2008 Game Developers Conference, Insomniac announced a new project titled the Nocturnal Initiative. This is a free wiki based project designed to encourage the distribution of development technologies which may be used in other games. Insomniac has shared technology they developed for use in titles such as Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and Resistance 2.

In an interview with GameDaily BIZ in June 2008, Ted Price announced that Insomniac Games plans to expand and open a sister studio in North Carolina, with Chad Dezern taking on the role of studio director. Dezern will be hiring twenty-five to thirty new developers and will prepare the studio to begin work on games based on new and existing intellectual properties.

In Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando and Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, the player can visit an easter egg known as the "Insomniac Museum". This is located on the planets Dantopia (a reference to Dan Johnson who has since died) and Burbank (a reference to the company's location). The museum lets players find items, enemies, objects and conceptions that did not make it into the final resulting games. The Insomniac Museum in both games has the actual layout of the Insomniac Games offices.

Games

Insomniac Games have released twelve games since the company was formed, with one currently in development.

Game Title	US Release Date	Platform
Disruptor	November 20, 1996	PlayStation
Spyro the Dragon	September 10, 1998	PlayStation
Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!	November 2, 1999	PlayStation
Spyro: Year of the Dragon	October 11, 2000	PlayStation
Ratchet & Clank	November 7, 2002	PlayStation 2
Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando	November 11, 2003	PlayStation 2
Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal	November 2, 2004	PlayStation 2
Ratchet: Deadlocked	October 25, 2005	PlayStation 2
Resistance: Fall of Man	November 17, 2006	PlayStation 3
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction	October 23, 2007	PlayStation 3
Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty	August 21, 2008	PlayStation 3
Resistance 2	November 4, 2008	PlayStation 3
Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time	Fall 2009	PlayStation 3

People

• Ted Price (President & CEO)
• Alex Hastings (Chief Technology Officer)
• Brian Hastings (Chief Creative Officer)
• Chad Dezern (Art Director)
• See also: Team members

The Full Moon Show

On the first and third Thursday of every month, Insomniac Games releases a new episode of The Full Moon Show, a podcast which informs listeners on new events happening within Insomniac Games, along with community updates regarding Resistance: Fall of Man and their online community. Episodes can be downloaded from the Insomniac website, iTunes and the Zune marketplace.

Relationships with other developers

Naughty Dog

Insomniac has had a close relationship with developer Naughty Dog from when the two companies worked together in the same building on a Universal Studios back-lot. The company makes games that are similar in style, which sometimes contain references to each other. Demos for one company's games often appear on the other's releases. For example, Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! contained a demo of Crash Team Racing. Because of their friendship, many fans have wondered if the two companies would collaborate on a game. However, it has been publicly stated that the two companies do not have plans for making a game together, although both Jak II and Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando feature billboard cameos of each others heroes (and a scene in Going Commando shows Ratchet playing both Jak games). This is taken one step further in Jak X: Combat Racing and Ratchet: Deadlocked as both feature Ratchet and Jak respectively as unlockable skins/characters. In the game Daxter, a Ratchet and a Clank mask can be found.

Contrary to popular belief, Insomniac never borrowed any part or form of the PlayStation 2 engine code or technology from Naughty Dog to use on the Ratchet & Clank games. As for the two companies' direct involvement, Naughty Dog's Richard Lemarchand said: "We don't really trade anything concrete in terms of technology, but we definitely compare war stories of life in the trenches, and try and learn from each other's experiences." Ted Price described Insomniac's stance on engine technology, saying:

"We've always developed all our own technology. It's been a little frustrating in the past for us to hear people say, 'Oh yeah, the Insomniac game is running on the Naughty Dog engine.' People assumed that we were using Naughty Dog's engine for Ratchet, and that was not true. We shared some technology with Naughty Dog way back when, and that was great, but we are a company that puts stock in developing specialized technology and we will continue to do so." -- Ted Price, Independent PlayStation Magazine, September 2006

High Impact Games

High Impact Games is a company formed by ex-Insomniac staff. They have released the titles Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters and Secret Agent Clank for the PlayStation Portable, as well as a PlayStation 2 port of Size Matters.

External links

• Official website