insomniac Archive

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Insomniac Is Making A Facebook Game Called Outernauts

Rowan Belden-Clifford, Insomniac Games talking to The Verge:

“I consider myself the core audience of previous Insomniac games AND of Outernauts,” he says. “I’m 23 years old, and I play both console games and Facebook games, as does my roommate and many of my other peers. We as a company are as excited about reaching a huge new audience on Facebook as we are about satisfying our hardcore fans.”

Contrary to stereotypical gaming enthusiast beliefs, I think it’s a good thing that Insomniac is setting out to make a Facebook game. I’d love to see someone make a “legitimate” game on Facebook if nothing else but to prove that it can even be done. If there’s anyone that can pull that off, it may as well be one of the best console development studios in gaming today. Playdom’s “Avengers Alliance” came close to creating a Facebook game that isn’t a glorified progress quest, but missed the mark with its terrible shoehorning of “social” mechanics to bottleneck progress.

Knowing how that turned out, I’ve got some heavy reservations based on Insomniac’s partnership with EA (whom we all know love to microtransaction/DLC their games to comical levels), and the fact that the description of “Outernauts” in the piece make me visualize “Pokemon” and “Farmville” having inappropriate relations.

Still, count me in for at least seeing what they come up with.

via Insomniac Games explains why Facebook is the place for its new ‘hardcore’ RPG Outernauts | The Verge.

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Insomniac Won’t Be Making Any More Resistance Games

“We won’t be making any more Resistances,” Insomniac CEO Ted Price told VG247 during an interview at Southern Methodist University’s Game::Business::Law Summit today. Short, sweet, and to the point.

Guess Insomniac finally came to the conclusion that Resistance… was futile.

Seriously, though, the Resistance games were among the best shooters available on the PlayStation 3. I’m a little wistful that they won’t be continuing the franchise, but happy to see that Insomniac isn’t content with just making sequels. Here’s to bigger and better new IP’s from one of the best studios in the game right now.

via Insomniac: “We won’t be making any more Resistances” | VG247.

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Insomniac Games Goes Multiplatform, Signs With EA Partners

Wow.

This news pretty much blindsided me this morning.  I (like many others) assumed that Insomniac (Ratchet and Clank, Resistance, inFamous) was wholly owned by Sony.  The deal is only for one game, but I’m pretty sure when it succeeds, they’ll continue making more of them for everyone.

Could the platform exclusive title be an endangered species?  Bungie’s (Halo) liberation to Activision and the land of multi-platform releases last month certainly raises some eyebrows.  Developers want to own their IPs now and who blames them?  Wouldn’t you want to get in on movie-licensing and branded Mountain Dew flavor money?  Like in the music industry, once you establish yourself as a bonafied rock star, your dependence on the record labels shrinks to just product manufacturing/distribution.

Personally, I’ve never had a problem with not being able to play a title due to the consoles I’ve owned since I own them all.  However, I imagine most people have picked only one of the 360 or PS3.  There’s a lot of quality titles that you’re missing out on if this is the case.  Having our rockstar titles available on both platforms serves to only benefit the end user.  After all, nothing kills a recent video game conversation more than “Have you played God of War 3 yet?” “No, I only have a 360. ” =(

Joystiq’s got an interview with Insomniac’s CEO, Ted Price, if you want to read more.