It seems like just yesterday that there was an IAmA for a big name in the gaming industry, and today, Ted Price, Founder and CEO of Insomniac Games, who have Fuse coming out this month, was the latest to be asked anything.
Since most of the questions didn’t actually involve Fuse, they “went back to the drawing board” in the winter of 2011-2012 when they realized the weapons “lacked impact,” we’ll go ahead and jump right into another topic – Resistance.
Getting the headlining quote out of the way right off the bat, when Ted was asked if he ever thought he might continue the story of Resistance somehow (after the series died), he said, “The future of Resistance is unclear – I’ve said we wouldn’t go back to making Resistance since we don’t own the IP. But I’ve also learned to say “never say never.””
When it came to the Resistance games we do have, Ted said that his “favorite Resistance to make was Resistance 1. But my favorite to play was Resistance 3.” Despite being his favorite, Resistance: Fall of Man “was the most stressful game to make,” likely due to the PS3 launch time crunch, and, unfortunately for everyone hoping, there’s still going to be “no trophy support for RFOM.”
On a more technical aspect, the topic of Insomniac possibly going back to 60fps on their games came up, with Ted replying, “I frankly don’t know if we’ll go back to 60fps. It has its pluses and minuses. It seems like our fans have been pretty happy with Resistance, the new Ratchets and Fuse at 30fps – we can certainly do more on screen at that frame rate…”
Using that as a segue into Ratchet & Clank, Ted talked about the upcoming movie, noting that TJ Fixman, Writer on Fuse and the PS3 Ratchet games, is working on the movie, with Insomniac having animation input and creative consultation. Ted also added that they “wanted to do a Spyro movie way back but could never get it off the ground.”
As for the Ratchet & Clank games, for Ted personally, Up Your Arsenal was “probably the most challenging because we tried to shove so much into it near the end.” And for everyone hoping he’s spill the beans of a new entry into the Ratchet & Clank series, all he said on the topic of a new R&C was, “I can’t say :).”
He did talk about the next-generation of consoles though, saying that the “Wii-U is something I’d consider more current gen – but we’re not working on games for it” and he’s excited for the PS4 because “they seem to [be] lowering barriers for independent developers. It’s cool to see almost weekly announcements from Sony explaining how they’re opening things up for indies.”
Slowly wrapping things up, Ted was asked if it has been difficult for Insomniac to innovate in AAA games:
It’s always difficult to innovate. It’s why, in my opinion, we don’t see as many new intellectual properties being launched on consoles these days. It’s risky for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that console games are expensive to make.
However it’s really cool to see a ton of innovation in the mobile and downloadable space.
With Fuse we’re hoping that players will be excited about what we’re doing to raise the bar with co-op. We do hear again and again that console players want something new. New IP FTW!
Finally, he added what lessons the company has learned from this console generation that can be applied to the next one:
Probably the biggest lesson is that no one can reliably predict the future for games. For example – who could have predicted the rise of mobile gaming? While hardcore gamers may scoff at this, mobile games and to a lesser degree social games have had a big impact on the more traditional games industry. Plus changes in distribution methods, monetization, online connectivity, etc. have all been arriving faster and faster. It means that the games industry is more fluid than ever. And to me this means more opportunity for EVERYONE who wants to make games – not just the few who can break into the console development business.
Would you like to see another Resistance game? Does Insomniac’s close involvement with the Ratchet & Clank movie have you more excited? Let us know in the comments below.
