Ted Price, the driving force behind Insomniac Games, was a significant inspiration throughout my life. His passion for Insomniac and gaming in general was tremendous, and I eagerly awaited every opportunity to hear him speak. He didn’t just talk about the games; he talked about the people who made them, and was always passionate to put his studio before himself. His dedication and enthusiasm ignited my own passion for video games and gave me the dream of working in the industry, perhaps even at a studio like Insomniac one day.
With the announcement of his retirement, it seemed like an appropriate time to reflect on the incredible legacy he leaves behind and to pay homage by highlighting some of the milestones that Insomniac has had under his leadership.
Originally named Xtreme Studios, but the studio almost instantly had legal trouble because another software company was already utilizing a similar name. Ted Price changed the name of the studio to Insomniac Games a year later (establishing Insomniac Games in 1994), and put together a small group of inexperienced developers to release their first game. Insomniac started with a game called Disruptor, which was very bluntly a “Doom clone” due to how simplistic it was to develop, and the young studio was just learning how to develop complex games. At the time, Doom was sweeping the industry with clones because of how easy ID Software had made developing similar games. However Disruptor was a bit different from all the other clones.
The game was intended to release on the 3DO, but after a round of proposals to various publishers, Insomniac caught the eye of Mark Cerny. At the time Cerny was working for Universal Games, and pitched several game improvements which Insomniac welcomed with open arms, but were not able to create due to limitations on the 3DO equipment. For those that may not know, Mark Cerny is currently a partner of PlayStation who helps develop hardware and game engines. He works as a community manager of sorts by visiting game studios and getting input on how to better develop games, and then shares that knowledge between the studios, and internal PlayStation teams.
Cerny, again not working for Sony just yet, proposed the team at Insomniac should shift gears and develop the game for the original PlayStation, which could handle the improvements he suggested. It only took one month to shift Disruptor to the PlayStation, and the game would release in 1996. ID Software, among many other industry pros, all praised the game. Game awards were saying it was the ultimate dark horse of the year, and the people that played the game loved it. And with all this praise and heightened expectations, it totally flopped. It destroyed the morale of the studio and they all agreed to not return for a sequel… Insomniac didn’t start off too great, but Cerny still had faith in the team.
From Disruptor, Insomniac moved into a little known franchise called Spyro The Dragon, again working with Cerny and Universal games. The game was a total shift in focus for the team entirely, stepping back from mature content and pure science fiction, to a more family friendly fantasy adventure. And as many people know, history was made as it went on to become one of the biggest icons in the video game world, a total flip from the failure Disruptor was. However Spyro itself seems to have altered the DNA of Insomniac as a whole.
The decision to shift gears from a violent FPS game to a more family friendly title, where the whole family could enjoy it, and working closely with hardware developers to further enhance gameplay. This new targeted approach boosted sales greatly. Insomniac would continue making Spyro until 2000 where they decided to stop working with Universal, and gave up rights to their beloved franchise.
Instead Insomniac would work directly with PlayStation and make a new family friendly action game called Ratchet and Clank for the PlayStation 2. This would become Insomniac’s new main franchise, now currently spanning 4 generations of PlayStation consoles. Ratchet and Clank was the perfect combination of family friendly fun, while also opening the ability to be cutting edge in cinematic gameplay. It also got to finally blend Ted Price’s love of science fiction with an action oriented adventure. As mentioned, Ratchet and Clank have been welcomed on 4 generations of PlayStation, along with both handheld units.
Insomniac wouldn’t return to the more mature content until PlayStation 3 when they decided to utilize the new higher performance the PS3 architecture offered to create another shooter called Resistance: Fall of Man, and found another commercial success. Resistance seemed to be everything Insomniac wanted to create from the get go with a massive science fiction cinematic experience, combined with massive battles both online and offline. Resistance luckily didn’t have much competition either as Insomniac was one of the few studios to meet the launch window of the PS3, and enjoyed quite an extended period of time where it remained exclusively the biggest title on the console.
It was shortly after this release that Insomniac would disrupt the entire industry and leave the PlayStation brand for the first time (If we don’t count the mobile game Outernauts….which we dont) to create one of the best superhero style action games called Sunset Overdrive, releasing on…an Xbox. Sunset Overdrive was perhaps a project Sony could have had under their belt if they were not too heavily focused elsewhere, but luckily Xbox stepped in and helped bring to life one of the best games Insomniac created. The new twist on original characters that could zoom around a city and utilize powers in a quick action paced gameplay was fresh.
In 2016 Insomniac actually tried to branch out beyond PlayStation heavily by creating 3 additional games for Windows, including The Unspoken and Edge of Nowhere, but they didn’t find as much success as their fanbase was truly on the PlayStation, and they ran into similar issues as Disruptor by needing more advertising and promotions for their games.
Ironically all these games helped Insomniac develop ideas and lay out the groundwork for what they would work on next. Superhero powers, open worlds, fast movement…. What could they utilize all these mechanics for? Perhaps Spider-Man…. Insomniac would return to PlayStation to create a new Marvel Spider-Man game, but more importantly Sony finally decided it was time to tie the knot and propose to Insomniac as well, which made them an official PlayStation Studio in 2019.
From there Insomniac quickly became an even bigger household name because everyone needed to know who made Spider-Man and whole would be next. The Marvel connection put them on center stage, and perhaps allowed their older titles to get noticed as well. And while Insomniac loves to tease us with a possible Resistance remaster, it hasn’t happened yet. Insead we have all been patiently waiting for the next trailer for Wolverine.
I have no insider information regarding Ted Price retiring, but from an outside perspective he seems like the type of person that is too passionate to simply step away. He deserves retirement and to celebrate what he created, 30 years is truly remarkable, but I have a feeling this isn’t the last time we will hear from him. Perhaps similar to Yoshida, he can continue talking about games and their development via conferences and interviews.