About Insomniac Games
Insomniac Games is an independent game developer based in beautiful Los Angeles where the sun shines 365 days a year and everyone wants to be your friend. The company was founded in 1994 by Ted Price who, having just spent a few years as controller of a start-up medical company, decided that life in games must be easier. (He was wrong…) Fortunately – more... he ran into two very talented programmers, Alex and Brian Hastings and together they laid the foundation for the company's first game, Disruptor. Disruptor was released on the Playstation in 1996 to critical acclaim. The game won several awards from magazines for Best First Person Shooter but was also labeled "Dark Horse of the Year" and "the Best Game that No One Heard Of" thanks to its non-existent marketing budget.
Deciding that it was time for a new direction, the now 5 person team created Spyro the Dragon. Over the next two years, the team grew to 13 people and learned how to make character action games. In 1998, Sony published Spyro the Dragon worldwide and the game was a smash hit. The natural thing to do at that point was to expand the franchise and so Insomniac did - it created Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage in 1999 and then Spyro: Year of the Dragon in 2000. All three titles won industry awards in many categories and all three are now part of Sony's Greatest Hits collection. The combined sales of the three Spyro titles is well over 8 million units and the original Spyro is the fifth best selling first party PlayStation title of all time.
After releasing Spyro: Year of the Dragon, Insomniac had grown to over 30 people and was beginning to prototype its tools and technology for the Playstation 2. Insomniac believed that it had taken the Spyro franchise as far as it could and decided to create something new.
After experimenting with several different directions, Insomniac came up with the idea for Ratchet and Clank and within several weeks had the main characters modeled and running around in test environments. Ratchet and Clank reflected Insomniac's desire to expand the character action genre and to build on its experiences from Spyro.
The game was released on the PS2 in early November 2002 and garnered 7 Platformer of the Year awards from major enthusiast publications and top scores from all gaming magazines. Even more impressive, Ratchet & Clank was bundled with the PS2 in Japan. It was the first western-produced game ever to be bundled with any Sony hardware in that country. The game has currently shipped over 2 million units worldwide.
Insomniac plans to release the franchise's first sequel - Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando in November of 2003.
As of 2003 the company has grown to over 80 hard-working, creative developers and remains completely independent.
Insomniac works very closely with both Sony Computer Entertainment and Mark Cerny of Cerny Games. Sony publishes and distributes Insomniac's games worldwide and provides fantastic support in all areas - production (including testing and localization), marketing, and public relations. Mark Cerny is a design consultant and contributes to various aspects of design. 2003 marks the ninth year of a great relationship between Insomniac Games and Cerny Games. – less – More from ZoomInfo »
Insomniac Games Employer Reviews
Insomniac Games
They're called insomniac games for a reason
Quality Assurance Tester (Former Employee), Burbank, CA – February 7, 2012
Working at Insomniac Games
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