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Insomniac Games Swells To Over 520 Employees

jm89

Member
Miles sold well, but ratchet did not. Im sure Sony wouldve taken a full priced $70 game selling 30 million instead of a $40-50 DLC selling 10 million.
Well sure maybe they could have assuming just throwing dev resources at spiderman 2 gets it out earlier, which isn't always the case.

But like i said waiting for spiderman 2 has given them a system seller when ps5 stock is high.

Let's just say they released spiderman 2 in 2021/2022 well they would either have nothing this year, or miles which is smaller in scope and probably won't sell as much consoles and be as much of a system seller.
 
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KungFucius

King Snowflake
Their latest game release was a Ratchet and clank game. And almost no one bought it
Really? I bought it. I thought most PS5 owners would have bought it as it was one of the only PS5 releases at the time.

It sold 1.1 million copies in the first month, when PS5 had about 10 million units sold. That's not too terrible, but not amazing. Did it only really sell in that period compared to MM which was selling to a significant fraction of new PS5 owners for the first year +?
 

Thirty7ven

Banned
Clearly Sony wanted Miles and Ratches to coincide with PS5's launch. I'm glad they did as they were both really good games.

I still don't get why people call Miles Morales DLC. 🤷‍♂️

And it’s not a simple case of throwing more devs game comes out faster either. You have to iterate, test new ideas, rewrite. They are not building stacks over there, shits not a database update.

Miles Morales allowed them to test a new character with different moves, a different story.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Nah, if anything, that ratchet game proved that their internal IPs arent really that memorable. They dont sell. They dont win goty awards. They are mediocre games that review well but are forgotten almost immediately. Spiderman sold almost 40 million. Ratchet sold a million. Its a gigantic waste of 2 years of insomniacs time. Had that time gone into Spiderman 2, we wouldve seen it earlier and it wouldve sold and been received a lot better.

No one is telling them to make boring soulless comic book games. Arkham Games were goty material despite being comic book. That is what Insomniac should be chasing. ND and Sucker Punch left their Crash, Jak and Sly Cooper roots behind. Time for Insomniac to do the same and kill ratchet forever.

This may seem crazy to you, but I'd love for them to make a Ratchet VR game.
 

[Sigma]

Member
I thought they were already at 500 at least. Sony has really benefited from having Insomniac in terms of perception(and sales at least for Miles) as they've really brought things to the table and put out the games. And just more so started trends on consoles others ended up following. They were the spearhead of it and imo the MVP of PlayStation this gen thus far. They do things over there on fan request. Do things that we didn't even ask for, didn't think of and never knew we even wanted til we got it.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
You’re just a bad take machine lately. Miles was a huge success.
I am sorry, you are the one defending a last gen DLC that took 2 years of dev time over a brand new next gen sequel, and im the one with a bad take?

Go ahead and make a thread with a poll. Ask gaf if they would rather have miles/ratchet or spiderman 2 by 2021-2022. See how many people choose that bad take.
 

James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
More time to do what exactly? you need devs to be working on one product. If 90% of their team was working on the DLC and Ratchet then they werent working on spiderman 2.

They needed launch ps5 titles

Miles was a massive hit on ps5 and sold for ages.

You’re not getting a launch ps5 title for Spider-Man 2 unless you wanted to re-title Miles as SM2 which wouldnt have gone over too well due to expectations
 
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Fess

Member
Clearly Sony wanted Miles and Ratches to coincide with PS5's launch. I'm glad they did as they were both really good games.

I still don't get why people call Miles Morales DLC. 🤷‍♂️
Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart was fantastic and gave me one of my most memorable family playthroughs ever, Insomniac is seriously one of my absolute fav devs because of this, almost nobody else does AAA games you can play while the kids are watching, they even localized it to swedish with top-tier voices as if it was a Disney movie for some reason I’ll never understand, it’s a tiny country. For me it was a 10/10.

I enjoyed Miles Morales a ton as well but I’d rather see Insomniac do more Ratchet games than Spider-Man games. Naughty Dog should give Jak to Insomniac too. Nobody else does Pixar type of games as well.
 
I enjoyed the latest Ratchet.
The thing i love about their games is how easy they are to pickup and enjoy time and time again. Just great replayabiliy.
This is exactly how I feel. I hope Sony still allow them to keep making Ratchet games ( if they want to) since they are great games to pick up and just play when you don’t have much time on your hands. If they’re expanding and showed us that before the expansion they were able to give us Miles and Ratchet. I don’t see the issue with working on multiple products.

I also think that sometimes “AA” games are also used to just build a portfolio for both the company and the system. Look at Returnal. I’m not sure of the sales but I know most people who played it are looking forward HM next game.
 
If these 500 devs didnt waste their time on Miles DLC and Ratchet, Spiderman 2 wouldve come out by holiday 2021 or spring 2022 at best. serving the same purpose.
But also would have probably been cross gen and we wouldn’t hear the end of it. I’m not sure why it’s a bad thing they gave us more games and not less.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
They needed launch ps5 titles

Miles was a massive hit on ps5 and sold for ages.

You’re not getting a launch ps5 title for Spider-Man 2 unless you wanted to re-title Miles as SM2 which wouldnt have gone over too well due to expectations
Yes they did need PS5 launch titles but Spiderman Miles was a last gen PS4 DLC title.

Ratchet i can kinda understand. It was made to show off Cerny's SSD dream, but id rather have the Spiderman traversal demo they showed off than the level switching stuff we got in Ratchet.

Regardless, had they combined teams to work on one game, they wouldve been able to get Spiderman 2 out in 3 years or by spring 2022. instead of fall 2023. We've gone through a rough year or two since Ratchet came out in 2021. You told me that they would definitely have next gen first party masterpieces and I asked you then where they would come from? its clear now that spiderman 2 would be their first true next gen title since ratchet. Had they focused exclusively on spiderman 2, last year wouldnt have sucked so much and wouldnt be starved for a PS showcase like we are today.

Who knows. we might have been getting Wolverine this year instead of next year.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
But also would have probably been cross gen and we wouldn’t hear the end of it. I’m not sure why it’s a bad thing they gave us more games and not less.
But why? It released in Fall 2018. 2 years before the PS5 launch. We already had gonzalo specs by then. Surely internal sony studios wouldve had them too. Bluepoint released SOTC in Februrary 2018 and went on to make a launch PS5 only game. Insomniac didnt have the luxury of making a remake so give them an extra year. maybe a year and a half and they still come out by mid 2022 instead of fall 2023.

I liked both miles and ratchet. Im not speaking to their quality. Im just saying i wouldve preferred to have played spiderman 2 instead of those games. It wouldve definitely sold better than mIles and ratchet too.
 

James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
Yes they did need PS5 launch titles but Spiderman Miles was a last gen PS4 DLC title.

I don’t know any last gen games running 60fps with ray tracing, can you list them for me?

That wasn’t my point though, they needed content to push the new hardware and coincide with the launch

You aren’t getting a next gen only SM2 for launch. Their business approach worked too. So you are wrong on this
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I don’t know any last gen games running 60fps with ray tracing, can you list them for me?

That wasn’t my point though, they needed content to push the new hardware and coincide with the launch

You aren’t getting a next gen only SM2 for launch. Their business approach worked too. So you are wrong on this
A last gen running at 60 fps with RT is still a last gen game. I was playing those games on my PC in 2018. Doesnt make them next gen.

And i never said Spidey 2 at launch. But holiday 2021 wouldve given it a 3 year dev time. or spring 2022 a 3.5 year dev time. Plenty of time for insomniac who are about to release this game in 2.5 years of dev time after shipping Ratchet in summer 2021.
 

James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
A last gen running at 60 fps with RT is still a last gen game. I was playing those games on my PC in 2018. Doesnt make them next gen.

And i never said Spidey 2 at launch. But holiday 2021 wouldve given it a 3 year dev time. or spring 2022 a 3.5 year dev time. Plenty of time for insomniac who are about to release this game in 2.5 years of dev time after shipping Ratchet in summer 2021.
Sony sold massive amounts of Miles so again - where did they fuck up?

They got a quick project churned out to spurn hype for ps5

Project accomplished
 

Tripolygon

Banned
A last gen running at 60 fps with RT is still a last gen game. I was playing those games on my PC in 2018. Doesnt make them next gen.

And i never said Spidey 2 at launch. But holiday 2021 wouldve given it a 3 year dev time. or spring 2022 a 3.5 year dev time. Plenty of time for insomniac who are about to release this game in 2.5 years of dev time after shipping Ratchet in summer 2021.
You have been in this forum long enough to know you don't release a game in 2.5 years. The game has been in development long before the first one came out. Insomniac is a well managed studio but they aren't magicians. They're working on multiple projects simultaneously in different stages of development with also great outsourcing support from Sony development pipeline.

Miles Morales is still charting worldwide. Thats not a mistake, they were capitalizing on Spiderverse that became a huge hit.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
You have been in this forum long enough to know you don't release a game in 2.5 years. The game has been in development long before the first one came out. Insomniac is a well managed studio but they aren't magicians. They're working on multiple projects simultaneously in different stages of development with also great outsourcing support from Sony development pipeline.

Miles Morales is still charting worldwide. Thats not a mistake, they were capitalizing on Spiderverse that became a huge hit.
2.5 years? Where did I say that. Spiderman released in Fall 2018. Fall 2021 would give them 3 years. I said Spring 2022 which wouldve given them 3.5 years. Id rather play a next gen Spiderman instead of a last gen DLC any day of the week. Dont really care if its selling well. Spiderman sold 30 million. Even if Miles sold 10 million, thats still 1/3rd of what the full game showed.

I am glad SSM didnt do any DLC for their games. Just go and make a full game. GG wasted a full year on this Horizon DLC. Just go and put that effort into making the sequel. If your games are taking 4-5 years to make, the last thing you should be doing is wasting a year on DLC, let alone two years like they did with Miles.
 

TexMex

Member
At least you can tell where all of that work goes in the end product. It's bloated companies like Ubisoft that make you wonder what their headcount could possibly be doing.
 

Baki

Member
That's a good size and think they need to get to 600-800 range if they want to be able to support a GAAS game alongside SP releases. Bungie was 800 people before the Sony acquisition and they had Destiny 2 and 2 IPs in the works.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Okay but this isn’t about you it’s about running a business

You’re arguing that Sony should sell less and release less games so that they can create a next gen only experience

And you’re still getting that, just in 2023
Well, yeah i thought this was gaf, not the wallstreet journal. I am speaking from a consumer point of view. You and I dont own Sony stock, we did both make a $500 investment in their next gen console. I dont know why either of us would be ok with getting a DLC over a full blown next gen exclusive 1-1.5 years instead of 3 years after launch.

Besides, I have repeatedly pointed out that Miles sold 10 million compared to 30 million copies of Spiderman. Ratchet didnt even make the NPD top 20 in 2021. Last we heard was that it sold 1 million worldwide. Some success. Who wouldnt want to release a game that would make more money? Hogwarts released only on next gen consoles and sold $850 million worth of copies. Technically, its good business to release cross gen games, but hogwarts proves that its not a requirement. Something ive been harping on for 3 years now.
 

James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
Well, yeah i thought this was gaf, not the wallstreet journal.

Yet to complain about Sony when they have a game that flops retail wise

You and I dont own Sony stock, we did both make a $500 investment in their next gen console.

And what games would you be playing on ps5 to sell to the masses if not for miles?

They’d literally have nothing but a demons souls niche remake.

Terrible idea
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Yet to complain about Sony when they have a game that flops retail wise



And what games would you be playing on ps5 to sell to the masses if not for miles?

They’d literally have nothing but a demons souls niche remake.

Terrible idea
Sigh. my entire point is that if they hadnt wasted two years on miles and another two years on ratchet, spiderman 2 wouldve been out earlier than 3 years after this gen started.

I love ratchet but lets face it, you and I both would prefer a true next Spiderman over it. You, me and 29 million other spiderman buyers who skipped Ratchet.
 

James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
I love ratchet but lets face it, you and I both would prefer a true next Spiderman over it. You, me and 29 million other spiderman buyers who skipped Ratchet.

Sony has to deliver a cadence of content releases or it’s a wasteland

Without Miles or Ratchet in those early days it would be super sparse

SM2 in 2023 seems right, just when PS5 is probably going to peak in terms of sales volume
 
spyro was a garbage mario 64.
rachet and clank plays like its for toddlers.
resistance was an average fps at best.
comic book games are lame.

insomniac is boring.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
We regressed to this level of trolling now?
Sorry, I forgot Miles was a next gen full fledged masterpiece.

He also praises Uncharted TLL when people bring up ND has taken a long time between releases yet somehow downplays Miles Morales

I don’t really get it, tbh
TLL took 1 year. Not 2 like Miles. And I praised Miles too. It's a great game. I really dont know why you guys struggle to understand people who might have more than one opinion. I can like The Lost Legacy and still wouldve preferred TLOU2 a year earlier. I can like Ratchet and still think Sony shouldve axed it in favor of Spiderman 2 1-2 years earlier. Why does it have to be one or the other? 1 or 0? Call me non-binary lmao.
 

James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
Sorry, I forgot Miles was a next gen full fledged masterpiece.


TLL took 1 year. Not 2 like Miles. And I praised Miles too. It's a great game. I really dont know why you guys struggle to understand people who might have more than one opinion. I can like The Lost Legacy and still wouldve preferred TLOU2 a year earlier. I can like Ratchet and still think Sony shouldve axed it in favor of Spiderman 2 1-2 years earlier. Why does it have to be one or the other? 1 or 0? Call me non-binary lmao.

I just disagree with the notion that we’d get those games much sooner otherwise

The reason stuff like MM and TLL exists is to keep staff efficiently occupied on safer concepts that don’t require massive planning or prototyping
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
I just disagree with the notion that we’d get those games much sooner otherwise

The reason stuff like MM and TLL exists is to keep staff efficiently occupied on safer concepts that don’t require massive planning or prototyping
It also keeps your staff busy, skill practiced and employed as you are in the concept/early build phase of the next several games.
 
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Unknown?

Member
Well, yeah i thought this was gaf, not the wallstreet journal. I am speaking from a consumer point of view. You and I dont own Sony stock, we did both make a $500 investment in their next gen console. I dont know why either of us would be ok with getting a DLC over a full blown next gen exclusive 1-1.5 years instead of 3 years after launch.

Besides, I have repeatedly pointed out that Miles sold 10 million compared to 30 million copies of Spiderman. Ratchet didnt even make the NPD top 20 in 2021. Last we heard was that it sold 1 million worldwide. Some success. Who wouldnt want to release a game that would make more money? Hogwarts released only on next gen consoles and sold $850 million worth of copies. Technically, its good business to release cross gen games, but hogwarts proves that its not a requirement. Something ive been harping on for 3 years now.
You say it's not the wall street journal but have been arguing in favor of Spider-Man 2 by saying it would have sold more. Wut..
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Oooh, the most statistically significant measure of all time! A poll on an enthusiast forum!
I know. Who gives a shit about the opinion of gaffers on gaf. We should poll reddit, twitter or times square instead.
 
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