Insomniac Games to Open Studio in North Carolina

[Shin-Ra]

Insomniac to Open Studio in North Carolina

According to Ted Price, founder and CEO of Insomniac, the plan is to find an office space over the coming months and open its doors by January 2009. Chad Dezern, Insomniac's art director, will serve as the North Carolina studio director while veteran Insomniac gameplay lead Shaun McCabe will assume the role of production director. These two veterans have a shared 15 years of game development experience at Insomniac. Upon their completion of Resistance 2, McCabe and Dezern will move to North Carolina this fall to oversee hiring of 25 to 30 developers and lay the studio's foundation.

Burbank currently has 175 people working on various projects, including Sony's PlayStation 3 sequel, Resistance 2, which ships this fall. Price said the Burbank number will shrink down to 150 once testing for that game is complete. Although the North Carolina studio will have a team of about 30, Price said they will be able to create PS3 games on their own.

"Traditionally, we've had more than 30 people working on a title, but over the past few years we've learned a lot about product management and how to create more effective and more efficient pipelines," said Price. "We have a good handle on the PlayStation 3 technology. The tools and technology we've developed over the last couple of years have enabled us to develop AAA games with smaller teams."

Price said the Burbank studio has several teams working on various projects and most of them haven't been announced yet. He was also mum on what was next for the best-selling Ratchet & Clank franchise.

Hit the link for the rest.

edit: more on the Full Moon Show Podcast this Thursday.

[silversnake]

i've heard good things about north carolina in the past about game development , this definitely makes it a lot more interesting for future career plans!

[statikcat]

Nice to see companies moving out of CA. With media and internet today there is little reason for companies to pay top dollar for land and employees there.

Anyone know if this is purely a developer office or possibly any other positions such as artists or sound design? I would assume so if they can "complete games on their own".

[kotton247]

Awesome. I live here, its a nice place. Plus, Ubisoft also operates a couple hours down the road. Yay NC.

[Cplhicks]

Good, hopefully it means the next Ratchet can be started sooner rather than later!

[L or S of Perfect?]

Great news. If they can carry over their company's culture & ps3 knowhow, it looks like we'll have more quality games coming.

[Wreck]

pretty cool info.