How
long would it be with just the small core group?
TP: It varies depending on the game we're
doing. For Resistance 2, we had a programmer-heavy group working for probably
six or seven months to redo a lot of our systems that we initially created for Resistance: Fall of Man.
They brought them
up to date while a couple of designers were working on prototyping new weapons,
and coming up with ideas for the new forms of gameplay.
At the same time, what's become a little
bit more complex is our multiplayer team, who is also doing double-duty at
looking what we're going to be doing for our next game, and also fixing bugs
and putting out patches.
You
used the phrase "double-duty", so do you have a live team, but they
are also forward-looking at the same time?
TP: Exactly. Yeah.
Sounds
tough.
TP: Well, it is, but it's not as difficult
as putting the game out. Because after we've released the game, the game is
generally working very well, and the bugs that we're fixing are very minor, or
they're making tuning fixes based on what we're seeing from the community.
One
thing that we had sort of touched on -- and this has come up other times -- is encouraging
the behavior of the gamers through the design, and, particularly with the
multiplayer, with the class system and the squad system, encouraging the way
people stick together, and play the game.
Designing
multiplayer has got to be a big challenge; when you're talking about the
numbers, eight for co-op is a big number, and 60 for competitive multiplayer is
a ridiculous number, so... Has that been a real challenge?
TP: Well, when we began designing for Resistance 2 on the multiplayer side, we
experimented with a lot of ideas. And Skirmish evolved from a lot of experiments
that didn't quite work. We ended up kind-of having a "eureka!"
moment at one point with the Skirmish mode, when we were faced with the
unfortunate reality that just putting 60 players in a big arena doesn't work.
It's just not fun!
And so, the design and multiplayer
programming team got together and just figured out how to make the dynamic
objective system and the squads work well. But it was a painful process, for
sure, and we went through many iterations to actually get it right.
But I've
got to tell you, those guys, kudos to the design team for both co-op and
multiplayer. And the multiplayer team, the gameplay programming team which
participates as much in design as they do in programming.

Insomniac's Resistance 2
One
thing I really definitely got an impression of from talking to people, from
listening to the discussions today, and the panels and stuff, is that this is a
highly collaborative company; that you encourage that at all levels, and that
people can contribute to the games in multiple ways.
TP: To me, after almost 15 years of doing
this, it's weird thinking about how it could be any other way. We just have so
many people here who have come to Insomniac because they want to make games --
and they want to make fun games. It would suck to stifle that creativity.
There
is a certain point, though, I imagine -- well, no, I know -- where you have to
buckle down and you have to say "This is what's happening."
TP: Of course.
I
mean, this sounds really autocratic; it's not what I mean. But there's a point
where you say, "OK, now go back, and it's your job now to program that, or
it's your job to go crank on the assets," or whatever.
TP: Well, that's why we do have deadlines,
and why we do have a hierarchical structure, where, ultimately, the creative director
makes the final call on what's going into the game. But what has, for me, been
fun, is that most of the decisions are made before I have to step in and say,
"Well, OK guys, I'm going to break this tie by voting this way."
With enough discussion -- because we do
encourage a lot of discussions and arguments here -- the best ideas usually
fall through to the game. That way people walk away, even if they
originally proposed a different idea, agreeing on what is implemented. And
there tends to be a lot less friction that way.
Getting to that point, getting to that
point usually is the result of many heated discussions. There have
been a few shouting matches over various aspects of the game, but my goal is to
make sure that people walk away feeling like we achieved a great consensus.
Something
that you said this morning is that you "build consensus".
TP: I mean, that's what I feel like my job
has been in general, whether I'm CEO, or CD; playing CEO today, or playing CD
today, it's trying to encourage people to put ideas on the table that are
either going to make our games better, or make the company better.
And then,
discussing them, and walking away with an agreement between the people who are
passionate about whatever idea happens to be in discussion.
I mean, I do end up
making a lot of decisions in the role I'm in, but I like making decisions that
I feel are supported by the company; otherwise, why would anybody want to work
at Insomniac, if you have a leader who is just going against the grain all the
time?
Right.
TP: I believe heavily that you have to have
strong leaders on projects; you have to have somebody who's willing to stand up
and make the tough decisions. And creative directors and project managers at
Insomniac end up making decisions all the
time.
That may not be popular, but there's a lot of discussion that occurs
before those decisions are made; we do not encourage going off and just making
off-the-cuff decisions, because that can result in tears.