It’s no secret that Insomniac Games is one of the best developer studios to work at- they’ve won a “Best Place to Work” award year after year. With the Ratchet and Clank and Resistance franchises in their repertoire, anyone wanting to break into the developer industry would be lucky to work for them- and now they can!

Insomniac Games is hiring, and they have a humorous series of videos to prove it. The series follows Chris, a man from Burbank who quit his job at Insomniac Games and moved so he could work for Megacorp, a company that… well, I have no idea what they do, but they don’t do it as well as Insomniac. Hit the jump for the second and third videos in the series.

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Joel Jewett, founder of Neversoft, has told Great Falls Tribunal that his company will be dropping the Tony Hawk series in favour of focusing on Guitar Hero. The source mentions that “the company has let the Tony Hawk series go to another developer.” As EDGE notes, it’s likely to be Robomodo, as they announced last year that they were working on an extreme sports title for Activision.

“It’s probably best for the franchise … it’s time for someone else to add fresh ideas to it,” Jewett said. Yes, Mr. Jewett. You’re right. Since The end of the “Pro Skater” brand, the games have gotten worse and worse, and the “fresh ideas” from Neversoft turned out to be fresh dung. That said, every time a new game was announced, I held out for them to go back to the simplicity of the superb Tony Hawk’s 4. Robomodo, do not fail me, or I will post a rant on the internet! Fear me!

A few days ago I published an article talking about the impact of used game sales and rentals on developers. The piece revolved around comments made by Frontier Developments’ founder, David Braben and his idea to create two price points/versions of a game — a model he compares to the film industry.

I really disagreed with the idea as well as the notion that the used game market is the root of the problem. Instead, I discussed an alternative solution which involved DLC content or “additional incentive” to buy a game new. That said, never in a million years did I think devs would be willing to consider making a vital part of a game — such as a final boss fight — accessible only via DLC.

Well, if you believe the comment made by Epic Games president, Dr Michael Capps, it seems that this concept has its share of supporters: Read more…

Look, I’ve been reading a heap of articles lately citing both the Eurogamer and GI.biz sit down with Frontier Developments’ founder, David Braben, and I simply couldn’t take it anymore.

For those of you that missed the hoopla, Braben’s gripe is that the used game market will eventually kill the single player aspect of games and force all developers to focus instead on multiplayer due to its high replay factor. While I agree that multiplayer does offer a much higher replay value, I certainly don’t agree with his proposed fix.

My argument is that for every game there are two versions. One is personal, not for resale and it’s made abundantly clear you can’t sell it. And it’s made available for something like GBP 25 [$40]. And a resale and rental copy, which in film is actually about GBP 80 [$130].

Huh? That has got to be the most ass backwards solution I’ve ever heard of. I understand the need for a developer to generate higher revenue, but handcuffing a consumer to their product is not the answer. Read more…

Echochrome is one of the most interesting puzzle games to come out for some time. Both due to its amazing sense of style and insane level of difficulty.  Although each version of the monochrome puzzler (it’s on both the PS3 and PSP) sports 56 unique levels, Sony has announced more is on the way.  The best part? They will be free. Read more…

In the midst of the ongoing ruckus surrounding videogame violence, Metal Gear godfather Hideo Kojima has come out saying that it’s pretty much essential. Read more…