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Exclusive Interview with Insomniac Games - pt. 2
In part 2 of our interview with Ratchet & Clank's creators we talk about digital distribution and DLC.
Written by David Scammell, 28 October 2009
GamerZines: Why go back to Blu-ray for A Crack In Time, because Quest For Booty was a digitally-distributed title, or at least that's how it was initially released?
James Stevenson, Senior Community Manager: Well it actually released on Blu-ray day and date for all of Europe except for the UK. And then it was so successful on Blu-ray that it did eventually come to the UK.
GZ: So Quest For Booty performed better on Blu-ray?
JS: I don't think it did better, I think they performed similarly. Obviously we can't go back and look at what it would have done if we didn't have Blu-ray and if a lot of those people would have just downloaded it, or whether they were Ratchet fans and wanted it in a box. Generally, in Europe at least, performances were relatively similar but I don't know the exact numbers off the top of my head, so don't take that as confirmation either way.
GZ: Why not make A Crack In Time available digitally as well then, given the success of Quest For Booty?
P3Zine Issue 31
For our latest Ratchet Clank coverage, click here to download P3Zine Issue 31 for free.JS: Because no one wants to download a 25GB game! laughs This is a full 12 hour experience, it's longer than Tools of Destruction, and whereas Quest For Booty was a very small game made by sixteen, seventeen people in six or seven months, this was a full production, big multi-million dollar, triple-A game. It's just a much bigger title that has a lot more value; it's longer, has a lot more replay value - that was one of the criticisms we got for Quest For Booty - so it's definitely much more deserving of the higher price tag and it's honestly not something you'd download.
GZ: Did Tools of Destruction do better than Quest For Booty then, despite only being available on disc?
JS: I think overall sales, yes, it did. It was a full game and it held a bit more of a high profile. I mean worldwide it did - I'm not sure what the exact numbers in Europe are but I think they may be a bit more similar because of the availability. I think the hardest thing for Quest For Booty was that we have a lot of consumers in the United States who maybe aren't quite as informed and because the PSN titles don't really get the same level of marketing support. And on top of that, it's not sitting in the store, you know? I'm sure there are consumers out there who love Ratchet & Clank but aren't really hardcore gamers at all and walk into the store and go "oh look, the new one's out," and they pick it up. Because Quest For Booty's not released on disc in the US, I think that contributes to it being a little bit behind Tools of Destruction. But it's so hard to say because it's a PSN game, it's a small game.
GZ: Sony seems to be putting a bit of weight behind digital distribution, and obviously the PSPgo is focussed purely on such. Do you think that going from a digitally-distributed Ratchet & Clank game back to a Blu-ray only Ratchet & Clank could be seen as a backwards step?
JS: No. It was an experiment that we were going to release an interlude and try this out. Who else has released a standalone, three hour experience with triple-A production values that looks as good as Tools of Destruction does? I don't think anyone else has. We're in the wild west of digital distribution right now, it's a new frontier and people are going to try stuff and do things that no one has ever been done before. Fallout 3 is doing some stuff that hasn't really been done before and it seems like it's proving to be very successful. Grand Theft Auto's doing things too, and I suppose you could ask whether being released on disc at all is a step back. But I think looking at GTA and what they're doing with and The Lost & Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, putting them together on a disc because there's a lot of consumers that don't download things or don't even realise they're there, or they're kids without credit cards or that want it as a present from Grandma. We're still in the early stages of digital distribution and there's going to be toes in water all over the place and experimentation. I think we're rapidly moving into the digital distribution era, but with baby steps; we're still figuring things out as we go.
GZ: Do you think the approach that Rockstar has taken with GTA IV's DLC, whereby it's the same environment and essentially the same gameplay as the original but told from the perspective of a different character, is something that could potentially work with Ratchet & Clank? Obviously there's a huge amount of characters in the universe - how about the story told from the perspective of Captain Qwark, or something like that?
JS: That seems like a massive project. The problem is we don't do small things very well at Insomniac. Quest For Booty was supposed to be smaller and probably cheaper than it ended up being; we ended up making a bigger and bigger game, it kept growing. And I don't know if our levels lend themselves to that as well. You know, GTA is a sandbox, same thing with Fallout, it's much easier to colour in a new area to a sandbox, drop something in and add something to it. Obviously there are no plans for anything but let's say we did try something like that, we'd probably have to build some new levels or paths through levels which would basically end up being entirely new assets and you'd need more environment time. I think if you could something like that without needing a tonne of environment time you could probably reduce the cost to get it within the range of profitability, but I don't think our levels have really been designed with that in mind. GTA is perfect for it; Liberty City doesn't have to change. It may need a few more indoor environments or a new building here and there, but they can really focus on characters and doing new story-telling and very rapidly make an experience at a much smaller price because they already have the scene and the massive environment to play around in.
Ratchet Clank coverage available in P3Zine Issue 31 - click here to download it for free!
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