Shack: Is there any chance of another scandal like Manchester Cathedral in Resistance 2?

Ted Price: That's a good question. You'll have to play through and see if there's anything that looks particularly controversial to you. It is taking place in real towns in the US, so there may be some things that people have issues with. I don't know.

Shack: How realistic is Chicago?

Ted Price: Chicago is recognizable. It is 1953 Chicago in an alternate history universe, but you'll see some buildings that you certainly recognize.

Shack: Switching gears a bit, how do you go from receiving an English degree at Princeton to being the president of a game development studio?

Ted Price: A lot of luck, I suppose, and a love of games. That's what it came down to, for me.

After college, I was in the medical industry for a while and I realized that wasn't where my passion lay. I had a fantastic--things worked out, where I could actually buy a 3DO dev station and use my savings to start Insomniac.

I met some great guys, Al Hastings and Brian Hastings, who helped lay the foundation for our first game, Disruptor. That put us on the map, and we went from there.

I made a lot of bad decisions, early on, and fortunately, it didn't kill us. We stayed alive and we've been able to learn from our mistakes every year, and grow a little bit more.

Shack: And now you've grown so big that you're opening a studio on the opposite coast.

Ted Price: That's right.

A lot of it has to do with not wanting to grow too big. If we continued to add people to our Burbank office, I think we would overflow and it might become a very different company. It was really wonderful that a couple of our guys wanted to move to the east coast, and start another branch of Insomniac. That was the perfect release valve for us.

Having another team that was basically autonomous, that could carry on the Insomniac philosophy in terms of how it makes games was a great way for us to expand without compromising the traditional Insomniac culture, which is very kinda family-oriented, small company atmosphere.

Shack: Insomniac has long been an independent company, and you've remained independent despite working very closely with Sony. In an industry that's filled with mergers and buyouts, do you see Insomniac staying independent? Are you worried about a possible buyout or acquisition?

Ted Price: First of all, that's our choice. We're private and the only reason that we would ever be bought out or acquired is if we wanted to be bought out or acquired. I've been pretty vocal about not wanting to head that direction.

I'm proud of our independence, I'm proud of what we do as an independent company, and I think that the reason many people come to Insomniac is because they want to have that same feeling of ownership over the games we make, where we're not being told by a corporate parent what to do or what to make.

Being independent in this industry is a double-edged sword. First of all, you live or die by the decisions you make. If you screw up with one game, it could be curtains. That's the risk that we've faced from the very beginning.

It also provides the opportunity to set your own direction. We're very lucky and fortunate that we have a great partner like Sony. We've worked with them for over 10 years now, we've worked with the same people at Sony for a long time.

There's a lot of mutual trust, they do not interfere with the development process and they do a great job promoting and publishing our games, so things work out well.

Shack: Do you see Resistance and Gears of War as being rival franchises?

Ted Price: I think that a lot of the press would like to set us up as rivals, because it makes for an interesting story.

Shack: You gotta admit, both are beloved system exclusives that sport some serious promotion, and both seem to come out at the same time.

Ted Price: If I own a PlayStation 3 and an Xbox 360, which I do, I'm gonna get both games. Because what I want is the best games to play on my platforms, and that certainly helps us, it helps Epic, it helps Microsoft, it helps Sony.

There's nothing wrong with having two great games out on two separate platforms.

Shack: Well said. What's your take on video game legislation?

Ted Price: I think video game legislation has no place in America. I think that we as an industry do a fantastic job of policing ourselves, we have one of the most effective, if not the most effective rating system in any entertainment industry right now.

It saddens me to see legislators stomping all over our First Amendment rights for their own specific interests.

Shack: Last year, there was that huge controversy with Manhunt 2 being denied an ESRB rating and how it wouldn't hit store shelves without being censored. Meanwhile, I could walk into Wal-Mart and buy the unrated version of Saw, no problem.

Ted Price: Exactly.

I think this is just the result of being a younger industry, perhaps, in the other mainstream industries. We're going through what every other entertainment industry has gone through, and that's being the temporary scapegoat for society's ills.

It won't be until we have more gamers running for office that this will calm down. It's something that we'll weather, because we are right, what we do is defensible under the Constitution and shouldn't be regulated by the government. There are enough gamers who will stand up and fight against these laws that we'll be in good shape, ultimately.

Shack: How do you respond to people that say, "Oh, video game violence is different, because you don't pull the trigger yourself when you're watching TV or a movie?"

Ted Price: I say show me the proof. Show me the studies that say that your or I are affected any differently by different forms of media. So far, there have not been conclusive studies that show that games promote violent behavior any more than movies do.

I'm passionate about this particular subject.

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