Insomniac Games Reviews

Pros

- My opinion matters to everyone, even directors. - I get to work on a lot of different things - I get to choose my specialty and I have a lot of say in what project I am on - Project managers are very interested in improving the workflow process and making sure everyone has what they need - My team has zero issues with sexism, and I'm a female. I'm treated the same as everyone else and I'm not ever treated differently. - Everyone is friendly and eager to answer questions

Cons

- Sometimes exec feedback can be all over the place and doesn't have the big picture in mind, but even then, it's not that bad. - Sometimes we have surprise milestones that have to be met, and although I've never personally crunched, some other people feel obligated to. No one makes us crunch or pressures us to though.

Pros

CEO is fantastic. Ted genuinely cares for everyone and shows it in incredibly thoughtful ways.

Cons

It's apparent we're still calibrating to the rapid growth in size (but it seems like we're making strives)

Pros

Great team and projects to work on

Cons

Company is big so hard to meet everyone

Pros

Management genuinely cares about employees and are constantly looking for areas of improvement. The work is extremely fulfilling and fun!

Cons

Slightly lower compensation compared to other studios.

Pros

Insomniac Games still has a lot of the collaborative, collegial feel that game development had in the early 00s. The games are good, the ownership clearly cares about the workers' well being, there's no corporate bureaucracy, and for the most part HR practices like PTO and and medical care are relatively humane. There's a much shallower hierarchy than you'd see at EA (for example). In general the different disciplines of game development -- art, design, programming -- work closely together on specific game features, rather than lobbing things back and forth over a divisional wall.

Cons

Like any independent game studio, Insomniac's security is dependent on publisher milestones and game royalties. There's some crunch, although less so than most AAA developers. The studio's choice of creative directors is questionable: there's a lot of arbitrary decisionmaking, with little sense of where their design decisions come from other than their own feelings. Some managers habitually make unilateral design changes that mean a lot of late nights and weekend work for other people.

Pros

The CEO and other higher-ups in the company know me by name and treat me and others lower-ranked employees with respect. If I really wanted, I could go knock on Ted’s door and if he didn’t have something truly urgent, I believe he’d stop there to listen to me. The company cares about making money, but not so much that we’ll toss out a game too early. Sure, every game could use another month (or twelve) of polish, but I think they (and Sony) do a pretty good job of drawing the line. Burbank is nice and our office and facilities are pretty great.

Cons

Not the most organized scheduling and project management in my opinion. I often find myself ‘PMing’ my own tasks and some of the others in my department as PM doesn’t always understand how a department operates (how long it takes to do XYZ, who should do what task, when should we do a task in relation to other departments, etc). I wouldn’t mind being micro-managed with tasks so much if PM had a really strong working knowledge of our department and I didn’t have to explain why something can/can’t/should/shouldn’t get done right soon/later. This is not true for all departments though, and it seems some are more managed by their leads, which to me seems more effective from my side of the fence.

Pros

I interned at the NC studio in 2019. I had a fantastic experience; everyone was happy to answer any questions I had, and I had many meetings with the lead to go over my performance and make sure I was getting the most out of my time there as possible. I learned a ton, and can say with complete confidence that Insomniac is absolutely dedicated to giving their interns a full experience at their studio. We felt like employees, and were entrusted with assets from the games in production. It never felt like busywork, it always felt like I was contributing something. While there were people who stayed late, it was never demanded from what I saw. The people who needed to stayed, but over all the company seemed to respect the work/life balance of its employees.

Cons

There aren't many younger employees at the NC studio and many people there have children and families to get home to, so there aren't a lot of peer-related activities outside of work.

Pros

This is the best game company I've worked for in my 19 years making games. I wasn't being challenged at my previous job and I've never stopped learning since my arrival at Insomniac 5+ years ago. The NC studio is small (which I love) but has the benefit of support from the home office in Burbank. Fantastic vacation policy and you get an extra week at 5 years and again at 10 years. Very family friendly. The majority of people in NC have kids. Management running the studio have shipped games before, are heavily involved in making the games and work just a hard or harder than anyone else. I hope to retire here.

Cons

It's sometimes tough to communicate with Burbank due to the 3 hour time difference. Few people get to visit the other studio to meet and learn from each other.

Pros

For starters you will most likely have the opportunity to work on Ratchet and Clank which is fun in and of itself. The company cares about it's employees. Despite the fact that I could have been ignored as a "cog in the wheel" so to speak all the employees are kind and very supportive of helping someone who does not have as much experience as they do. Even the CEO, Ted Price, takes the time to welcome everyone who works at Insomniac to the team. The team at Durham is fairly small so it had an indie feel with AAA level support. I would definitely recommend it.

Cons

Cannot really think of any.

Pros

Great perks, including free gym, stocked kitchen, on-site massages, free lunch on Fridays, good health insurances etc. Very professional work environment. Good salary too, but you will need it in LA. Friendly colleagues that often times go to lunch together or play sports in various teams. Great weather in SoCal, you will mostly work in shorts. Everybody, including contract workers, have a say in the gameplay and design. Weekly playtests give opportunity for feedback and adjustments to the project. Most importantly we make great video games.

Cons

The creative process can be rough: since everybody has a say, the feedback can be brutal and stuff gets often changed in small iterations. LA is not for everyone, the traffic can be bad and there is an high amount of superficial or artificial people.