GDC08: Insomniac opens up to dev community with Nocturnal

makingmusic476

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makingmusic476 on 21 February 2008

From Joystiq:

At a GDC press conference, Insomniac Games (responsible for Ratchet & Clank and Resistance: Fall of Man on PS3) has announced a ground breaking initiative to open up their technologies for the development community at large. Through the "Nocturnal Initiative," Insomniac Games is attempting to break the common development practice of keeping technological advances a close-guarded secret. As they noted, "developers spend resources solving problems that have already been solved."

A public site (noctural.insomniacgames.com) will give developers access to various parts of Insomniac source code. Libraries have already been made available, with more on the way. Through a Wiki-style interface, Insomniac hopes that they will allow everyone to "make better games."

The tools available will obviously work on PS3, but because it is a PC-based environment, should work on Xbox 360 as well. Joystiq will be chatting with Insomniac shortly. Stay tuned.

[Update: The press release just went out over the wires, if you're into that sorta thing.]

Onyxmeth

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Onyxmeth on 21 February 2008

Insomniac continues to amaze me. They put out consistent yearly efforts on PS3, saved the launch from disaster, continue to evolve already spectacular series, develops for Sony exclusively even though they don't have to and now open up their source codes for others to have better results with their own games. If Sony has a successful console this generation, they'd better thank these guys for the guys that partly made it happen. Insomniac is to Sony now what Rare was to Nintendo back in the day.

Tag: Became a freaking mod and a complete douche, coincidentally, at the same time.

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cool48 on 21 February 2008

So no games announced up to now?

Man

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Man on 21 February 2008

Ive never played any of their games, but they have totally gained my respect with this. its so rare to see things like this in business these days.

Thats good for them. Hopefully no one exploits it, and maybe other developers will do the same.