If we had done a 21 Random Qs interview with the EGM staff back in the day, our answers would've pretty much looked the same as Ted Price's. The CEO and Founder of Insomniac Games (developers of Resistance and Ratchet & Clank) likes the same movies we do, watches the same TV show we'd watch during deadline dinners, and most importantly, thinks the same game deserves the "best of all time" title as we did.
We might as well call this piece "The Price is Right." (It's cool...you can all groan now. We hear ya.)
Currently, Price is working on the upcoming Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time for the PS3 in the executive producer role ("Which means that I pretend to be useful while a lot of very talented folks here bust their asses to make our best game yet," he says). That means he had plenty of free time to fulfill our very last-minute request for this interview.
So let's get to know...Ted Price.
1. What is your favorite movie of all time?
Ted Price: Star Wars. I remember the day I saw it in the theatre more vividly than any other day in my life. Is that weird? Maybe it's because I was a very impressionable nine-year old. Time Bandits and The Terminator came close though.
2. Best "mankind vs. aliens" movie?
Price: Aliens, hands down.
3. If you could have dinner with any one person in the world, who would it be?
Price: Steven Hawking.
4. Favorite gaming platform of all time?
Price: NES. Ruined my grades in college. Damn you Zelda!
5. Best PC or videogame of all time? Excluding any you've worked on...
Price: Super Metroid.
6. Favorite Resistance weapon?
Price: Marksman.
7. Favorite Ratchet and Clank weapon?
Price: Bouncer.
8. All-time favorite book and author?
Price: Ender's Game is my favorite book. But my new favorite author is Joe Abercrombie.
9. Favorite current TV show?
Price: Family Guy.
10. Favorite band or singer?
Price: Mastodon.
11. Website you visit every day?
Price: OGame.
12. Developer or studio you really admire?
Price: Man, there are way, way too many great studios to list. Valve, Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch, BioWare...I could go on for pages.
13. Best prank you've ever pulled?
Price: Best? My pranks were always lame. For example when I was around 11, I turned off all of the water in the house. I thought it was funny. My father called a plumber because he thought we had a broken pipe. And $200 later, I got chewed out. See? Lame.
14. Favorite childhood toy?
Price: The remote control plane I built. And crashed. And rebuilt. And crashed.
15. Favorite comic-book superhero?
Price: The Maxx.
16. Favorite sports team?
Price: The Blue Dolphins, my daughter's soccer team.
17. One thing you most wish you had invented or created?
Price: Google.
18. Tell us one interesting fact about yourself.
Price: I used to live in Maui and worked in a windsurfing shop, renting and repairing windsurfers. It was rad.
19. Would you rather have a pet lombax who's heavily armed with dangerous weapons or a robot sidekick who's heavily armed with a mouth?
Price: I'll take the robot. Lower insurance premiums.
20. Who would you rather deal with in real life, the Chimera or all the combined enemies of Ratchet and Clank?
Price: Are you kidding? The Chimera eat people for Pete's sake! Or worse, they turn you into a Grim.
21. What do you do when you have trouble sleeping?
Price: Read software manuals.
Comments (8)
This may appear oddly self-serving, but I really like pieces like this and hope they continue. Ted Price is the head of a studio, so I'm not sure how involved he is in the actual making-of-games anymore; all the same, I'd love to see more coverage on the directors of games.
This argument has been made before, but I truly believe gaming needs a face, or faces, in order to become a popular medium. That might be putting the cart before the horse, but this has to start sooner or later, and I like seeing it. Thanks BitMob
