In a blog post which appeared yesterday on Insomniac Insider, Brian Hastings, Insomniac Games’ Chief Creative Officer, announced the creation of a new company division which will develop games for web and mobile consoles: Insomniac Click. The decision is being labeled as pragmatic one, meant to tackle an ever-changing market which comes with an unprecedented number of people playing games on a regular basis and astonishing games diversity. Hastings clarified that this move does not mean that Insomniac is no longer interested in creating hardcore games, but since over the years these games grew in complexity they also suffer from lack of accessibility. This leads to high production value games being addressed only to a handful of gamers, leaving the vast majority of people in the off-target area as they are simply not qualified enough to play such games.

To meet the ongoing dispute about what makes a game and if social games are actually “real-games”, Hastings offered his own definition of what a game is: “a set of tools and a problem to solve.” He then ran current social games through this filter and ended up concluding that games on Facebook are more activities than games and condemned their lack of depth and extreme simplicity. He noted however that Facebook games are evolving and with the recent inflow of industry veterans, social gaming’s evolution is galloping. Hastings concluded by issuing a set of outlines to be followed by Insomniac Click in creating social or casual games, promises he called “Contract with the Audience”:

-          Social interaction must be mutually enjoyable.

-          Game tuning must benefit the player experience.

-          Gameplay depth.

-          Easy to Learn, Hard to Master.

-          Make It Fun First.

Insomniac Games is known for titles such as Ratchet and Clank, Resistance and Spyro. More information about the company and its products can be found on the official site.