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Rare (company)

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File:Modernrarelogo.jpg
The "Golden R" Rare logo used since autumn 2003. Originated in the U.S.

Rare Ltd. is a UK-based video game development company. It was founded in 1982 by brothers Tim and Chris Stamper. Rare was a second-party developer for the Nintendo gaming platforms for several years, but in 2002 was acquired by Microsoft (see GYM (technology)). In fall 2003, the company's "Rareware" logo (which had been used since 1994) was discontinued and was replaced by a newer, similar logo with the name "Rare".

The company is notable for having created an unusually large number of original hit games, and for the company's price tag: Microsoft paid US$377 million for the company, a record for a video game developer.

Formed as Ashby Computer Graphics (ACG), the company developed games for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and BBC Micro as "Ultimate: Play the Game" until the name was sold to U.S. Gold in 1985.

Company overview

File:RarewareLogo.jpg
The old "Rareware" logo, used previously.

Rare is located in Twycross, England and is the company behind many of the most famous games for Nintendo's various gaming systems: Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country (and its sequels), Killer Instinct, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, GoldenEye 007, Perfect Dark, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Diddy Kong Racing, Donkey Kong 64, Jet Force Gemini, and Star Fox Adventures.

Its games have always employed some of the latest graphics technology. One of its most critically acclaimed and popular series was the Donkey Kong Country series on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, due to its use of pre-rendered 3D graphics on a 2D console. GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 is considered by many to be their biggest success, known even today as one of the gold standards for console first-person shooters, eventually selling over eight million copies. Rareware's Killer Instinct added several features to the fighting game genre such as autodouble combos, combo linkers and ultra combos.

Key members of the GoldenEye development team left Rare soon after beginning work on Perfect Dark. Head of Software Martin Hollis was the first to leave in 1998, working at Nintendo of America on the GameCube, and in 2000 he started his own company, Zoonami. Other members such as David Doak left soon after he did and formed Free Radical Design.

However prior to both of these events, Rare had already publicly lost staff from other teams. In 1997 a small number of employees (Oliver Davies, Oliver Norton, Steve Patrick, Jeff Stafford, Christopher Gage, and Adrian Smith) left and formed a new studio to be known as Eighth Wonder. They were signed with SCEE (who made sure this defection was well publicised in the games press) and were all set to develop a new PlayStation title. There were high hopes that this would produce an amazing game; provisionally titled "Popcorn". EDGE magazine even profiled the project, showing a game that looked like a 3D version of Bomberman. However, despite being shown by SCEE at the 1998 ECTS [1], the game and the studio seemed to disappear as the months went by. Eighth Wonder no longer exists and there are no confirmed reports of the game ever being released, thus making it likely that SCEE ended up cancelling the project in a very quiet fashion.

Up from the end of 2000 people from Activision and Microsoft visited Rare. In November 2001, Microsoft trademarked the name It's Mr. Pants, the name of a game which was released three years later. In September 2002, the Stamper brothers sold their 51% interest in Rare to Microsoft; following this, Nintendo sold their 49% stake in the company as well. Microsoft paid a total of $377 million for the company. Because of this, Rare is now a first-party developer for Microsoft's Xbox and its successors. The trademarks of the characters from the games that Rare made for Nintendo consoles (such as Conker of Conker's Bad Fur Day) were retained by Rare (apart from IP originally developed by Nintendo, i.e. Donkey Kong and Star Fox). Despite the acquisition, Rare still develops games for Game Boy Advance, and is now also developing for the Nintendo DS. Rare has never developed for Sony platforms.

Between 2000 and the final acquisition of Rare Ltd., more than 50 people left the company. After the acquisition was complete, at least 30 more left. Commentators have noted that Rare's first Xbox title, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, is the company's biggest flop to date.

August 2003 brought news that Rare and Microsoft had made a deal with THQ to publish Rare's Game Boy Advance games, which as of December 2004 have included Sabre Wulf, a game based on its Ultimate character, Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge, a "midquel" to the two Nintendo 64 games, and It's Mr. Pants!, a puzzle game that was originally developed as "Donkey Kong: Coconut Crackers", and featured the company's unofficial mascot. January 2005 saw the completion of this deal, with the release of Banjo Pilot (which prior to being acquired by MS, was in development as "Diddy Kong Pilot"). Rare also ported and extended the Donkey Kong Country series, which was published by Nintendo.

In February of 2004, gaming news sites reported that negotiations were ongoing between Nintendo and Microsoft for Microsoft to acquire Rare's characters and trademarks from Nintendo. According to various articles, Microsoft has reportedly offered Nintendo approximately $20.2 million for the trademarks and characters. As of 2006, it is unknown if Nintendo accepted Microsoft's $20.2 million offer.

At the Electronic Entertainment Expo in May 2004, Rare's Ken Lobb told a reporter from the Advanced Media Network that Rare had obtained Nintendo DS development kits and was working on two titles for the Nintendo DS. However, shortly after the Advanced Media Network published its report, Microsoft issued a statement saying that the company and its studios had no plans for Nintendo DS development. This resulted in the Advanced Media Network receiving much scrutiny. However, on July 8, 2005, Rare posted job openings for Nintendo DS development on its official website, and stated that it was "creating key DS titles." The news was reported by The Advanced Media Network, who turned out to be right all along. [2] It is not known who will publish those titles, however.

Success of games

Rare has in general found large success in its games. The "golden era" of Rare games began with the 1994 release of Donkey Kong Country, which re-started the Donkey Kong franchise, not to mention employing pioneering graphics and sound that allowed the SNES to beat off the competition from the Sega Genesis. From that point on, Rare were seen as Nintendo's primary support, as they continued to produce excellent games for Nintendo even when Nintendo's market share was at an all-time low.

Almost all of the games Rare released for the Nintendo 64 were met with huge critical acclaim, including the highly acclaimed shooter GoldenEye 007 and Donkey Kong 64, which was the Donkey Kong equivalent of Super Mario 64. However, some of Rare's less mainstream games, including Jet Force Gemini and Blast Corps were not very successful commercially, despite recognition from critics and a cult fanbase as equally well-designed games. Most Nintendo fans during the N64 period would argue that the console largely survived its many problems because of Rare's continued output of games, as they were very popular, and many people bought N64 consoles just to play Rare games. Without these games, it is likely that Nintendo could not have kept the Nintendo 64 going, as their in-house titles, like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, took a long time to develop.

Despite this success, Rare was frustrated with the limited success Nintendo could provide; the N64 remained a much poorer seller than Sony's PlayStation, and was constantly criticised by the mainstream market. Rare's much anticipated game, Perfect Dark, did not sell as well as expected, due to its release towards the end of the N64's life. Many believe Rare's "golden era" came to an end when Nintendo sold their stock in Rare to Microsoft shortly into the life of the Nintendo GameCube. Some Nintendo fans were crushed by this news, as they feared that the GameCube could not survive without Rare, and that the advantage that Microsoft would gain could result in Nintendo's departure from console marketing. Some fans also believed that Rare's move to Microsoft might have been spurred by Rare's planned "Dinosaur Planet" game being converted into Star Fox Adventures, based on the idea that mascots sell more games. However, the conversion was in fact, a mutual agreement between the two companies, since Nintendo was planning a Star Fox adventure game of their own (i.e. Rare were never "forced" to use the Star Fox license for their game).

However, Rare only released two games for the Xbox, Conker: Live & Reloaded and Grabbed by the Ghoulies, both of which sold extremely poorly, and none of the games it has continued to develop for the Game Boy Advance have matched the success of Rare's N64 output. The most popular GBA games from Rare are ports of their classic-era Donkey Kong titles, which Rare can no longer produce, as Nintendo holds the rights to the characters.

Possible Origins of their media shy nature

During the Ultimate years, the company gained an international reputation for being media shy. It was not an intentional PR ploy, but it was simply that they were understaffed and spent nearly all of their time developing games. Thus they did not have time for interviews or trade shows. Though they often promised interviews, they only did so once they had finished their current game. But then had little time to spare because they'd have started a new project. Tim Stamper said in a Crash interview that the only time off they had during the Ultimate years was two Christmas mornings. They worked seven days a week, from 8 am until 1 or 2 in the morning.[3]

Certainly since they made a big splash with Donkey Kong Country, Rare have always kept the media at arms length. This was no doubt due to their close involvement with the game industry's other famed recluse: Nintendo.

However there was an incident that would explain why they grant very few interviews; and in particular, mistrust the TV media more than most. In the early '90s when Gamesmaster was one of Channel 4's biggest shows, there was understandable interest in profiling what went on inside Rare's walls. However Bad Influence, a rival show — aimed for a much younger audience — was also keen to film a piece on the company. In not wanting the hassle of having two separate TV crews come and visit, Rare's management came up with a plan. They would grant a filming request only to Bad Influence, on the provision that the show would then provide Gamesmaster with selective clips of what they filmed.

The plan however backfired when Gamesmaster's producers took great offence in losing out to an "inferior production". Dominik Diamond was always know as a provocateur and as such insisted in vocalising his irritation in the way his show had been shunned. Being a writer as well as the presenter, he insisted in describing Tim and Chris Stamper as the "Physically unattractive Stamper brothers" in his voice-over. Since the broadcast of this "edgy" piece to an audience of three million viewers, Rare have turned their back completely on the broadcast media. It’s ironic that Rare probably favoured Bad Influence over Gamesmaster because the former show was known for being more obsequious in its editorial tone.

What's unfortunate about this attitude of not embracing the broadcast media: Rare has arguably lost out on the sort of favourable coverage that the likes of Aardman Animations has received for many years. Rare is in the same league of being a UK creative success story, but has chosen to stay well out of the spotlight.

Future

The next generation of consoles is key for Rare. Xbox 360 is reliant on Rare games for its launch, including Perfect Dark Zero, a prequel to Nintendo 64's smash hit Perfect Dark, which had originally been planned for both the GameCube and Xbox. Rare's Perfect Dark Zero sold moderately well during the Xbox 360's launch, but was not the break away hit Microsoft wanted. Rare's other Xbox 360 launch title, Kameo: Elements of Power, flopped in sales at launch. If the Xbox 360 sells poorly (as it is doing in Japan; see here for more information), Rare will find themselves in a worse position than they were with Nintendo, since the company's only Xbox games, Grabbed by the Ghoulies and Conker: Live and Reloaded, have sold extremely poorly (on top of the two aforementioned Xbox 360 games). Rare currently has at least two Nintendo DS and two Xbox 360 games in the works.

On March 26, 2006, Matt Casamassina, Editor-in-Chief of IGN Wii, had announced in his blog that Nintendo's Wii Virtual Console service, a feature which allows players to download games from the history of Nintendo, will be "Rareless" [4]. He stated that he had "met with some Rare/Microsoft staff" while attending the 2006 Game Developers Conference, who confirmed once and for all that the Virtual Console will not see any Rare-owned licenses. This means that classic Rare titles such as Perfect Dark, Jet Force Gemini, and Banjo-Kazooie (to name a few) may be absent from the download service; GoldenEye 007 has the added problem that the James Bond video game license is held by Activision, and would require both Rare and Activision's approval to be released on the system. The Donkey Kong games that were developed by Rare remain unaffected, since Nintendo retain the rights to the Donkey Kong series. However, despite the blog post, Rare or Microsoft have yet to make an official announcement regarding this particular issue.

List of games

1980s

The company traded first as Ashby Computer Graphics (A.C.G.) and later, more famously, as Ultimate Play the Game. It was responsible for some of the most innovative and graphically impressive games of the period, notably pioneering isometric projection in titles such as Knight Lore and Alien 8.

Some of the Ultimate games are linked together in the Sabre Man series, consisting of Sabre Wulf, Underwurlde, Knight Lore, Pentagram and Mire Mare (never released). Sabre Man later also made an appearance in Killer Instinct and Banjo-Tooie by Rare.

1983

1984

1985

  • Alien 8 (ZX Spectrum, Amstrad, BBC, MSX) - Ultimate Play the Game
  • Entombed (C64) - Ultimate Play the Game
  • Blackwyche (C64) - Ultimate Play the Game
  • Nightshade (ZX Spectrum, C64, Amstrad, BBC, MSX) - Ultimate Play the Game
  • Pentagram (ZX Spectrum, MSX) - Ultimate Play the Game

1986

  • Outlaws (C64) - Ultimate Play the Game
  • Cosmic Battlezones (BBC) - Ultimate Play the Game
  • Cyberun (ZX Spectrum, Amstrad, MSX) - Ultimate Play the Game
  • Dragonskulle (C64) - Ultimate Play the Game
  • Gunfright (ZX Spectrum, Amstrad, MSX) - Ultimate Play the Game
  • Imhotep (C64) - Ultimate Play the Game

1987

1988

1989

1990s

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000s

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

In Development

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