Rare (company)

Infobox Company
company_name = Rare
company_
company_type = Private
foundation = 1982
location = flagicon|UK Twycross, Leicestershire, United Kingdom
key_people = Gregg Mayles
Mark Betteridge
industry = Computer and video game industry
products = Video games
revenue =
operating_income =
net_income =
owner=Tim and Chris Stamper (1982-1994) Nintendo (1994-2002) Microsoft (2002-Present)
num_employees =
homepage =http://www.rareware.com/

Rare, Ltd. (formerly known as Rareware) is a United Kingdom-based video game development company. It was founded in 1982 by brothers Tim and Chris Stamper as Ashby Computers and Graphics Ltd. (ACG). Publishing as Ultimate Play the Game, they developed games for 8-bit platforms such as the ZX Spectrum, [cite web | url = http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekpub.cgi?regexp=^Ultimate+Play+The+Game$ | title = Sinclair Infoseek: Ultimate Play The Game | accessdate = 2006-08-19 | author = Martijn van der Heide | work = World of Spectrum ] the Commodore 64 and the BBC Micro, before the name was sold to U.S. Gold in 1985. Rare then became in 1995 a second-party developer for the Nintendo gaming platforms. In 2002, Rare was acquired by Microsoft.cite web|title= Microsoft buy top games producers Rare | publisher=CBBC Newsround | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/sci_tech/newsid_2283000/2283354.stm | accessdate=2007-05-01]

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.citation needed|date=July 2008

On January 2 2007, it was announced that Tim and Chris Stamper have left Rare to pursue "other opportunities". Neither Microsoft, Rare, nor the Stamper brothers have stated specifically what they intend to move onto post-Rare.

Company overview

Rare is located in Twycross, Leicestershire, 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", "Blast Corps", "GoldenEye 007", "Perfect Dark", "Conker's Bad Fur Day", "Diddy Kong Racing", "Donkey Kong 64", "Jet Force Gemini", "Star Fox Adventures", "Diddy Kong Racing DS" and, most recently, "Viva Piñata DS".

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-framed 3D graphics on a largely 2D console. Rare then firmly cemented their reputation for creating epic games with their releases between 1997 and 2001 on the Nintendo 64. Although Super Mario 64 can lay claim to be the first platform game on the Nintendo 64, Rare took this template and expanded upon it in their own style in a string of critically acclaimed platform games for the N64, "Banjo-Kazooie", "Donkey Kong 64", "Banjo Tooie" and "Conker's Bad Fur Day". The latter game was originally designed as a similar game to their other N64 platfomers; however, the finished game featured bawdy toilet humour. Also, whereas "Donkey Kong 64" had relied on a massive amount of backtracking with 5 different characters in order to fully complete the game, Conker's Bad Fur Day did not require the collection of any items other than specific ones integral to a certain puzzle in the immediate area. Control of Conker relied on far fewer button combinations too. Conker was given the ability to perform a different action only when standing on a 'context sensitive button'.

"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 7.8 million copies. Rareware's "Killer Instinct" also added several features to the fighting game genre such as autodouble combos, combo linkers, and ultra combos.

Rareware's games have also been notable for their outstanding music. CD soundtracks have been released for all three "Donkey Kong Country" titles, "Killer Instinct", "Banjo-Kazooie", "Perfect Dark" and "Donkey Kong 64".

taff departures

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 Hollis 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 Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (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 [ [http://www.prnewswire.dk/cgi/news/release?id=17981 PR Newswire - news distribution, targeting and monitoring ] ] , the game was never released. Eighth Wonder are believed to have experienced a number of internal problems and, by 1999, the studio no longer existed.

Microsoft era

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. This left Donkey Kong Racing, which was due to be released for the Nintendo GameCube, unreleased, though how much more had been completed of the game than the pre-released video is not in the public domain. The trademarks of the characters from the games that Rare made for Nintendo consoles (such as Conker of "Conker's Bad Fur Day" and Banjo from the "Banjo-Kazooie" series) were retained by Rare (apart from intellectual properties originally developed by Nintendo, i.e. "Donkey Kong" and "Star Fox"). Despite the acquisition, Rare still developed games for Game Boy Advance, and now develops for the Nintendo DS, as Microsoft is currently not participating in the hand-held video game console market. Rare has never developed for Sony platforms.

In 2002, "Star Fox Adventures" became the first and only Rare game released on the Nintendo GameCube with an average Metacritic score of 82/100, generally favourable but less than the average reviews for their N64 games. Rare's first Xbox game, "Grabbed by the Ghoulies", was a beat 'em up action game, similar in ways to that of "Luigi's Mansion" by Nintendo on the GameCube.

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, "", 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.

At the Electronic Entertainment Expo in May 2004, Microsoft's Ken Lobb stated that Rare had obtained Nintendo DS development kits and was working on two titles for the Nintendo DS [ [http://gc.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=2122 Post-E3: Rare Working On DS Titles ::: Kombo.com - Video Games, News, Zelda, Halo 3, Grand Theft Auto, Mario, Super Smash Bros. Brawl ] ] . Shortly after, Microsoft issued a statement saying that the company and its studios had no plans for Nintendo DS development. 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 first of these games is an online-capable port of "Diddy Kong Racing".

In 2005, Rare released "", essentially the same single player game as the N64's Conker's Bad Fur Day but with updated graphics/sound to suit the Xbox and a reworked multiplayer option. Previously due to be known as "Conker: Live and Uncut", this would have been an untrue description as the Xbox game ironically featured more "censoring" than the original Nintendo 64 version. Publicity for the game practically unanimously concentrated on the war-oriented multiplayer game. The game has an average Metacritic score of 78/100.

Rare made something of a resurgence when Microsoft's Xbox 360 console was released in late 2005. Two of the Xbox 360's launch titles were developed by Rare, "Kameo" and "Perfect Dark Zero", with "Viva Piñata" released the next year.

On January 2 2007, Rare founders Chris and Tim Stamper left the company to "pursue other opportunities" [cite web | url = http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3156140 | title = Rare Founders Leave to 'Pursue Other Opportunities' | accessdate = 2007-01-02 | author = 1UP.com] . Previous lead designer Gregg Mayles reviews as Creative Director and Mark Betteridge replaces as Studio Director at the company, replacing the brothers on a permanent basis.

Media-shy nature

During the Ultimate - Play The Game years, the company gained an international reputation for being media shy. The company itself being understaffed, didn't commit themselves to trade shows and only granted interviews once their current project was completed. Tim Stamper said in a "CRASH" interview that the only time off they had during the Ultimate years was two Christmas mornings. They worked all seven days a week, and the only hours in which they "didn't" work were 2:00-8:00 am. [ [http://www.crashonline.org.uk/51/ultimate.htm CRASH 51 - Ultimate ] ]

Continuing this tradition, Rare has always kept the media at arm's length, though in part this may be due to their close involvement with the game industry's other famed recluse: Nintendo. The Japanese office of this company has always tightly controlled press access to developers working on its titles (as studios such as DMA, Factor 5, Monster Games, Retro Studios and former members of Argonaut Software can attest).

Rare did release a VHS tape that could be obtained via mail-in request with the purchase of "Donkey Kong Country". The video details the game's creation and shows the animal models Rare used. At the end of the video, the host and some others are seen playing "Killer Instinct". They quickly look at the cameraman before pushing him out a door and closing it as the video ends.

This filming is likely to have been performed by a crew from Yorkshire Television, which relates to an incident that would explain why the management had a history of not being open to the broadcast media. In the early '90s, Gamesmaster was one of Channel 4's biggest shows and was wanting to profile what went on inside Rare's. 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 the Yorkshire Television production team that made Bad Influence, on the provision that the show would then provide Gamesmaster with selective clips of what they filmed. Further clips would also be used to cut together the aforementioned promotional VHS tape.

The plan however backfired when Gamesmaster's producers took great offense in losing out to a rival show (which may have been favoured due to its more obsequious editorial tone). Dominik Diamond was always know as a provocateur and as such insisted in vocalising his irritation in the way the show had been shunned by describing Tim and Chris Stamper as the "Physically unattractive Stamper brothers" in his voice-over. Since the broadcast of this episode to an audience of three million viewers, Rare turned their back completely on the broadcast media.

Web video shows have been granted access recent years, such as Eurogamer in November 2006 [http://www.eurogamer.net/tv_video.php?playlist_id=1470 Eurogamer TV Show episode 4] , plus The 1UP Show [http://gamevideos.com/video/id/18830 1UP Show Speical - Tour of Rare's studios ] and Gamespot UK's Start Select in May 2008. Now that the firm is controlled by Microsoft Game Studios and no longer employs the Stamper Brothers, it's likely that TV outlets will be granted access to film and interview staff at the facility. To date, even major shows in North America such as Electric Playground, G4's X-Play, or even GTTV on Spike have yet to pull this off.

During an interview conducted as part of the San Diego Comic Con event in July 2007, James Thomas (a spokesman for Rare) appeared to aim criticism at Microsoft in reference to the marketing of "Viva Piñata" during the 2006 holiday period. This is in stark contrast to their media shy nature throughout the 1990s. At the event, Thomas stated:

:"Most interestingly - I think from our point of view - it was interesting to see how the marketing budget was split last Christmas, because obviously everyone knew that Microsoft were publishing "Gears of War" and "Viva Piñata". Yet, so much of the money went towards "Gears of War", which is going to sell millions anyway. It was a bit of like, 'What about the other franchise?' I think we got left in the wake somewhat. Hopefully with the PC version this Christmas, it might get something of a second wind." [ [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1953/a_rare_opportunity_on_piatas_.php Gamasutra - A Rare Opportunity: On Piñatas, Microsoft and More ] ]

Rare titles for Virtual Console

Rare recently answered a question on their website concerning the appearance of games such as "Banjo-Kazooie" and "Perfect Dark" on the Wii's Virtual Console. They replied, "Banjo team: 'Maybe, but not up to us.'" They also talked about other Rare games hitting the Virtual Console:

"As for VC, it's ultimately Nintendo’s decision what gets released," Rare wrote. "Beyond the DKC games we don’t have anything in the pipeline at the moment, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen in future."

List of games

References

* Rare's letters page http://rareware.co.uk/extras/scribes/30aug07/index.html

External links

*wikia|banjokazooie|the Banjo-Kazooie Wiki|Rare
* [http://www.rareware.com Official Rare website]
* [http://games.kikizo.com/features/rareware_int.asp?f=rareware_int.asp Kikizo's interview in Feb 2002] with the Stamper brothers just after they were bought by Microsoft (includes a video of the Q&A)
*
* [http://www.mobygames.com/company/rare-ltd "Rare"] profile on MobyGames
* [http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3711&Itemid=2&limit=1&limitstart=0 "Next Generation: A Short History of Rare"]
* [http://rare.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page RareWiki] A Wiki dedicated to Rare made games and characters. (currently inactive)