Who Killed Rare?

[Mr Khan]

Reasonable said:
Pretty good article in places once you get past the overwraught title and tone at the beginning.

I don't think anyone "killed" Rare, just that the company changed and depending on your viewpoint it changed for the worst due to a number of factors:

- the original company direction was based more on Nintendo influence and gameplay styles
- the key people who started the company moved on and sold it on
- the new owners wanted a different direction but were new to the game
- the staff left in the departure of the owners were used to more experienced input and control from Nintendo

So the Rare of that period died out in many regards - but no-one killed it, it was just the result of a number of factors. The company is still performing well enough under MS, I'd just argue their creative wings have been clipped a bit and they're being used more to order - "make us a Wii Sports" - "make us Mii's" - "make us fun family titles" and so on.

Personally I think that, unless you're powering a key franchise - like Bungie were with Halo, or ND with Uncharted at the moment - if you're an owned studio you will be working more to order. Clearly Sony has studios directed to "make us another Wipeout" - "make us a SF FPS title" and so on in a very similar manner.

This seems to be the culture for most studios except those owned or operating with Nintendo. While some of the studios are definitely more mercenary (thinking NDCube here), most seem to be doing "what they want" within certain obvious limitations (they're not doing whatever the hell they want, obviously), but their game-making process feels more generic, rather than Nintendo telling them to fill out a request.