Former RARE composer - Microsoft 'f@#$ed' RARE over, ruined the company

[Kresnik]

To be honest - I am not a fan of Microsoft at all, but I wouldn't say that Rare's fall from grace was completely their fault. So many different factors were at play.

- Rare were already overworked going into the Microsoft era. I'm sure people are gonna disagree with me on this one, but they pretty much single-handedly propped up N64 releases for the majority of its life. They just released stunning title after stunning title all in a really short time frame. They needed time to take a step back and work slowly on a couple of projects, but obviously MS didn't want that from a studio they'd just paid so much for.

- MS were a poor creative partner. Other people have covered this but: Rare & Nintendo went well together. Nintendo gave them a purpose. They gave them IP's to work on, ideas for games etc. Microsoft kind of presented them with a blank canvas and said 'make something', which didn't work as well as handing them a Donkey Kong or Goldeneye licence. Sure, they'd come up with Banjo-Kazooie, Jet Force Gemini, stuff like that in the past, but they really needed a direction for starting out in MS.

- Staff leaving. Unavoidable, really, especially with a buyout. Losing the Free Radical staff really hurt.

I don't think MS were particularly bad in the case of Rare, it was just an unfortunate situation that they couldn't really do to make anything better.

Now, Lionhead and Ensemble - those are two completely different cases where I fully hold Microsoft responsible.

I mean, shutting down Ensemble, really? I still to this day do not understand why they did that. RTS games don't fit into their console-centric future? Give them another project then. Let them work on PC titles. Heck, let them work on Halo Wars 2. I see situations like Sony shutting Zipper where they hadn't made a good/successful game for half a decade, so it's sort of understandable. But seriously, Ensemble were incredible for their time, and right up to the end were producing great games.

Lionhead, too. Initially, I saw Lionhead as the successor to Bullfrog. Working on a load of different IP's, each one a strategy game with a different twist - some worked (The Movies), some didn't (Black & White 2).

But seriously, they have been stuck on Fable for 6+ years now, it's time to let it go. It's a studio that I would imagine is bursting with talent, ideas, creativity, and they're stuck making over-hyped, under-delivering RPG's. There is nothing especially wrong with the Fable games, but I feel like Microsoft is forcing these titles out of Lionhead just because they sell half-decently - I'd imagine it certainly contributed to people like Mark Healey and Alex Evans leaving (not that I'm complaining with that :P). There is no need for Fable: The Journey. Let the talented staff develop some new ideas while they're still working at the studio.

Anyway, rant over, sorry!