Microsoft ruined Rare

[xLeftyx]

D-Joe said:

xLeftyx said:

D-Joe said:

xLeftyx said:
They've only done well but only within Microsoft's scope. They could've done better had Microsoft granted them freedom. Subsequently, talents were deprived of job satisfaction therefore they left. A waste, in my opinion.

@NiKKoM, Donkey Kong Racing was a project for Gamecube but was cancelled due to Microsoft's purchase of Rare.

Microsoft granted the freedom until Kinect Sports,but they failed,so they gonna develop Kinect Sports

Hmm. I may have misunderstood. From what I understood from the article, talents were dissatisfied with Microsoft's direction with Rare so they had left. I assumed this was a pre-Kinect era.

Many of rare stuff leave even before MS bought them

The big change in Rare came when the company went up for sale, people were unsure of the future of Rare. When they announced Microsoft was buying, a lot of people were unsure if it was a good or bad thing. For one, MS had deep pockets so financial security seemed assured, but on the other hand they were relatively new to the games market, and complete infants in the console market. Personally I don’t think it was a great mix. At first it seemed that they wouldn’t interfere much, but it was soon clear that they were more interested in using Rare to help aim at a younger market. This stifled a lot of creativity, Rare was renowned for their diverse portfolio, so to not be involved in making Mature games was a real blow.

 

It does seem odd to hear that Microsoft would not want to develop a 'Mature' game...

When the Stampers left it seemed that Microsoft was losing faith in Rare, it was hard to take when all around were incredibly talented people, with massive amounts of experience. There [were] numerous projects that were put forward that I believe would have been huge hits, but MS rejected them one after the other. I remember seeing a couple of prototypes that Chris Seavor had designed and was working on, that looked amazing, but alas they got shelved. It seemed that MS didn’t want to take the risk in Rare doing anything outside the younger demographic, they quickly forgot the companies heritage. We started to lose a lot of great talent then, people were losing job satisfaction, so they just left.

This is where I interpreted that people left before Kinect was even an idea. Stampers were still managing Rare at the time before Kinect.