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Azzanation on 23 January 2022
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ironmanDX said:

As far as industry changing games....

Has to be blizzard. War craft was big for the rts genre and mmo... Then starcraft came along and did it again.

Not to mention Dota began as a war craft mod, helping usher in a new gaming genre. While blizzard didn't do it, they created the tools and resources so that someone could. Hell, dota had a even more basic version of some sort in StarCraft too if I recall correctly...

Diablo... Probably their best ip imo also was pretty industry changing.

I'll say that donkey Kong also was very impactful but didn't really help spawn a new genre. Just massively improved the existing formula.

Goldeneye though showed that console fps could work, perfect dark built on that and was a much more refined experience.

Have to give it to blizzard though.

Rare definitely focus on tech advances, games like DKC and Killer Instinct were really good showcases for their time. The water effects in Sea of Thieves is also some of the best water effects in the industry. Blizzard focus a lot on gameplay first and when they made a game, it would be incredibly addictive. Blizzard are similar to Nintendo in that point where visuals isn't their priority. 

padib said:

I don't see the connection between the two.

Blizzard's IPs are much deeper artistically, and the lore is leagues above Rare.
Rare makes pretty graphics, great physics in gameplay, Blizzard is mosty about great gameplay for strategy and branched out to FPS very recently in its pretty long history. They made lost vikings but that was so early on, that once Warcraft II became a hit most of the company was put to work on strategy and top-down games.

Rare was much better at tackling other genres as Blizzard is known to have failed Starcraft Ghost for many many years.

What Blizzard was amazing at (and no longer due to Activision) was launching a game only once it's perfect. Blizzard is perfection, Rare is near perfection, but between the two there is a gulf.

But both today are shells of their former glory.

You are underestimating Rare back in their heyday. They innovated the FPS for consoles, they matched and succeeded Nintendo's own games, something not many companies can claim. Games like Killer Instinct were up their with Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, Donkey Kong Country would outshine 2D Mario games, Banjo Kazooie would be compared to Mario 64. Perfect Dark was one of the best games ever made on the N64. Battletoads was one of the biggest talking points in the NES era. Rare had a lot of variety and when they did something, their games would be in the talking points of some of the best games for the systems.

Blizzard definitely went all in with art style and lore, they knew exactly what their fans wanted and delivered on many fronts. Keep in mind that both Rare and Blizzard were good in different eras. When Rare were Innovating and industry leading, Blizzard were starting out, when Rare started to go down hill, Blizzard started to take off and became industry leading. 

I always looked at Blizzard as the PC version of Rare, what Rare conquered with consoles genres, Blizzard would conquer PC genres.

Last edited by Azzanation - on 23 January 2022