Who did it better: Rare vs Blizzard

[DonFerrari]

Azzanation said:

Hynad said:

Weak attempt at belittling and dismissing his stance. 

How is playing the games helping anyone to know the actual data about the games? 

It does not.

Sales data and critical reception are what indicate if they dominated or not. And sure enough, just with Donkey Kong Country’s series on the SNES, they sold similarly to Nintendo’s domestic studios’s own games and were received similarly during the same era.

With that in mind, yes, his assertion is wrong. But having played the games or not has absolutely no bearing in this. 

You cannot validate your own opinion if you never experienced it. Otherwise, its not your opinion, its someone else's. In this case, Don inserting himself with a negative take on something with no detailed reasons or examples to his view.

DonFerrari said:

I did play at least Battletoads, the 3 Donkey Kong, 2 Banjo Kazooies and Golden Eye. Perhaps even more.

But there were better beat them up, platforms and FPS imho.

Haven`t said Rare wasn`t great (because they were), but they didn`t dominate any genre at all. They were great and made great games in different genres, but weren`t the dominating power in any.

@Hynad. When you put that they had similar reception to Nintendo internal studios, sure that show they were in the same ballpark. But to dominate something you need to be above the others, and neither sales nor critical reception put them above the others (although there were those rumors of Rare being run to the ground due to jealously from Shigeru).

EDIT - If the question was which were my favorite developer at their prime then Rare would win by a landslide (although I really loved Warcraft 2 at the time), but when talking about genre domination, imho Rare didn`t dominate.

There is a lot more to it than just dominating genres. What Rare were able to achieve was simply amazing. They could go in almost any genre and dish up an A+ product that would compete with the very best in those genres. Just like how Blizzard does it on the PC. Rare made DKC which matched the very best games of that genre and for that era. Rare made Killer Instinct which competed with the very best like Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat at the time. Rare made Goldeneye and Perfect Dark which matched the very best FPS games of the era, and they did it with 1 analog stick and limited hardware. They made the best 3D platformers in Banjo Kazooie, they made a Kart game considered just as good as Mario Kart 64. 

Not only did Rare create some of the best games of all time, they also innovated the industry and moved it forward. DKC offered visuals never before seen on a console. Killer Instinct offered fast moving combos never before seen in fighting games. Goldeneye and Perfect Dark offered enemy AI and effects that were never before seen in FPS games. They might not have the replayability of Blizzard games but Rare games pushed the industry forward just as much as they were top tier games. No matter the genre, Rare would enter it, and succeed in it. Not many companies can claim that.

Your very first paragraph talks about dominating a genre.

And on Hynad point, he is very much correct, to discuss domination of a genre you look at the data itself (sales, reception, acclaim, impact, historical relevance and permanence, etc). If you were asking personal preference then it would be something that depends on personal preference. And even like that you could say you prefer X to Y because you like X and never tried Y and it would be valid.

Still you were wrong on the assumption you made of me not having played their games (I played much more from Rare than Blizzard), I just prefer to use objective evidence instead of opinion to evaluate things.