| Millenium said: Funnily enough Rare is doing better than before financially. Also, what the *insertrandomletters* does a composer know about the whole picture... |
Too bad those games that are making them all that new money aren't as good as the older ones.
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!
I thought it was the case that the critical damage to Rare had been done, or was in the process of being done, when Nintendo sold their stake?
Or is that Nintendo-fan-revisionism?
Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.
I agree 100%. MS could have made rare develop games from the many amazing IPs that they have but what do they do? They make rare develop Kinect Sports. What the heck MS, you took one of the industries most amazing devs and put them on casual and shovelware games. Very sad.
| UltimateUnknown said: I agree 100%. MS could have made rare develop games from the many amazing IPs that they have but what do they do? They make rare develop Kinect Sports. What the heck MS, you took one of the industries most amazing devs and put them on casual and shovelware games. Very sad. |
microsoft let them work on their successful ips. they released a new banjo and perfect dark for 360 and both weren't as good as they were on n64 and they lost money with these games. exactly that is the reason why microsoft did restructure rare and let them make kinect sports then. if they would have made a new 90+ perfect dark with profitable sales they could still make these games. but did you see what they made with banjo and perfect dark? still decent games but not worth to speak about.
but i really would like to get a new kameo. i really liked that.
It's not Microsoft's fault that Rare made terrible game after terrible game. Perfect Dark Zero, Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, these guys sucked after Nintendo. I have no sympathy for Rare, they screwed over every Banjo fan who was waiting years for a proper third game.
Sigs are dumb. And so are you!
This thread is for the most part sour grapes on the part of die hard Nintendo loyalists. Who think that Nintendo was probably the best thing to happen to Rare, and that Rare was perhaps the best thing that happened to Nintendo on a purely game related basis. The reality is actually the exact opposite. Nintendo ran Rare right into the ground. This is a story of a second party studio that was on the fast track to implosion. It was overextended, over committed, and just plain overworked. Which are basically the ingredients that go into a rapid decline into oblivion.
Rares quality didn't go south with Microsoft's acquisition. The quality was going down years before it came to that, and under the watch of Nintendo no less. Hell I have done the math before, and I can do it again, but it will not change the result. The Rare under Nintendo only scores marginally better then Rare under Microsoft. Yes Rare did start out strong on the 64, but by the end of the generation the developer was putting out far inferior products on the platform, and producing games of that caliber at a greater volume then they did earlier in the generation. It is easy to see the successes, and be oblivious to the failures.
The only real problem with Microsoft's acquisition is that while they stabilized the developer, and prevented its demise. They haven't really been able to revitalize the developer. It is kind of like they bought something that was broken down, and haven't been able to figure out how to fix it up, and as far as I am concerned that is really just a matter of finding the right team leader. You see glimmers of potential out of Rare, but its like the developer is just plain stuck where Microsoft picked it up. There are great ideas there, but nobody to sculpt them into the kinds of games people really want to play.
Anyway it isn't a crime to not be able to fix something. The crime is breaking it in the first place. It really was the problem Nintendo should have solved, or Rare itself should have solved. Microsoft didn't ruin Rare. It was pretty ruined when they got there. Anyway who knows what the future holds. Rare is just one fantastic game away from being back. Anyone else find it odd how far Rare has just fallen off the radar.
Sal.Paradise said:
It's easy arguing that they made the games, so the lack of quality was their fault, but buying a company as talented an as unique as Rare (their isolated, individual way of creaitng games is well noted) and not nurturing the talent and supporting them properly is completely the buyer's fault. Microsoft should have known that Rare depended on having a creative partnership with Nintendo as well as their own personal way of creating games, and tried to do as much as possible to create that same environment for them, but they were hung out to dry. Sorry, not backing down on this one.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-02-08-who-killed-rare
Kinect Sports and Avatars, baby!
On 20th of September 2002, Microsoft paid $375 million for this bonsai tree and all that it symbolised: creative excellence, technical mastery, innovation, originality, soul and the precious fingerprints of Nintendo. The fledgling Microsoft Game Studios, desperate to acquire world-class talent that could help establish its game console, saw in that tree everything it desired to become. "Microsoft and Rare was a bad marriage from the beginning. The groom was rich. The bride was beautiful. But they wanted to make different games and they wanted to make them in different ways." "Rare was always looking East at Japanese and Nintendo's games in particular, with their open-hearted childlike vibrancy and playfulness," explains Hollis. "Meanwhile, Microsoft had a US-centric style to its games, a flair of machismo and testosterone. For the first decade after the Microsoft sale the major problem for the creativity of the studio has been direction. Looking in from the outside it felt as if neither Microsoft or Rare could work out where it was headed." From the inside the studio's gates, too, the changes to Rare introduced by Microsoft tampered with the recipe of the company's success, leaving teams feeling disorientated, and even downcast. "The changes were imperceptible at first, but became increasingly rapid as time went on," says Phil Tossell. Hired by Hollis in 1997, he cut his teeth on Diddy Kong Racing before working as lead engineer on Dinosaur Planet (which later became Starfox Adventures). He was present at the company through the Microsoft acquisition, and was promoted to Director of Gameplay in 2009 when he oversaw development of Kinect Sports. "For me personally, the atmosphere became much more stifling and a lot more stressful," he says. "There was an overall feeling that you weren't really in control of what you were doing and that you weren't really trusted either. "There was also a gradual introduction of certain Microsoft behaviours that crept into the way we did things: lots more meetings, performance reviews and far more regard for your position within the company," he said. "While these weren't necessarily good or bad per se, they began to erode the traditional Rare culture and way of doing things. Many of the people who'd been there a long time found these changes extremely hard to accept." That culture appears to be the secret of Rare's success in the 1990s, a unique setup in game development at the time. "The general feeling at the time was that, as a company, we were invincible and that anything was possible," says Tossell. "It was incredible to be surrounded by so many talented people, all of whom were single-mindedly focused on making the best games that we could. I never realised it at the time, but I think what was most unique was the sense of freedom and responsibility that the Stampers gave to each team. They trusted us to get the job done. As a result, you always felt like you wanted to do the absolute best that you could for them." However, in time it became clear that everyone had underestimated how much of the studio's success was down to Nintendo's gentle steering. "It seemed like Microsoft was really a novice in the games industry and for some time they left us to try and see how things worked," Cook explains. "They wanted hit games for their console and since they weren't sure how to go about it they trusted Rare to do what was necessary. The problem here was that Rare was a very long way from the very corporate structure of Microsoft and when Rare had made games it wasn't in isolation from Nintendo but as a creative partnership. "The kind of support that Nintendo offered wasn't available at Microsoft because Microsoft hadn't the experience. Ed Fries was aware of this, he was a very understanding person and wanted to foster studio culture and allow studios like Rare to build a space for themselves inside the Microsoft structure. Microsoft had a strong corporate identity and was very successful so it was only a matter of time until they applied their tried-and-tested corporate success to their new studio acquisitions." About a year after the acquisition Fries left Microsoft and the changes became more pronounced. "The biggest change for me was the closing of the testing department. I'd already 'escaped' into design but the shock of losing the up-and-coming talent being developed in testing was a big wake-up call. |
so you prove yourself wrong again?
not sure why people still wasting time on you anyway
rare "killed" himself,and people don't buy their "real" games helped rare's "suicide"
| Kresnik said:
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). |
if you have read the rumors about lionhead,they making a new ip mmo-like game for next gen-right after peter molyneux's leave
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-05-16-lionhead-making-mmo-like-new-ip-for-next-xbox-report
but anyway,i don't expect they can make any good next gen games,because they're old
many developer showed they're old in this gen,just some die hard fans keep dreaming they can still make great games and blame something they can blame to keep the dream never broken
| Dodece said: This thread is for the most part sour grapes on the part of die hard Nintendo loyalists. Who think that Nintendo was probably the best thing to happen to Rare, and that Rare was perhaps the best thing that happened to Nintendo on a purely game related basis. The reality is actually the exact opposite. Nintendo ran Rare right into the ground. This is a story of a second party studio that was on the fast track to implosion. It was overextended, over committed, and just plain overworked. Which are basically the ingredients that go into a rapid decline into oblivion. Rares quality didn't go south with Microsoft's acquisition. The quality was going down years before it came to that, and under the watch of Nintendo no less. Hell I have done the math before, and I can do it again, but it will not change the result. The Rare under Nintendo only scores marginally better then Rare under Microsoft. Yes Rare did start out strong on the 64, but by the end of the generation the developer was putting out far inferior products on the platform, and producing games of that caliber at a greater volume then they did earlier in the generation. It is easy to see the successes, and be oblivious to the failures. The only real problem with Microsoft's acquisition is that while they stabilized the developer, and prevented its demise. They haven't really been able to revitalize the developer. It is kind of like they bought something that was broken down, and haven't been able to figure out how to fix it up, and as far as I am concerned that is really just a matter of finding the right team leader. You see glimmers of potential out of Rare, but its like the developer is just plain stuck where Microsoft picked it up. There are great ideas there, but nobody to sculpt them into the kinds of games people really want to play. Anyway it isn't a crime to not be able to fix something. The crime is breaking it in the first place. It really was the problem Nintendo should have solved, or Rare itself should have solved. Microsoft didn't ruin Rare. It was pretty ruined when they got there. Anyway who knows what the future holds. Rare is just one fantastic game away from being back. Anyone else find it odd how far Rare has just fallen off the radar. |
I have a few issues with this post in that it seems horribly biased pro-Microsoft, and that there are things about it I just don't understand. Also, to be honest, most of the posters here have been bringing links and external sources to the table to try to understand what happened so there's no need for "This thread is for the most part sour grapes on the part of die hard Nintendo loyalists. ..." At best, there has been a bad attitude from the defense side of the debate.
Here's what I'd like you to clarify:
1) What are the games on the N64 that were showing a downward trend in quality? What were these games and what was the volume? To note, I'm talking on the N64.
2) The crime isn't breaking it. You don't know what happened inside for that to happen, and I'd be shocked to know it had anything to do with money. Nintendo used Rare's talent to output games. All we know is that, at some point in time after CBFD, Rare a) wanted to work on an IP of its own (Dinosaur Planet), and b) was put to work on Gamecube projects. What we know of point b) is that there may have been lots of Research going on that led to poor results. Possibly Rare was at a point where they did not want to follow Nintendo's tight lead anymore and decided to do things their way, upon which we didn't get the same volume as prior. And that's where Nintendo felt that it was time to let them go to a new partner. That was my understanding of the Nintendo-Rare situation. So, instead of buying back shares, they decided to give them up to the highest bidder. Now what Microsoft did was much more shameful, because yes they let Rare do what they wanted and injected money into them, but when Rare failed, instead of stooping in and holding their hand through their failures, they just brutally restructured them in a way that obliterated all the creative direction they initially had and put Rare to make things to purely profit MS regardless of creative output. It's sad. There was an in-between solution which wasn't implemented. So to say 1) it's a problem that Nintendo should have solved is a gross misunderstanding of what took place. Nintendo couldn't DO anything anymore, Rare wasn't interested anymore, and to say 2) Microsoft didn't ruin them is also a gross misunderstanding of the options MS had to address a situation within a studio they had newly bought, a studio with which it was still possible to mend any broken bones.
And Rare is not one fantastic game away from being back, they're gone. If they make a new game, it will be neo-Rare, not Rare. Rare as it was is now dead.
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