Molyneux wants Rare to come out of the closet

They need to "get well known" and "have more of an identity", he says

Newly appointed creative director of Microsoft Europe and former hype generator of Lionhead Peter Molyneux wants to improve the internal studios’ image. In an interview with Games Industry, the man behind the Fable franchise said he “wants to help Rare have more of an identity and make sure they are seen more within the industry”.

“I was totally blown away from the amount of talent there is at Rare,” added Molyneux, “but it’s just that they come from a background where Nintendo required them to be this very, very secretive company. I just want to give them the confidence to tell the world what they’re doing. I hope you’re going to see more from Rare and I want to help them get well known.” However, he also guaranteed that this new policy wouldn’t interfere with the company’s philosophy when it comes to game development. “You’ll definitely still recognise a Rare game,” he concluded.

Being Peter Molyneux

Although Molyneux’s infamous tendency to overexpose things took its toll in the past, this time he certainly makes a point. The fact that Rare’s secretive behaviour hasn’t helped at all during the last seven years shouldn’t be news for anyone. Except, perhaps, for Rare itself. Since the very first day they started working for Microsoft, they continued to be the same cryptic studio they were during their Nintendo phase. Yet the only result of such practice was a total lack of interest from the Xbox users and the media as a whole.

For seven years, Rare has been hiding in the dark and slowly becoming a second-class developer in the public eye. And while some argued that this was due a decrease of their games’ quality, the actual reason had always been more apparent. Back in 2002, they faced a new audience that was constantly being bombarded with information about upcoming games like Halo 2 or Fable. As a consequence, those new titles became hits and classics among the Xbox fanbase, while nobody really cared about established IPs like Conker or Banjo. Even today, there is clearly something wrong with Microsoft Game Studios’ priorities, considering that the original Perfect Dark’s arrival to the Xbox Live Arcade wasn’t even mentioned during the E3 conferences.

As obvious as it main sound, in order to get somebody interested in something, first you need that person to know about the product. And the time when the audience would eagerly wait for whatever game was on the works only because of its Rare brand was gone long ago.

http://mundorare.com/news/2009/06/molyneux-wants-rare-to-come-out-of-the-closet/

Maybe if people were more tolerant and understanding, they'd feel more comfortable about coming out of said closet. But all they ever hear about is how vehicle-based platformers are a sin and that they're going to hell for leaving Nintendo.

Well then they should have made Banjo Threeie, not Banjo nots and bolts..

I knew Rare was hiding in the closet! Naming the last Banjo game "Nuts and Bolts" eerily resembles "Nuts and Balls".

"Nuts and Balls" is eerily redundant, though.

Not if my nuts touch your balls. ¬_¬

Touché.

PM me.

Oh no Peter, please don't overhype Rare until it's a boring letdown! Molyneux is like the King Midas of hype. Everything he touches turns to disappointment.

I'm mostly a Nintendo man, but I still got nothing but love for Rare. My favorite Rare guys left already, but I ain't hating on no Viva Pinata, Perfect Dark, or Banjo games. Rare still has a little of their magic left (although in my opinion they peaked during the SNES days, but hey, who didn't?).

@ghost

Rare's N64 games were superior to there snes games. Perfect Dark has a 97 on metacrtic

Well, if he wants Rare to come out of the closet, THE WII HAS TO COME OUT FIRST.