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Rare Still Leery of Downloadable Content
GamesIndustry.biz reports on comments by Rare lead designer Gregg Mayles, who has gone on record saying that Rare will only do downloadable content if there is a need. The popularity of their Viva Piñata title notwithstanding, the company has no interest in making content if there is no interest. From the article: "'We've got plenty of ideas for what we can do with downloadable content because Piñata is such a unique game ... But the jury is still out.' However, the team does still see the potential of Xbox Live and the push for downloadable content, with Viva Piñata offering interaction between players over the service. 'That vision of sending Piñata to each other was around before Xbox Live even existed. That's why [Viva Piñata] began life on a handheld PDA device because we wanted one machine that could communicate with another,' revealed Mayles."
There's a reason Nintendo dumped them...
Well, the main reason was that Rare stopped filling the role that Nintendo needed them to fill and Nintendo was moving away from the 'Second Party' model. Rare was needed by Nintendo in order to supply their systems with several high quality games every year in order to keep consumer interest high, which was something they did fairly well up until about 1998 or so; late in the N64 generation many Rare games were taking 24-36 months to complete in an age where a long development cycle was 18 months. When Nintendo passed on buying Rare Perfect Dark Zero had been in development for 12 months, Kameo for 18 and both of those games were only released in 2005 (meaning they were in development for 5+ years).
Rare is still a good developer with lots of talent, the problem is their management structure needs a serious change
Hey who knows, this whole networking thing could catch on... NAH, we'll just keep working in isolation and see if everyone else is wrong about it...
I personally hope that everyone else is wrong about a micropayment based horse armor/episodal content system; personally, I don't want to spend $150+ to buy all of the race tracks and cars that were available in the base game in the previous generation.
And I, for one, applaud Rare for wanting to release finished products.
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"When Nintendo passed on buying Rare Perfect Dark Zero had been in development for 12 months, Kameo for 18 and both of those games were only released in 2005 (meaning they were in development for 5+ years)."
Neither Kameo no Perfect Dark Zero were that great. I have fond memories of Goldeneye, Diddy Kong Racing and Conkers Bad Fur Day, but the nostalgia may be clouding my judgement. Going back and playing these games now, they're not bad for a quick laugh, but they're not holding the attention the way I remember it. Where they really a great developer at all? Three stand out games and a bunch of other really, really ordinary titles doesn't really scream greatness to me. Especially considering the long development cycle of the games you mentioned, shouldn't the end result have been something truly outstanding?
Neither Kameo no Perfect Dark Zero were that great. I have fond memories of Goldeneye, Diddy Kong Racing and Conkers Bad Fur Day, but the nostalgia may be clouding my judgement. Going back and playing these games now, they're not bad for a quick laugh, but they're not holding the attention the way I remember it. Where they really a great developer at all? Three stand out games and a bunch of other really, really ordinary titles doesn't really scream greatness to me. Especially considering the long development cycle of the games you mentioned, shouldn't the end result have been something truly outstanding?
I can't say that I've had too much hands on time with either Kameo or Perfect Dark Zero but what I would say is that the problem with these games was not lack of skill or shoddy development work but that there were better games that were released before either of these games. With Game Development you're trying to hit a moving target, this target is pretty clear 12 months ahead of time, kind of blury 24 months ahead of time, and very hard to see 36 months ahead of time; I could imagine it would be nearly impossible to predict where games would be 60+ months in the future.
Goldeneye will suck in comparison to modern console FPS mainly because it was the game which spawned the genre on consoles; in the past 10 years they have come a long way. Conkers BFD would probably feel dated but I suspect the gameplay would still be fun, and I never liked DKR because I though Mario Kart was far superior. The game I think would demonstrate how great Rare once was would be Banjo Kazooie. Banjo Kazooie was probably the only platformer of the generation I thought was better that Mario 64, although Mario 64 was more important because it was more revolutionary; I personally don't think many games that have been released since then really exceed the quality of either of these games without moving drastically away from simple platforming.
It think it's important to note that with the exception of sports games (which generally have gamer pics for every team) Kameo and PDZ both rank in the top 5 for games with the most number of items available for download. Kameo has 38 items available for download. From strategy videos to gamer pics, themes, and even skin packs that are worth less then horse armor and perfect Dark Zero has 15 items.
You'd think they'd be all over offering content for for a game where it actually makes sense. Perhaps they're soured by poor sales of Seasonally themed Kameo skins...
Protip: maybe people don't want to buy insignificant chachkis for a mediocre game that only takes a few hours to complete. Maybe, just maybe, you'd have more success selling downloads of things that, I don't know, improve, extend, or refresh the gamplay?
Collector's Edition
Downloadable content doesn't necessarily means unfinished/unpolished content - it means episodic content. Are you gonna tell me that all MMOs out there are in fact botched products only rushed out to make a buck ?
i think not.
downloadable content is only the "online" version of single player/offline games.
If you look at it, downloadable content just means "make money in the same business model MMOs do".
I don't even see why its called a risk to begin with. They don't call it World of Warcrack for nothing, it works. you buy a game for 20ish bucks. you play the basic version for a few hours then, if you like it, you buy the next module/ unlock other character / new music / new art for the game. its really really basic and working already.
BUT! you need a good game to begin with, thats why a lot of MMOs are not making a lot of money, they're not good enough.
And like i said in the beginning, downloadable content doesnt mean botching your product, it means releasing a solid base game and focusing all the resources on keeping the player base and creating good downloadable content.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
Are you kidding? The Xbox systems easily have more good games than the Nintendo systems. Nintendo has pretty much been supporting their past couple of systems by themselves. Rare is a media darling like Nintendo themselves so their games tend to get overrated in general. I think that would have held true on any platform. But that's starting to change. PDZ recently made a top 10 list of the worst launch games ever over at Joystiq. Maybe you don't play games that often or are simply unfamiliar with console in general, but most of the Xbox fan base doesn't consider PDZ or Kameo a step up from anything.
you're definatly missing
the donkey kong country series, to me that trilogy
raised the quality of 2D platformers to a new high
and there is also killer instinct
man those were the days
Their problem was they paid $375,000,000 for the talent. The problem was the talent left. Rare got worse because all their decent developers left or were on the way out. It would've been smart to give key people some stakes in the success of Rare. That obviously didn't happen.
Rare's original IP (Conker, Perfect Dark) is in no way worth $375,000,000.
I don't know how much Microsoft paid for Bungie, but I guarantee you it was a better deal than Rare.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
I did, however, enjoy every game that Rare created for Nintendo. Here's hoping they can beat thier old classics.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...