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Rare Co-Founders Leave Company
1up reports on the departure of Rare co-founders Chris and Tim Stamper. They, along with company president Joel Hochberg, founded the company more than two decades ago. They've been with Rare through the good (Wizards and Warriors) the great (GoldenEye), and the disappointing (Perfect Dark Zero). The news site now reports they left the company at the end of last year. From the article: "The Stampers' exodus comes just four years after Microsoft acquired Rare from Nintendo for $375M. Since that acquisition, Rare has published five games for Microsoft Game Studios. In addition to Pinata, the Rare released Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero at the Xbox 360's launch and shipped Conker: Live & Reloaded and Grabbed By the Ghoulies on the original Xbox. While it seems unlikely that Microsoft has recouped their original investment in Rare, the company maintains that the studio is 'the cornerstone of Microsoft Game Studios' broadening strategy.'" N'Gai, over at Newsweek, has an interesting additional viewpoint on this departure: Phil Harrison's view on Rare. The unpublished exchange from his earlier interview with the PlayStation worldwide studios boss is interesting, as is N'Gai's blunt appraisal of the company since its purchase.
In the game industry, it takes multiple years just to make a game. So no, that isn't very long. Particularly for a company that has been around as long as Rare.
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I seriously doubt Microsoft bought Rare with the intention of making huge profits off them. For a game company to make back $375 million they have to throw a pretty good number of big titles out there (3 Halo 2-sized ones or so). No way Microsoft expected that. I think it was more than anything part of their "we have so much money to burn let's just do it now and then bet on profits in the next console generation" plan, which involved hamstringing Nintendo by taking away their most important developer.
After all, if not for Rare, N64 would not have had half of the game lineup that it did. Banjo 1 and 2, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Diddy Kong Racing, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Jet Force Gemini, Killer Instinct Gold, DK 64. A monster list, really. And they also made the SNES's final two years great with DKC, DKC2, and KI. Microsoft likely wanted to deprive a major competitor of such a game lineup more than anything else.
Rare was worked hard by Nintendo. They released something like 2 games per year. Microsoft hasn't done that to them at all. In fact, the first game Rare released after Microsoft acquired them was for the Game Boy Advance (that silly Banjo game).
Granted, it wasn't the same Rare anymore at that point anyway, and of course some time had to be taken to get used to writing for the Xbox rather than Nintendo's systems, but IMO nothing points at Microsoft expecting a profit from their purchase of Rare any time soon (if ever).
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I'm still shocked that Microsoft bought Rare; they were already on the downward slide during the N64's lifetime (which could arguably be said to have started with Banjo Kazooie as a far more colorful and better designed game than Mario64 (which to me always seemed more like a really fun demo). BK was awesome, Diddy Kong Racing was a much better version than MarioKart, and GoldenEye was their zenith. After that, what more did they release? Banjo Twooie, which was in no way what had been eluded to, but seemed like a warmed-over DK. Perfect Dark Zero? Sorry, Laura Croft was still too much in her heyday to start another "chick-with-guns-oh-my!" franchise, and it too had the warmed over glow of a GoldenEye codebase with different graphics. Conker's Bad Fur Day was the real tell-tale sign of a slide. It was, I believe, the last cart released for the N64 by anybody, and instead of something cool, we got a South Park inspired DK (again!).
Then they basically sat out the XBox, Ghoulies notwithstanding. To think that after, what, 4 years, the best they could come up with was a mediocre platformer (again a modified DK ripoff) and then a *port*? An almost 1-for-1 port of BFD? *That* was the best they could come up with?
Meanwhile I recall reading an article about Rare's headquarters, and how they have these "sheds" with developers busily working away on games. What games? What justifies having such a large operation and put out the same warmed-over stuff again and again. Oh, right, they were working on the 360 launch title. What was that ground-breaking game? Perfect Dark Zero? No, really, what was it? I must have missed it.
The Stamper brothers are living proof that there are people who can sell snow to Eskimos. I would love to have seen the song-n-dance they threw for Microsoft to justify the price they paid. Microsoft threw their money away on a has-been who have been locked into this DK/GoldenEye glow for waaaay too long.
It takes 2-5 years to make a AAA game. I would venture a guess that most game development studios fold, are bought out, or majorly restructure in 1-3 years.
-Rick
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