Rare Limited is a British video game developer and a studio of Xbox Game Studios based in Twycross, Leicestershire. Rare's games span the platform, first-person shooter, action-adventure, fighting, and racing genres. Its most popular games include the Battletoads, Donkey Kong, and Banjo-Kazooie series, as well as games like GoldenEye 007 (1997), Perfect Dark (2000), Conker's Bad Fur Day (2001), Viva Piñata (2006), and Sea of Thieves (2018).
Tim and Chris Stamper, who also founded Ultimate Play the Game, established Rare in 1985. During its early years, Rare was backed by a generous budget from Nintendo, primarily concentrated on Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) games. During this time, Rare created successful games such as Wizards & Warriors (1987), R.C. Pro-Am (1988), and Battletoads (1991). Rare became a prominent second-party developer for Nintendo, which came to own a large minority stake in the company, with the release of Donkey Kong Country (1994). Throughout the 1990s, Rare started selling their games under the trademark name "Rareware" and received international recognition and critical acclaim for games such as the Donkey Kong Country trilogy (1994-1996), Killer Instinct (1994), GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie (1998), Perfect Dark (2000), and Conker's Bad Fur Day (2001).
In 2002, Microsoft bought Rare, which retained its original brand, logo, and most intellectual properties. Rare has since focused on developing games exclusively for the Xbox series of consoles, including Grabbed by the Ghoulies (2003), Kameo (2005), Perfect Dark Zero (2005), and Viva Piñata (2006). In 2007, the Stampers left Rare to pursue other opportunities and, in 2010, the company's focus shifted to the Xbox Live Avatar and Kinect, releasing three Kinect Sports games. In 2015, Rare developed Rare Replay, an Xbox One-exclusive compilation containing 30 of its games to celebrate its 30th anniversary. Rare's latest game, Battletoads, was released in 2020.
Several former Rare employees have formed their own companies, such as Free Radical Design, best known for producing the TimeSplitters series, and Playtonic Games, best known for Yooka-Laylee (2017). Rare is widely acknowledged in the video game industry and has received numerous accolades from critics and journalists. Rare is also known as a secretive and seclusive studio. Several Rare games, such as Donkey Kong Country and GoldenEye 007, have been cited as among the greatest and most influential games of all time, though many fans and former employees have been critical of the company's output under Microsoft.
History
Founding (1985–1993)
Rare evolved from the company Ultimate Play the Game, which was founded in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire by former arcade game developers Tim and Chris Stamper.[1] After multiple critically and commercially successful releases including Jetpac, Atic Atac, Sabre Wulf, and Knight Lore, Ultimate Play The Game was one of the biggest UK-based video game development companies.[2] The ZX Spectrum home computer, the platform the company usually developed games for, was only popular in the UK, and they believed that working on that platform would not be beneficial to the company's growth as they considered it a "dead end".[1][2]
Culture
According to Mark Betteridge, one of Rare's main goals is to create games people will find enjoyable rather than just to earn profit.[52] The Stamper brothers gave the team considerable creative freedom, although they would intervene if a product was technically flawed or under-performing. Some employees noted that working for Rare in its early days could be difficult, with staff members allowed 30 minutes for lunch and possibly working more than 60 hours a week. Nintendo worked closely with Rare, and their relationship was described as a "creative partnership" by Viva Piñata designer Justin Cook.[32] According to Hansen in 2010, innovation is very important to the company, thus they focus on trying out new technology, such as Xbox 360's Kinect.[87] Historically the company has developed only for video game consoles, never for personal computers, with the Stamper brothers citing a preference for working on a stable standard format which is specifically designed for playing games.[13] According to Duncan in 2014, Rare would only develop games that had unique ideas, and will never develop a generic game with their intellectual properties.
Ed Fries, head of Microsoft Studios' publishing division at the time of acquisition, said that the company attempted to preserve Rare's culture so its staff could continue feeling that they worked for Rare rather than Microsoft.
Related companies
Beginning in 1997, a number of Rare employees left to establish separate companies. The first of these was Eighth Wonder, underwritten by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. The studio did not produce any games before it closed.[100]
After Martin Hollis left Rare, he joined Nintendo before founding his own company Zoonami, which developed Zendoku, Go! Puzzle and Bonsai Barber.[101]
Several Perfect Dark team members, including David Doak and Steve Ellis, founded Free Radical Design and created the TimeSplitters series. The studio would be acquired by Crytek and renamed Crytek UK before its 2014 closure, with most of its staff moving to Deep Silver Dambuster Studios.[102][103]
Games
Rare has developed a number of video games since its founding, with sales nearing 90 million copies by 2002.[35] The company is best known for its platform games, which include the Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie, and Conker series, and for its Nintendo 64 first-person shooters GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark. Rare does not adhere to a few specific video-game genres. They have also developed action-adventure games, including Star Fox Adventures and Kameo; fighting games, such as the Killer Instinct series; racing games, such as R.C. Pro-Am and Diddy Kong Racing, and beat 'em up-shoot 'em up games such as Battletoads and Captain Skyhawk. Rare's most recent release is Sea of Thieves (2018), a pirate-themed open world sandbox game for Xbox One and Windows 10; the title continues to be supported as a live service game and has since been ported to Xbox Series X and Series S and PlayStation 5
Awards
Rare received numerous awards, including BAFTA award for "Best UK Developer" for its work on GoldenEye 007.[123] In 1997, Electronic Gaming Monthly named Rare "Most Promising Game Company", citing their high rate of success in putting out killer apps for the Nintendo 64.[124] Rare was awarded the BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Moving Images Award in 2000 for developing Perfect Dark.[125] Tim and Chris Stamper were named as Development Legends in the 2015 Develop Industry Excellence Awards.[126] Rare was included as Gamasutra's Top 30 Developers of All Time,[127] and was ranked as the 36th best video game maker by IGN.[128]
Further reading
External links
References
- Rus McLaughlin. IGN Presents the History of Rare IGN, 29 July 2008, retrieved 17 May 2012^
- Rare Part 1: Unusual Machinima Inc., 26 September 2011, retrieved 25 December 2015^
- Behind The Scenes At Rare: Killer Instinct Gold Interview RareGamer, retrieved 29 December 2015