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Rare, Ltd. is a United Kingdom-based video game development company. It was founded in 1982 by brothers Tim and Chris Stamper as Ashby Computer Graphics (ACG). Publishing as Ultimate Play The Game, they developed games for 8-bit platforms such as the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64, before the name was sold to U.S. Gold in 1985. Rare then became a second-party developer for the Nintendo gaming platforms, but in 2002 was acquired by Microsoft. In fall 2003, the company's "Rareware" logo (which had been used since 1994) was discontinued and was replaced by a newer, similar logo with the name "Rare".

The company is notable for having created an unusually large number of original hit games, and for the company's price tag: Microsoft paid US$377 million for the company, a record for a video game developer.

Company overview

Rare is located in Twycross, England and is the company behind many of the most fat games for Nintendo's various gaming systems: Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country (and its sequels), Killer Instinct, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, GoldenEye 007, Perfect Dark, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Diddy Kong Racing, Donkey Kong 64, Jet Force Gemini, and Star Fox Adventures.

Its games have always employed some of the latest graphics technology. One of its most critically acclaimed and popular series was the Donkey Kong Country series on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, due to its use of pre-rendered 3D graphics on a 2D console. GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64 is considered by many to be their biggest success, known even today as one of the gold standards for console first-person shooters, eventually selling over eight million copies. Rareware's Killer Instinct added several features to the fighting game genre such as autodouble combos, combo linkers and ultra combos.

Key members of the GoldenEye development team left Rare soon after beginning work on Perfect Dark. Head of Software Martin Hollis was the first to leave in 1998, working at Nintendo of America on the GameCube, and in 2000 he started his own company, Zoonami. Other members such as David Doak left soon after he did and formed Free Radical Design.

However prior to both of these events, Rare had already publicly lost staff from other teams. In 1997 a small number of employees (Oliver Davies, Oliver Norton, Steve Patrick, Jeff Stafford, Christopher Gage, and Adrian Smith) left and formed a new studio to be known as Eighth Wonder. They were signed with SCEE (who made sure this defection was well publicised in the games press) and were all set to develop a new PlayStation title. There were high hopes that this would produce an amazing game; provisionally titled "Popcorn". EDGE magazine even profiled the project, showing a game that looked like a 3D version of Bomberman. However, despite being shown by SCEE at the 1998 ECTS , the game and the studio seemed to disappear as the months went by. Eighth Wonder no longer exists and there are no confirmed reports of the game ever being released, thus making it likely that SCEE ended up cancelling the project in a very quiet fashion.

Up from the end of 2000 people from Activision and Microsoft visited Rare. In November 2001, Microsoft trademarked the name It's Mr. Pants, the name of a game which was released three years later. In September 2002, the Stamper brothers sold their 51% interest in Rare to Microsoft; following this, Nintendo sold their 49% stake in the company as well. Microsoft paid a total of $377 million for the company. Because of this, Rare is now a first-party developer for Microsoft's Xbox and its successors. The trademarks of the characters from the games that Rare made for Nintendo consoles (such as Conker of Conker's Bad Fur Day) were retained by Rare (apart from IP originally developed by Nintendo, i.e. Donkey Kong and Star Fox). Despite the acquisition, Rare still develops games for Game Boy Advance, and is now also developing for the Nintendo DS. Rare has never developed for Sony platforms.

Between 2000 and the final acquisition of Rare Ltd., more than 50 people left the company. After the acquisition was complete, at least 30 more left. Commentators have noted that Rare's first Xbox title, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, is the company's biggest flop to date.

August 2003 brought news that Rare and Microsoft had made a deal with THQ to publish Rare's Game Boy Advance games, which as of December 2004 have included Sabre Wulf, a game based on its Ultimate character, Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge, a "midquel" to the two Nintendo 64 games, and It's Mr. Pants!, a puzzle game that was originally developed as "Donkey Kong: Coconut Crackers", and featured the company's unofficial mascot. January 2005 saw the completion of this deal, with the release of Banjo Pilot (which prior to being acquired by MS, was in development as "Diddy Kong Pilot"). Rare also ported and extended the Donkey Kong Country series, which was published by Nintendo.

In February of 2004, gaming news sites reported that negotiations were ongoing between Nintendo and Microsoft for Microsoft to acquire Rare's characters and trademarks from Nintendo. According to various articles, Microsoft has reportedly offered Nintendo approximately $20.2 million for the trademarks and characters. As of 2006, it is unknown if Nintendo accepted Microsoft's $20.2 million offer.

At the Electronic Entertainment Expo in May 2004, Rare's Ken Lobb told a reporter from the Advanced Media Network that Rare had obtained Nintendo DS development kits and was working on two titles for the Nintendo DS. However, shortly after the Advanced Media Network published its report, Microsoft issued a statement saying that the company and its studios had no plans for Nintendo DS development. This resulted in the Advanced Media Network receiving much scrutiny. However, on July 8, 2005, Rare posted job openings for Nintendo DS development on its official website, and stated that it was "creating key DS titles." The news was reported by The Advanced Media Network, who turned out to be right all along. The first of these games will be an online-capable port of Diddy Kong Racing. However, it is unknown if Rare is developing any more titles for the DS, and if they are, it is not known who will publish those titles.

Media-shy nature

During the Ultimate years, the company gained an international reputation for being media shy. The company itself being understaffed, didn't commit themselves to trade shows and only granted interviews once their current project was completed. Tim Stamper said in a CRASH interview that the only time off they had during the Ultimate years was two Christmas mornings. They worked all seven days a week, and the only hours in which they didn't work were 2:00-8:00 AM .

Continuing this tradition, Rare have always kept the media at arms length, though in part this may be due to their close involvement with the game industry's other famed recluse: Nintendo. The Japanese office of this company has always tightly controlled press access to developers working on its titles (as studios such as DMA, Factor 5, Monster Games, Retro and former members of Argonaut Software can attest). However, Rare's reticence to deal with the media may also relate to an incident in which they traded-off two UK television series (Gamesmaster and Bad Influence) against one another. This backfired on Rare, with the presenter of one, Dominik Diamond, branding Rare's management as "the physically unattractive Stamper brothers".

Future

Following the moderate success of both Rare's Xbox 360 launch titles Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo: Elements of Power, Rare is set to release their forthcoming simulation game Viva Piñata for the Xbox 360 in November. Confirmed future Xbox 360 titles include a Banjo-Kazooie Game. The official game title has not been confirmed by Rare, however, www.banjothreeie.com has been registered and redirects to Rare's official website when accessed. Rare is also rumoured to be working on a revival of the Killer Instinct franchise, dubbed 'Killer Instinct 3' after a ten year period last released on the N64 and a sequel to Kameo: Elements of Power for Xbox 360. Other forthcoming games include Diddy Kong Racing DS an enhancement of Diddy Kong Racing, a Nintendo 64 title, ported for the Nintendo DS.

Absence of Rare titles for Nintendo Wii Virtual Console

On March 26, 2006, Matt Casamassina, Editor-in-Chief of IGN Wii, had announced in his blog that Nintendo's Wii Virtual Console service, a feature which allows players to download games from the history of Nintendo, will be "Rareless". He stated that he had "met with some Rare/Microsoft staff" while attending the 2006 Game Developers Conference, who confirmed once and for all that the Virtual Console will not see any Rare-owned licenses. This means that classic Rare titles such as Perfect Dark, Jet Force Gemini, and Banjo-Kazooie (to name a few) may be absent from the download service; GoldenEye 007 has the added problem that the James Bond video game license is held by another publisher (currently Electronic Arts, Activision in 2007), and would require their approval as well as Rare's to be released on the system. The Donkey Kong games that were developed by Rare remain unaffected, since Nintendo retain the rights to the Donkey Kong series. However, despite the blog post, Rare or Microsoft have yet to make an official announcement regarding this particular issue.

List of games

References

1. Martijn van der Heide. "Sinclair Infoseek: Ultimate Play The Game". World of Spectrum. Retrieved 2006-08-19.

External links

• Official Rare website
• Kikizo's interview in Feb 2002 with the Stamper brothers just after they were bought by Microsoft (includes a video of the Q&A)
• Open Directory Project listing
• Rare profile on MobyGames
• Next Generation: A Short History of Rare

• Rareware
• Computer and video game companies
• Companies established in 1982
• British video game companies
• Microsoft subsidiaries
• First-party developers