Rare Ltd.

Rare, Ltd is a United Kingdom-based video game development company. It was founded in 1982 by brothers Tim and Chris Stamper as Ashby Computers and Graphics Ltd (ACG). Publishing as Ultimate Play The Game, they developed games for 8-bit platforms such as the ZX Spectrum, the Commodore 64 and the BBC Micro, 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 autumn 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.

On January 2 2007, it was announced that Tim and Chris Stamper have left Rare to pursue 'other opportunities'. Neither Microsoft, Rare, nor the Stamper brothers have stated specifically what they intend to move onto post-Rare.

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

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-framed 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 7.8 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 Sony Computer Entertainement Europe (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 was never released. Eighth Wonder are believed to have experienced a number of internal problems and, by 1999, the studio no longer existed.

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 and Banjo from the Banjo-Kazooie series) were retained by Rare (apart from intellectual properties 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, was not a commercial success.

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.

At the Electronic Entertainment Expo in May 2004, Microsoft's Ken Lobb stated that Rare had obtained Nintendo DS development kits and was working on two titles for the Nintendo DS. Shortly after, Microsoft issued a statement saying that the company and its studios had no plans for Nintendo DS development. 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 first of these games is an online-capable port of Diddy Kong Racing.

Rare made something of a resurgence when Microsoft's Xbox 360 console was released in late 2005. Several of the Xbox 360's launch titles were developed by Rare, including Kameo, Viva Pinata, and Perfect Dark Zero, all of which were critically acclaimed.

On January 2 2007, Rare founders Chris and Tim Stamper left the company to "pursue other opportunities". Previous lead designer Gregg Mayles reviews as Creative Director and Mark Betteridge replaces as Studio Director at the company, replacing the brothers on a permanent basis.

Media-shy nature
During the Ultimate - Play The Game 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 has always kept the media at arm's 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 Studios 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".

In November 2006 Rare granted video game website Eurogamer a "rare" look around their studio.

Future Titles
Banjo-Kazooie 3 was announced at Microsoft's X06 event in Barcelona, Spain. The official title of the game has not been confirmed by Rare.

At Comic-Con 2007 a port of the critically acclaimed Viva Pinata was announced for the Nintendo DS.

Absence of Rare titles for Virtual Console
On March 26 2006, Matt Casamassina, Editor-in-Chief of IGN Wii, had announced in his blog that Nintendo's 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 reportedly confirmed that the Virtual Console will not see any Rare-owned licenses. The Donkey Kong games that were developed by Rare, remain unaffected since Nintendo retains the rights to the Donkey Kong series (which was Nintendo's creation to begin with).