Chris Stamper

Chris Stamper (Christopher Stamper) and his brother Tim Stamper founded Ashby Computers and Graphics, then trading as Ultimate Play the Game in 1983. Their first major game release was Jetpac, which sold over 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom.

With the support of their parents, Chris and Tim began producing their games under the name of their residence in Ashby de la Zouch. Chris found out about the Nintendo Famicom system in Japan, and decided to begin figuring out its design so as to develop their games for this console. Chris and Tim teamed up with Joel Hochberg and formed Rare Ltd. in 1986. Rare came to develop many games for the NES.

Finally in 1993 they showed Nintendo a way to compress graphics information into a cartridge, which impressed Nintendo. Nintendo later decided to invest in Rare, owning a quarter stake of Rare Ltd. which later expanded to 49%, and offered their cast of characters to the company, with Stampers choosing the Donkey Kong franchise. Their first major release with this technology, Donkey Kong Country, was a smash hit worldwide and Rare Ltd. continues this success to this day.