What caused RARE to go to crap after Microsoft bought them?

Azureth

Azureth

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Feb 29, 2008
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It has always amazed me how RARE brought about some of the best games ever. Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country, Banjo Kazooie, Goldeneye, Conker's Bad Fur day etc. etc. yet right after Microsoft got them they went way down hill. What happened? Now they're just working on Kinect crap.
 
I think the answer to your question is in your subject of this thread.

Microsoft bought them
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Every game studio Microsoft has bought has gone down hill quickly after. Not sure if it is MS's Corporate Culture or if all the developers flee or what really.
 
Really, you can say this about most studios that have been purchased by larger companies. It's the nature of the beast sadly.
 
Well as far as the team that created the masterpiece Goldeneye 007, after Goldeneye they produced one more game, Perfect Dark then the whole team retired. Well Ken Lobb is still with Rare but he's not on the development team anymore.
 
Yeah, but is Microsoft really keeping RARE from making good games? I find it hard to believe the people at RARE would come up with some great ideas and Microsoft would just shoot them down.
 
Azureth said:
Yeah, but is Microsoft really keeping RARE from making good games? I find it hard to believe the people at RARE would come up with some great ideas and Microsoft would just shoot them down.
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The problem lies with the fact that the new crew of rareware developers have no talent or creativity to speak of and Microsoft isn't doing anything to change that. Why would they? They merely wanted to buy out the competition.
 
So do we know for a fact most of the original people at rare are gone?
 
I did enjoy the Viva Pinata games. But yeah, their golden days are long gone now.
 
Much like movies if you liked Aliens, you'd seek out more work done by James Cameron, not FOX. If you like a game it's better to follow the Developers of parts you liked rather than the studio or publisher. Bethesda developed/published Morrowind that does not mean you should expect Rogue Warrior to be any good.
 
piscian18 said:
Much like movies if you liked Aliens, you'd seek out more work done by James Cameron, not FOX. If you like a game it's better to follow the Developers of parts you liked rather than the studio or publisher. Bethesda developed/published Morrowind that does not mean you should expect Rogue Warrior to be any good.
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This, pretty much. Microsoft may have bought the company, but that doesn't mean it employs the same people.

Also, when these sorts of things happen, it usually seems to be predicated on the publisher wanting to own one or two specific sets of intellectual property. Microsoft did the same thing with Bungie - they basically made Bungie all about Halo and stopped pursuing all the other, riskier games, like Oni. Once the IP in question has been done to death, the studio struggles to produce anything new.
 
What about ID software? They went to shit after Quake 2 (some say Q3).

The talent moves on, sometimes because of an acquisition and being confined to a new corporate policy. Follow the talent. There have been a few games that have came out that were indie games, but created by gaming veterans.

Didn't Bungie do good after Microsoft bought them?
 
As much as I have a special place in my heart for Goldeney; in retrospect, it isn't really a very good FPS.
 
piscian18 said:
Much like movies if you liked Aliens, you'd seek out more work done by James Cameron, not FOX. If you like a game it's better to follow the Developers of parts you liked rather than the studio or publisher. Bethesda developed/published Morrowind that does not mean you should expect Rogue Warrior to be any good.
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I liked prometheus.

and I'm a pretty big fan of Alien.
 
Trimlock said:
I liked prometheus.

and I'm a pretty big fan of Alien.
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I think the reveal of the connection to alien felt a bit like pandering, While the space jockey reveal is cool it was a bit of a let down. The "lets pet an alien" scene was unforgivable. Other than that I enjoyed it immensely. More often than not I watch RS/JC movies for the cinematics which as usual were great and the attention to detail was perfect. I'm still interested in seeing it in theatres again if I have time and look forward to a sequel. The reveal actually follows my personal beliefs and makes a lot of sense. This is similar to the Creator/Intelligent design explanation given in Bio-Booster Armor Guyver if anyone remembers what that is.

*Don't worry I didn't spoil anything*


Holy shit bat-on topic.

It's sad to see RARE dead and buried. I remember as a kid being awestruck by the graphics and art in Donkey Kong Country. I recall something like it being very difficult to even do on SNES due to the lack of RAM or Processing power on the system. One of the prettiest most enjoyable games on the system. Loved the music.
 
Same thing that causes all these companies to go to shit. Look at Vivendi did when merging Activision to Blizzard. Yeah yeah I know I know, they were still "seperate".
 
piscian18 said:
I think the reveal of the connection to alien felt a bit like pandering, While the space jockey reveal is cool it was a bit of a let down. The "lets pet an alien" scene was unforgivable. Other than that I enjoyed it immensely. More often than not I watch RS/JC movies for the cinematics which as usual were great and the attention to detail was perfect. I'm still interested in seeing it in theatres again if I have time and look forward to a sequel. The reveal actually follows my personal beliefs and makes a lot of sense. This is similar to the Creator/Intelligent design explanation given in Bio-Booster Armor Guyver if anyone remembers what that is.

*Don't worry I didn't spoil anything*
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Wow, I really do want to keep going off topic with this, as I have had some of the same views, and Guyver was a horrible yet amazing movie (2nd was just as bad/good as the first).

Rare still has good titles but no developer is the same for ever. It doesn't matter if you get bought out or not, if you don't have the same creative thinkers your games with be bland or wildly different and if you don't have the same writers you will have some buggy games.

Take id software for example, a lot of their critical thinking left when the John Romero and Tom Hall left but the software side of the games are still very much top caliber.
 
Majinhoju said:
I did enjoy the Viva Pinata games. But yeah, their golden days are long gone now.
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Viva Pinata was truly fun. I loved both of them even as a grown adult. Rare managed to capture that magic again with those games but other than that they really have just disappeared.

I thought I heard something about them working on a big secret title right now. Guess we'll find out in the future.
 
It is MS's fault. I don't say this as an MS hater (I quite like Windows) just as a fact. MS is strange when it comes to their game studios.

So in some ways, they are good. Any project they commit to, they'll fund as needed. They don't cut funding for arbitrary reasons or ship half done items and so on. If they buy in to a project, they fund it. Also the studios get to pitch projects to them like regular with a developer-publisher relationship.

The problem is that MS only wants sequels or otherwise proven things. They don't want to take any risks. So they shoot down anything that isn't something they've already done basically. They give no real creative options, you just keep cranking on what you've already done.

Not only does that lead to stagnation in general, but it leads to good creative people leaving since it is boring.
 
No Killer Instinct 3 and No Conkers Bad Fur Day 2......lame.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
As much as I have a special place in my heart for Goldeney; in retrospect, it isn't really a very good FPS.
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Compared to current games, sure. But, without Goldeneye (which many others trying to emulate), many of todays games would be shit. Goldeneye brought a great multiplayer mode.... Come to think of it, it was a great FPS. Updated graphics, and it'd still be pretty good.

Conker was a great game. That's one I would love to see come out again.
 
Ur_Mom said:
Compared to current games, sure. But, without Goldeneye (which many others trying to emulate), many of todays games would be shit. Goldeneye brought a great multiplayer mode.... Come to think of it, it was a great FPS. Updated graphics, and it'd still be pretty good.

Conker was a great game. That's one I would love to see come out again.
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Actually compared to PC FPS games it was horrible. Both controls and graphically it was pretty bad when compared, but the seperation back then between console gamers and PC gamers was pretty big and Goldeneye was the best there was.
 
Trimlock said:
Actually compared to PC FPS games it was horrible. Both controls and graphically it was pretty bad when compared, but the seperation back then between console gamers and PC gamers was pretty big and Goldeneye was the best there was.
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I forgot to add that. At the time, it was basically the best console FPS, yes.
 
Trimlock said:
Wow, I really do want to keep going off topic with this, as I have had some of the same views, and Guyver was a horrible yet amazing movie (2nd was just as bad/good as the first).

Rare still has good titles but no developer is the same for ever. It doesn't matter if you get bought out or not, if you don't have the same creative thinkers your games with be bland or wildly different and if you don't have the same writers you will have some buggy games.

Take id software for example, a lot of their critical thinking left when the John Romero and Tom Hall left but the software side of the games are still very much top caliber.
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I cant remember if the movies explain humanities origin. The original anime and manga lay everything out.

Agreed probably because I wasn't a fan I just assumed Id has always been Id but apparently not. RAGE supposedly shares 0 in common with the historical Id titles.
 
piscian18 said:
I cant remember if the movies explain humanities origin. The original anime and manga lay everything out.

Agreed probably because I wasn't a fan I just assumed Id has always been Id but apparently not. RAGE supposedly shares 0 in common with the historical Id titles.
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From what I remember Rage completely changed just before the buyout, possibly due to the buyout or the people were just retiring. I know they were old though, so its unknown if the original owners just wanted to keep the company name alive while they enjoy their retirement.

Guyver movies didn't explain poop, but the manga was very good. If I remember they read much like a michael crichton book. Explain humanities origin in a very similar but less believable fasion as Alien. There are still plenty of holes in the story they left open to be filled by the follow on but from what I gathered its very much similar to what I had already imagined.
 
Trimlock said:
Take id software for example, a lot of their critical thinking left when the John Romero and Tom Hall left but the software side of the games are still very much top caliber.
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Romero really didn't bring much to the table — not on the design side nor on the technical side. Hall has proven himself as a great designer, but it's not clear how much influence he had on Doom.
 
Trimlock said:
Actually compared to PC FPS games it was horrible. Both controls and graphically it was pretty bad when compared, but the seperation back then between console gamers and PC gamers was pretty big and Goldeneye was the best there was.
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Yeah right. In 1997 what PC FPS games put Goldeneye 007 to shame? No really I want to hear this crap. I'm waiting.
 
RIP:
ACES Studio
Ensemble Studios
FASA Studio
Digital Anvil

all killed by MS for making good PC games. Now every MS game studio is making Xbox games.
 
wonderfield said:
Romero really didn't bring much to the table — not on the design side nor on the technical side. Hall has proven himself as a great designer, but it's not clear how much influence he had on Doom.
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I figured Hall was where the creativity was, but I was just making a point that those two left and id basically changed.
 
Didn't you guys see the biography on rare on YouTube?

Basically Rare execs worked their designers to the ground and after Perfect Dark fiasco, rare had a ton of people walk out on them.


Word to the wise... Treat your help well!
 
ZodaEX said:
Yeah right. In 1997 what PC FPS games put Goldeneye 007 to shame? No really I want to hear this crap. I'm waiting.
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Can't say 97, but 98 = Half-Life, and 99 = Q3A.

Rare should have done a KI3 especially lately since Capcom reinvigorated the fighting game market with SF4 and then MvC3. Hell they could have remade KI+KI2 for XBLA and probably made quite a bit of money.
 
wonderfield said:
Of the three major PC FPS titles released in '97, two of them put Goldeneye to shame: Quake II and Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II.
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hell you could say quake put it to shame.. heheheh.. Though im a fan of goldeneye. It was a great game for console.
 
This thread started just in time for a former RARE employee to comment.

"I think Rare have completely f#@$ed themselves. And - it isn't their fault; it's Microsoft's fault. They have completely ruined that company, and it makes me cry every day of my life."
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SOURCE
 
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