Rare Ltd., also known as Rareware, was one of the first developers to receive development kits for Nintendo’s Dolphin. Rare Ltd’s Chairman and technical director Chris Stamper
spoke on IBM’s “Gekko” processor chip which would help power GameCube’s hardware. “Designing games is an ever-changing process, and this chip with its speed and seamless data flow, will allow us to make even more amazing games, ” explained Stamper. “Consumers will love the end result with the upcoming system.”
Asked how he felt about Rareware’s E3 2000 lineup, Shigeru Miyamoto said that Rare had been very influential on the industry, and they had encouraged Nintendo to experiment with more genres.
“We are very thankful that Rare is creating such great games. Rare has done a lot for the gaming industry. All of Rare’s games are 3D, but they all have very different gameplay. They are encouraging us to create a different genre of games that departs from 3D adventure gaming,” said Miyamoto.
During that same E3 2000 event, Miyamoto was asked in a
seperate interview about his thoughts on Rare’s Dinosaur Planet. “It looks really nice, doesn’t it? I wish they would use Star Fox characters so that they could use the title Star Fox Adventures. Maybe I should call the team and talk about it [laughs],” said Miyamoto. One year later at E3 2001, “Dinosaur Planet” would reappear as “Star Fox Adventures”.
Rare Ltd would have at least seven projects in development for Nintendo’s GameCube, but only “Star Fox Adventures” would actually release on the console:
- Quest
- Kameo: Elements of Power
- Donkey Kong Racing
- Perfect Dark Zero
- Conker’s Other Bad Day
- Star Fox Adventures
- Grabbed by the Ghoulies
On February 2000, Rareware
registered a domain address www.velvetdark.com which sparked discussion about whether Rare was working on a new Perfect Dark sequel. Six months later at Spaceworld 2000, Rare showed off a
GameCube tech demo for Perfect Dark featuring a 3D model of Joanna Dark. Fast forward to Nintendo’s E3 2001 conference, reporters
asked Ken Lobb about the possibility of a Perfect Dark sequel. Lobb replied, “It’s out there. We’re making it. No one will be disappointed.”
Around 2000, Rare was also
busy developing a project called “Quest”, an multi-massive online RPG for the Nintendo GameCube. One year later, “Quest” would change direction and become a MMO Space shooter with Mark Edmonds programming, Duncan Botwood designing, and Chris Seavor handling the art direction. Nintendo’s online strategy for GameCube was still unclear at the time, but Rare continued developing the project anyways.
At E3 2001, three GameCube games developed by Rare were shown to the press: “Kameo: Elements of Power”, “Star Fox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet” (later renamed to just “Star Fox Adventures”), and “Donkey Kong Racing”. I asked Lee Musgrave, lead designer of Donkey Kong Racing, why we only saw a CGI video but never any actual gameplay. Musgrave told me that “Donkey Kong Racing” was in an early prototype stage with playable gameplay, and he explained to me how the game would have worked.
“Ha! – yes, I made that [E3 2001 CGI video]! . . . Donkey Kong Racing was obviously pretty heavily tied to Nintendo as a franchise, and as Rare approached the finalization of a buyout deal with Microsoft it was clear that the game had no future, at least with
the ape’s as characters,” said Musgrave.
“[Donkey Kong Racing] was a pure racing game, the underlying software mechanics were actually based on car physics, but it also incorporated the idea of riders jumping between different animals mid-race, to always be riding the ones that were bigger or faster . . .
we had some awesome gameplay in place, and it was lots of fun –
we even had a multiplayer version working – and when you fell off, you had to tap-tap-tap (HyperSports style) to run on foot and catch up with an animal,” said Musgrave.
In December 2001, Rare Ltd. sent out Christmas cards featuring a Christmas tree with presents wrapped in the shapes of GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. The card’s message read “…and surprises under every tree”. The card sparked rumors across the internet with insiders claiming that the company had development kits for Xbox and PlayStation 2 in their possession. Tim and Chris Stamper, the founders of Rare, were interested in selling their company to a third party publisher so they could publish on multiple platforms. The U.K. developer approached major U.S. publishers such as Activision, Electronic Arts, and Disney about acquiring them.
Nintendo owned half of Rare Ltd, and they had already extended their option to acquire Rare by one year. Unfortunately, the aggressive bidding war between Activision and Microsoft reached a point where Nintendo didn’t want to be involved anymore. The deal with Activision eventually broke off, and Microsoft was looking to swoop in and grab the company for themselves.
Microsoft Game Studios Ed Fries
explained to Eurogamer, “If they [Nintendo] didn’t exercise that option then Rare had the option to find a buyer for Nintendo’s half. Nintendo had already extended the option by one year, but it looked like they weren’t going to acquire the other half of Rare, so the Rare guys started looking around to see if anyone else might be interested. We were a logical choice for them to call.”
Although Microsoft was the highest bidder to purchase Rare, Nintendo still had the priority option to purchase the company. To prevent Nintendo from buying Rare, Microsoft
raised their bid as high as possible so Nintendo wouldn’t be able to match it.
“Still at this point, Nintendo had the priority option to buy the other half of Rare at the price we were offering. So, there’s a problem; if we drive a hard bargain and put in a low price for Rare, Nintendo would have the chance to buy at that low price and probably would. So, the price was high,” said Fries.
On September 24th, 2002, Microsoft paid $375 million to Nintendo to own 100% of the company. Rare would now become a first party developer for Microsoft, and games like “Donkey Kong Racing” would end up in limbo. Martin Hollis, the producer of Goldeneye, explained that it was Hiroshi Yamauchi who shrewdly declined the offer.
“In the end I understand Mr Yamauchi [Nintendo’s President] declined to offer more than a fraction of the value Rare was asking; shrewdly, it would seem. Meanwhile Microsoft had a strategic reason to buy, two reasons really: firstly so Nintendo would not have Rare’s games, and secondly so that Microsoft would,” said Hollis
Nintendo’s George Harrison
explained to Electronic Gaming Monthly that Rareware hurt GameCube’s momentum by
failing to deliver any games within the launch window. This was compounded by the fact that Rare Ltd. was one of the first studios to receive development kits.
“…when we launched the GameCube, we put the concentration of our development kits in the hands of only a few people — internally, of course, with Mr. Miyamoto’s EAD team, but also with Rare.
And Rare didn’t deliver a single game for us at the launch, when their history had been to make some really great games for us in the past. That hurt us, and it led us into this gap of titles, starting after the launch and lasting for about seven or nine months until Mario Sunshine came out. Consumers want consistency. They would never buy a DVD player that had only one or two good movies a year; they want consistency and variety, and we’re trying hard to make sure that’s not only resolved for the GameCube, but as we go into the next system,” said Harrison
Harrison’s comments weren’t the first time that Rareware was blamed for hurting GameCube’s momentum. When Nintendo of America’s Jasmine Ramya was asked about why Nintendo was no longer working with
Rare,
this was the answer given:
“Although Nintendo doesn’t comment on rumors or speculation by the media, we can tell you that Nintendo has made the decision not to request Rare to make any further exclusive games for the Nintendo GameCube. Although we’re proud of our joint efforts with Rare over the years and have enjoyed our relationship with them, in fiscal year 2001, Rare accounted for only 9.5% of total Nintendo software revenue worldwide. In fiscal year 2002, that number declined to 1.5%. Therefore, in evaluating our investments in developers, as well as the financial benefits to Nintendo over the years, we’ve decided it’s in Nintendo’s best interests to focus on diversifying our portfolio of developers and projects,” said Ramya.
Both responses seemed unusual for a company that stresses quality over quantity. At the same time, Microsoft had jacked up the bidding price so high that Nintendo would be forced to decline the offer. Employees at Rareware seemed happy with the buyout since Microsoft’s ownership would mean financial stability for the studio. But that financial stability would come at the cost of killing creativity and cancelling projects.
A Rare employee
told Gamekult, “Several of us just got fed up, so we left. Beating down our creativity was definitely part of it, but it’s more than that. It’s more like having a strict parent telling you don’t do this and don’t do that. It’s just the environment there. Guess we should have been careful what we wished for. I guess we saw the grass as being greener with Microsoft coming in. Nintendo had always been strict with our compliance to their ideas or standards as they would call it. We figured things would be better after the deal went through,” the employee continues. “Microsoft is much stricter, the my way or the highway type. Nintendo was more of the this is how you should do it. You don’t have to, but we highly recommend you do. Highly recommend.”
In 2012, I spoke to former Rareware employee Don Murphy about the Rareware/Microsoft acquisition. He had worked on games such as “Conker’s Bad Fur Day”, “Killer Instinct”, and “Perfect Dark Zero”. Murphy says Microsoft bought the company because they only had the hardcore shooter market, and Rare would help the Xbox brand reach a broader, family friendly market.
Murphy says, “At first it seemed that they wouldn’t interfere much, but it was soon clear that they were more interested in using Rare to help aim at a younger market. This stifled a lot of creativity, Rare was renowned for their diverse portfolio, so to not be involved in making Mature games was a real blow. When the stampers left it seemed that Microsoft was losing faith in Rare, it was hard to take when all around were incredibly talented people, with massive amounts of experience. There [were] numerous projects that were put forward that I believe would have been huge hits, but MS rejected them one after the other. I remember seeing a couple of prototypes that Chris Seavor had designed and was working on, that looked amazing, but alas they got shelved. It seemed that MS didn’t want to take the risk in Rare doing anything outside the younger demographic, they quickly forgot the company’s heritage. We started to lose a lot of great talent then, people were losing job satisfaction, so they just left.”
Murphy was not the only person who believed the atmosphere at Rare had severely changed after the Microsoft acquisition. Phil Tossel, another former Rare developer, had worked on games such as “Diddy Kong Racing” and “Dinosaur Planet”. Tosell
told Eurogamer, “For me personally, the atmosphere became much more stifling and a lot more stressful. There was an overall feeling that you weren’t really in control of what you were doing and that you weren’t really trusted either.”
When I
asked Lee Musgrave in 2012 why he left Rare, he said one reason was because there had been less emphasis being on placed on attention to detail to make games great, and more emphasis on just getting things ‘done’.
“I’d been there for 17 years by the time I left and by the end, the Rare I joined had gone. I don’t really attribute that to anything that Microsoft did, but the simple migration to becoming part of a mammoth organisation inevitably changes the atmosphere of a hitherto insular place like Rare. Some of the people embraced the corporate culture whilst others, like me, felt that there was not enough emphasis being placed on real attention to detail or iteration of ideas/features in order to make them great, rather than just being ‘done’ and able to be ticked from a list,” said Musgrave.
The biggest internet myth is that Nintendo wasn’t interested in buying the other 50% of Rare. Nintendo
wanted to buy the other half of Rare, and that’s why they asked for a one year extension to look over all of their options. The problem is Rare’s founders wanted a giant bidding war between Microsoft, Nintendo, and Activision to boost the value of their company. When comparing financial investments, the price of Retro Studios ($1 million) was a drop in the bucket compared to the $300 million that companies were bidding to buy Rare Ltd.
