Rare, Ltd.
Overview
Rare was formed in England in 1982 by
Chris and
Tim Stamper, under the original name of
Ultimate Play the Game. They made many classic games for the home computers of that era (primarily the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64) and were instrumental in the commercialisation of the computer games industry via their pricing, packaging and advertising policies.
In 1985 the Stampers sold the
Ultimate name to
US Gold (who produced all
Ultimate games post-
Gunfright) and began to develop for the NES under the name of
Rare Ltd. The name was however still used until 1986 and
Dragon Skulle was the last game to use it.
Rare Coin-it, a sister company, was formed in Miami under separate directorship, but
Rare only produced four coin-ops (only one of which it published itself).
They produced an astounding number of NES games including the classic
RC Pro-Am and the
Battletoads franchise (possibly based on the then-topical success of the
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). During the NES days Rare became allied with
Zippo Games, later buying that company from
Steve and
John Pickford and renaming it
Rare Manchester. During this period Rare developed many licenses, and also programmed conversions. This attitude seemed at odds with the quality and originality of the
Ultimate days.
This was to change, however. Wishing to avoid becoming 'just another' games development company, in 1993/4 Rare risked the expense of a great deal of silicon graphics technology. This resulted in the creation of the
Donkey Kong Country series for the SNES, games which stretched the industry's perceptions of the graphical capabilities of the SNES and put Rare on the triple-A map.
Killer Instinct for the arcades (published by
Midway, with subsequent console conversions published by
Nintendo) used the same technology with similarly successful results.
Killer Instinct went on to become the 'third choice' 2D fighting game of the era after
Street Fighter II and
Mortal Kombat.
The creation of
Donkey Kong Country, apart from making Rare rich (it was released after the release of the SEGA Saturn, toward the end of the SNES' lifetime, resulting in it being the only obvious product for SNES owners to buy that Christmas), sealed Rare's relationship with Nintendo. Nintendo had bought 25% of Rare shares in 1995, meaning that Rare became a Nintendo second party developer. This relationship flourished after the release of the N64, which Rare supported with a string of high quality, high selling games.
GoldenEye 007 sold around 5 million copies worldwide, a statistic that suggests that Rare was then one of the world's premier developers, and need never feel financial pain again.
In September 2002 Rare was bought by
Microsoft for an alleged $375 million and they were tasked to develop two launch titles for the new Xbox 360 console that was released in November 2005:
Kameo: Elements of Power and
Perfect Dark Zero. Although fairly well received, they didn't match the success of Rare's earlier system sellers. In the first three years after the Microsoft acquisition Rare also created titles for
THQ such as
Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge and
Banjo Pilot (2005) in the
Banjo-Kazooie series, as well as
Sabre Wulf (2004) and
It's Mr. Pants (2004). Rare also made two titles for Microsoft for the original Xbox:
Grabbed by the Ghoulies (2003) and
Conker: Live & Reloaded (2005).
In January 2007, it was announced that co-founders Chris and Tim Stamper were leaving the company that they once founded to pursue other opportunities. After the Xbox 360 launch titles Rare was almost unique focused on creating the
Viva Piñata franchise for Microsoft. Others projects were
Diddy Kong Racing DS (2007) returning to an original franchise,
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (2008) as another entry in a long-running series, and the XBLA game
Jetpac Refuelled (2007).
As one of Microsoft's cornerstone developers Rare created
Kinect Sports for the launch of Xbox 360 Kinect peripheral in November 2010, as the equivalent of
Wii Sports for the Nintendo Wii launch, even though
Kinect Sports was not bundled with the device.
Also Known As
- Rareware (from 1994 to 2003)
- Rare Ltd. (from 1987 to 1994)
- Ultimate - Play the Game (from 1983 to 1986)
- Ashby Computers and Graphics Ltd. (from 1983 to 1994)
Trivia
Even though the company worked on many titles,
Kameo: Elements of Power was Rare's first launch game for a console. It appeared on the Xbox 360 in 2005.
Related Web-Sites
- Rare, Ltd. -- The Official homepage
- Mundo Rare -- A Spanish Rare fansite with comprehensive information that is also English-friendly.
- RareNet -- A collaborative index of all things Rare
- The Rare Witch Project -- A Rare fansite specializing in unlocking game secrets.
- Ultimate Wurlde -- A largely static site with lots of information on the company, the mystique, and the games.
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