Is Rare dead?

by Paul on Sep 23rd, 2011

Is Rare dead? A lot of people on the web are saying that they are. They’ll point to the glorious days of the N64 as evidence that Rare’s best work is behind them. They motion towards the studio’s releases on Xbox 360 and gesticulate that none of these are even close to the wonders of GoldenEye and Killer Instinct. They’ll scream that Kinect Sports is nothing more than a Wii Sports copycat and that Rare is resigned to making a string of sports-based games from here on in to appeal to the mass market whilst doing their best to erase their enviable past from memory. Is all this accurate or even fair? What is clear is that the majority of this discussion comes from the gamers who were around back in the day to enjoy Rare’s N64 releases first hand. Is it any wonder that they are swayed towards the past when you see the fruit of this generation’s efforts? What of the gamers who are too young to remember staying up into the early hours playing GoldenEye multiplayer with three mates in dark and dingy student digs? What of the gamers who have only ever known Viva Pinata and Perfect Dark Zero and playing Banjo-Kazooie now on XBLA is a curious but ultimately unfulfilling history lesson? By and large you will not find them engaging in this debate, the reasons for which I will go into later.

I have to say that I think the current generation titles from Rare are all very good. I loved Grabbed By The Ghoulies and the Viva Pinata games are all excellent. These are all extremely under-rated by many people who dismiss them without ever having played them and that is a real shame. As for the other titles, if you looked up the term ‘missed opportunity’ on Wikipedia it wouldn’t surprise me to find Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo listed as definitions of the phrase. As enjoyable as I find them it’s pretty obvious that the push to be ready for the 360s launch was their ultimate undoing. Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts tried so hard to appeal to both the old fans and new players who have no prior knowledge of Banjo that it ended up unravelling under the pressure. All that hard work on the truly phenomenal vehicle building portion of the game went to waste on a steady stream of races and fetch quests. Which brings me to Kinect Sports, a game that has been the true spark to the fire of anger that has flared up. It has sold over three million copies. It is no secret that Kinect Sports was the best Kinect launch title by a country mile so while its sales figures are great, they are not all that surprising when you consider that a lot of stores were bundling Kinect Sports in with Kinect or pushing that as the title that best demonstrated what the device could do. It’s easy to understand why (although a little disappointing to see) Microsoft commissioned a sequel straight away to help keep up the momentum, but here-in lies my main problem with modern Rare; the Kinect device itself.

I have long held the belief that the Kinect add-on can do great things to help introduce new gameplay elements when handled correctly but I firmly believe that it needs to be deployed as an addition to controller-based gaming where the game in question will benefit with its inclusion, not just shoe-horned in with the notion that it’s “better with Kinect”. Child Of Eden is a great example. Once you’ve got over the wow factor of using your arms in-game, as the difficulty increases and your timing needs to be spot-on, you soon go back to playing with the controller. Kinect just isn’t good enough to quickly and accurately capture your movements. Developers are starting to realise this and we are seeing a change in stance regarding Kinect integration (look to Halo: Anniversary and Forza Motorsport 4 for examples) but to date Rare has resolutely stuck to their ‘all or nothing’ approach to Kinect and I feel that is a great shame. It limits their ability and potential to design and deliver the games they are renowned for because the Kinect device simply isn’t that good at capturing your movements to make controller-free gaming a realistic proposition in most genres. This may change as the technology improves but right now nearly all of the games available for it only serve to highlight where the device falls short rather than show off what it is good at. Admittedly Rare are the exception to this and the two Kinect Sports games are incredibly immersive, but where can you see this going once they are done with sports? I find it very hard to think of other styles of games where ‘Kinect only’ is going to be applied as successfully as using a controller. Maybe it’s my own small and closed mind that is not seeing the potential of the device but I feel that by sticking rigidly to this ‘Kinect only’ ethos there’s been a lot of potential games that we would have otherwise seen by now if they were developing with a controller / Kinect combo in mind. Whether it’s Rare themselves who have decided to stick to this or whether it’s a directive from their overlords that has been sent down, the fact is games should be crafted with whatever works best, not made to crudely fit on Kinect just because that’s the latest tech that Microsoft are trying to sell. I also don’t understand why it’s only Rare who seem to be ‘Kinect only’. No other developers are being pushed down this route. Why is that? With the staff and resources at Rare, where there used to be three developments team working simultaneously back in the N64 days, why is it not possible to have one team working on Kinect stuff and another on something more in keeping with what I’d call a traditional controller-based Rare game; a 3D platformer, a first person shooter, or even – whisper it – Killer Instinct 3? Ask anyone who’s played B-K: N&B about what their favourite bit was and I reckon a fair few would have found the exploratory adventuring elements in Showdown Town near the top of their list. It was an exciting glimpse into what could be possible if a full-on Banjo-Threeie (no vehicles!) were to be made. Someone within Rare or Microsoft must surely be looking at the splendid Street Fighter IV and the re-emergence of the fighter / brawler scene and realising that it doesn’t necessarily have to be about bringing something new to the genre. There’s nothing wrong with producing a refined update with a couple of new characters. Hell, I’d settle for an XBLA re-release of the original KI with upgraded graphics!

Having said all that, it would be easy for me to blame Rare’s insistence on only developing for Kinect for all this negative feeling I’m reading online and leave it there but the problems also have a lot to do with Rare’s new philosophy and approach to their back catalogue. They have stated on numerous occasions that they have no desire to go back to their old titles and that Kinect is the way forward, and in doing so they have alienated the majority of their current fan base who have no desire for Kinect. Not that this matters to them though as they have seen the potential to grab onto a new market of casual players; three million new gamers can’t be bad? What Microsoft and Rare have neglected to notice is that these newcomers are not the sort to be browsing the internet to find out more about Rare, feverishly devouring every screenshot and nugget of info that they can, where word of mouth on forums is just as invaluable as millions spent on marketing. These Johnny-come-latelys just wander into a shop, scan the Kinect-only titles and plump for what is the most appealing or whatever the sales person is pushing that particular week. There’s no prior knowledge amongst this new breed of casual gamer of Rare and their immense history, no buying the game purely off the strength of Rare’s reputation; they are buying it because it’s Microsoft’s answer to Wii Sports. A good way to demonstrate this point is the recent request on Rare’s website for questions for the Kinect Sports team. The deadline had to be extended three times because of an apparent lack of interest; the old fans – the people who are visiting the site – simply didn’t care enough about the game to be sending in questions and I’d bet good money that if you spoke to the majority of the new casual gamers they would not know who Rare are, let alone have the desire to go hunting them down online to be submitting questions about the game’s development. For them, Kinect Sports is just a good way to keep the family entertained during birthday parties and over the Christmas period.

Rare’s emergence as Nintendo’s premier second-party developer was timed to coincide perfectly with the rise of the internet and a whole generation have spent far too much time talking about their games and trying to dig out every last bit of info on upcoming releases. There was a period back in the late 90s where the excitement and anticipation was at an almost feverish level. We loved Rare, adored them, they could do no wrong … game development gods amongst mortals. I can remember being online after Banjo-Kazooie’s release and taking part in many discussions about Stop ‘n Swap. Debates about what the items did and how they would interact with B-K’s sequel would rage long into the night. It was a fun and exciting time and the misty-eyed nostalgia nerd in me looks back very fondly on that particular summer holiday and the following years were a heady mix of excitement, fun and nervousness as each new release would spark periods spent online that would stretch way into the early hours discussing Rare games, checking out all of the various fan sites that were running (some of which were incredibly basic compared to these advanced days of Web 2.0 but for all of the lack of polish, the love and passion for the subject matter was plain to see) and reading through Rare’s own website where the Scribes page would offer tantalising glimpses into life at Twycross. We’d have all the game soundtracks on CD playing on a loop while we carried out our online escapades (and these CDs live on as mp3s on my iPod to this day, getting regular playtime during bus rides to work) and when we weren’t doing all that online we were playing the games themselves! Countless hours of my life have been spent cocooned within Rare games and their style and humour have infiltrated my life to the extent that I know they have been a direct influence on who I am today. My life is richer for having played their games. It sounds cheesy and slightly embarrassing but it is true and I want all the Rare staff to know that, not just me but for thousands of others.

But … maybe all that rose-tinted stuff is the real issue here? To see that steady stream of triple A games slowly dry up, to be replaced with stuff aimed at a more mainstream, casual market is awkward to understand. It’s painful, almost a betrayal. Can the company who have provided so much fun and enjoyment for me over the years be so eager to move on and leave me hanging with only memories for company? We have to stop. Deep breath. Be objective. Is Rare dead? Of course not, it is alive and well. We should be grateful they haven’t gone the way of Bizarre. Rare is a business and as a business it’s only doing what it can to survive in a very difficult industry. They have changed their scope to remain relevant in today’s marketplace where funding the kind of games we were used to is fast becoming unsustainable … and that is when it hit me. The problem here is that the question being asked is wrong. It’s not about Rare being dead; three million sales in this current climate is something that most game studios can only dream of. Instead, each of us should be asking “is Rare relevant to me any more?”. It’s not about the current activities at Rare, it is about us as individuals. We need to encourage some internal reflection, to stop and think about Rare as it is today, not as it was fifteen years ago. Do these new games appeal to you? Do you enjoy playing them?

Me? I can honestly answer yes to those questions and I know that Rare are still relevant to me. I thought Kinect Sports was very good, just as I know that Season Two will be as well. That does not stop me from looking back wistfully at all those games I’ve grown up with and wishing that there were more of the same coming out of Twycross but I know that this is not going to happen and I am not so blinded by fan boy fury to realise that catering for a small to middling band of retro enthusiasts would be career suicide for Rare. I have to console myself with playing the originals on my dusty N64s. Rare is not the same as it was in the mid to late 1990s. People move on, new blood comes in, the path of the studio changes. We have not changed with it. We need to face the realisation that we will no longer be getting those games of old, to stop looking back at what was and look to the future and embrace the company that Rare has become, as hard as that may be for some. It is sad, but if you cannot reconcile these changes then sometimes the only option is to say goodbye and admit that the love affair we’ve enjoyed has run its natural course. Rare deserve credit for having the guts to have go at something new, to try and keep it fresh, even if it alienates those who have supported them in the past. When the alternative is seeing the staff being laid off and the studio closing its doors, I know which I would choose. Whatever we may see in terms of future games, the old classics are still with us waiting to be played and enjoyed all over again and you never know, maybe one day we will see a return to those old franchises. Until then, let’s just be grateful for the fact that Rare are still in a position to be making games, thankful for the fun and enjoyment they’ve been able to provide over the years and hold some degree of hope that the next title we see come roaring through the Rare gates is something to truly blow the mind. I’m optimistic about the future post-Kinect Sports. I hope you are too.

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