Rare Gamer’s response to Mundo Rare’s closure

by Paul on Jul 30th, 2010

Oh dear, oh dear. If I were Rare’s PR / marketing team I’d be tempted to reach for the headache tablets right about now. Either that or a double scotch. It’s been a pretty bad couple of days all told, what with the world and his mate all queuing up to sling mud and abuse in Rare’s direction. Even the mainstream gaming press is getting in on the action; they should know better. I know that Rare will just rise above it and in a couple of days it will all blow over but none of it is fair in my opinion and while I’ll readily admit that Rare’s output has not matched the heady heights of the N64 days, the standard of software coming out of Twycross post-Starfox Adventures has still been excellent and I have enjoyed them all immensely. The games all had their various faults and issues (very few games don’t) but reading some of the comments on various video game forums you’d think that Rare had been kicking puppies and running up behind old ladies in the street and pushing them into the path of an oncoming bus, such is the level of vitriol aimed at the company. That’s the problem with the online video game community; all sense of proportion goes out the window.

I’d suggest that the majority of criticism leveled at Rare should instead be re-directed at Microsoft for what I consider to be a woeful amount of support when it comes to pushing games and supporting them pre- and post-release. Let’s take B-K:N&B as an example; it was an important release for Rare; not only did it hope to appease the demands of the hardcore fans who have been waiting for a new entry in the B-K series for a decade, but it also had to appeal to the new, casual market that Microsoft are so desperate to capture. Doing both of those things whilst trying to make a game that is befitting of next gen status isn’t easy, let alone trying to do it within the confines of the Banjo universe. I really enjoyed B-K:N&B. It was a good idea, although more variety in the missions would have been nice, and the vehicle creation tools were excellent and well implemented. Regardless of which side of the fence you sit on concerning the form the game should have taken, this is something you cannot deny. I’ve already been pretty vocal about the fact that whatever Rare did with Nuts & Bolts they’d get some stick for it as you can’t please everyone but some of the negative feedback really was verging on being rude and disrespectful. However, that all comes from the existing Rare hardcore fans. Remember all those new and casual gamers I mentioned? How many of those do you think went out and bought it? Judging by the sales figures not many and that is all down to the lack of marketing and advertising for the game. When you consider how much cash Microsoft blow on plugging Halo, GTA and Gears Of War (games that will all sell by the pallet-load regardless) the marketing for B-K was pitiful and it doesn’t matter how good a game is, with such a lack of support you won’t get very far. There-in lies the problem in a nutshell; Rare are producing great games but Microsoft are not doing enough to promote them. This results in poor sales and we find ourselves in a position where Rare are “dying”, with everyone jumping onto the bandwagon to declare how Rare are on their last legs and nothing they do is any good. The fact that their next game is being declared as a Wii Sports rip-off doesn’t help. I’m not Kinect’s greatest fan and I do feel that Microsoft are chasing a market that are quite content to stay with their Wiis, but that feeling has no correlation to what Rare are producing. They’ve been given the chance to work with a new bit of tech that looks like it holds a lot of potential. As first efforts go it looks like good fun and as long as I’m not reduced to a hot and sweaty mass too quickly then I’m well up for it.

This brings me on to the closure of Mundo Rare, which seems to have flipped a switch with the majority who are all ready to queue up and slag off our favourite developer. I’ve read through their announcement a few times now and at first I read it with an air of sadness and regret. It was a real shame to see them close. They are arguably one of the most famous of the Rare fan sites and have certainly been the most high-profile over the last few years, such is their knack to score exclusives such as the GoldenEye XBLA remake that never was. However, as I read it again something caught my eye … “What we started as a hobby had become something else, and we decided that if we wanted to keep the website alive, we had to start getting something in return”. Now I don’t know about you but that comment struck me as inherently wrong. Sites like Rare Gamer and Mundo Rare exist because we love Rare and their games. The internet is a format that allows us to express this and gives other people from around the world the chance to do the same in our forums. We certainly didn’t go into this expecting anything from Rare like some kind of reward or incentive to keep the site running. They are a company, we are their fans. For Rare to acknowledge our existence and to respond to our e-mails is the greatest feeling in the world and this is something we never expected when we started out. Exactly what Mundo Rare asked of Rare in return to keep their site live I do not know but I would never dream of laying such a demand on the table. This site continues to operate because we love doing it and look forward to covering and discussing Rare’s future releases with all the other Rare fans out there, Kinect Sports included, and not because we are expecting Rare to give us something in return. Some of you have expressed concerns that we might follow suit and close. You have nothing to worry about. We’re going nowhere.

Of course, it is bound to be frustrating to go through all the planning and setup of a project like this, especially if initial discussions were good, only to see it cancelled but sometimes that’s just how things go. If the powers that be decided that the video wasn’t the most flattering of projects then that is their call to make. From what I read it was quite clear that certain portions of the video were focusing rather too much on how good things used to be and how things are decidedly less rosy now. Let’s not forget that the proposal was to have this on Xbox Live’s Video Marketplace. This changes the scope of the project significantly and there’s no way that something like that would get the thumbs up from Microsoft, even if Rare were happy to indulge Mundo Rare’s request. Mundo Rare also cite within their article that the apparent shift in focus that Rare are taking has contributed to the closure, arguing that Rare are now looking to appeal to a different audience. I don’t agree with that. Rare still caters for all their old fans, all they’ve done is widen the net a little bit to capture some new ones. I found the Mundo Rare write-up of the Kinect Sports reveal to be overly negative. Sure, I was definitely not expecting to see Kinect Sports and there was a tinge of regret that we didn’t get something more in keeping with what we’ve seen from Rare in the past, but once you take a closer look at what Kinect Sports has to offer it does hold a lot of promise. I can’t wait to play it.

The thing that everyone needs to remember is that Rare are a big company. At one stage they had three separate teams working on different games. I don’t know if that is still the case but the assumption that Kinect Sports is the only thing they are working on right now would be foolish. There are great things on the way from Rare, I can just feel it … they’ve got all these cutting edge resources with some of the most talented guys in the business working on Kinect, plus some games that will work with a plain old controller (it wouldn’t surprise me if another N64 classic soon found its way onto XBLA) on the way and in due course we’ll find out more about them. We all know that getting information about new titles out of Rare’s HQ is comparable to trying to get a sighting of the Loch Ness monster but being patient and hanging on for new info is just one of those things we have to put up with, isn’t it?

I’m not afraid to say that I’m a true Rare fanboy, I always have been, but that doesn’t mean I’ll blindly follow them without complaint and it is important that you know that my love for the company does not adversely colour this article. I’ve had my fair share of doubts and niggles since the Microsoft buyout but it’s not right to just stare back into the past and to expect more of the same. I feel there is too much emphasis placed on Rare’s games on the N64 and we need to remember that Rare cannot survive as a company if they only trade on past hits. New ideas need to be explored, new paths need to be followed. When Rare are ready they’ll be letting all the info come out and we’ll be right there to report it. This isn’t blind faith and optimism talking, it’s a realistic and objective opinion based on things as I see it and I cannot wait to see what the future holds. Kinect Sports was a shock to the system when it was announced but the more I see of it the more I like it. You’ll find that as time moves on info on other games will be more forthcoming and when you combine this with the fact that Rare are now making more effort than ever before to engage with the community you’ll hopefully agree that it is an exciting time to be a Rare fan. As Rare get more familiar with the Kinect technology, as well ploughing all their previous experience into more traditional fare for what I’d class as the hardcore gamer, we’ll be seeing some great stuff over the coming months. We continue to be proud supporters of Rare and feel very privileged that they want to make the effort to engage with us to help keep links between themselves and the community strong. Whatever transpired between Rare and Mundo Rare, I think it’s a shame that Mundo Rare felt that they could no longer continue. They will be missed.

Categories: Staff Notices