Peter Moore: “new consumers don’t care about Rare”
Just like they didn’t about Dreamcast. Right, Pete?
About a year ago, former Xbox spokesman and professional pettifogger Peter Moore left Microsoft in order to join EA Sports. But don’t get us wrong. We do like Moore, actually. Who would provide us with such juicy bits of news otherwise? He doesn’t even need to be a Microsoft or Sega employee anymore to stir up all kinds of dirty issues related to those companies. Only a couple of days ago, he admitted to The Guardian that he was responsible of Dreamcast’s premature burial back in 2001. “Somehow I got to make that call, not the Japanese,” he recalls, “I had to fire a lot of people, it was not a pleasant day.” Now, as part of the same multi-part interview, Moore states that Rare’s deal with Microsoft hasn’t worked as expected because today’s audiences don’t see the British developer as they did before.
“I thought ultimately it would be very successful,” Moore told The Guardian, “and you know, Microsoft, we’d had a tough time getting Rare back. Perfect Dark Zero was a launch title and didn’t do as well as Perfect Dark, but we were trying all kinds of classic Rare stuff and unfortunately I think the industry had past Rare by – it’s a strong statement but what they were good at, new consumers didn’t care about anymore.” It’s no secret that Rare’s image has been deteriorated since the Nintendo years, but Moore’s point of view focuses only on one side of the problem: gamers. “It was tough because they were trying very hard – Chris and Tim Stamper were still there – to try and recreate the glory years of Rare, which is the reason Microsoft paid a lot of money for them. And I spent a lot of time getting on a train to Twycross to meet them. Great people. But their skillsets were from a different time and a different place and were not applicable in today’s market.”
Is it fair to blame users when a developer doesn’t seem to get as good feedback as it used to get? Is Rare actually that disappointing nowadays? Not really. There are more things that led to this situation. First, what Moore calls today’s market should be translated as Microsoft’s market or Xbox users. Certainly, Rare was not going to achieve huge success in the Xbox developing titles like Grabbed by the Ghoulies or Viva Piñata, whose main target audience resides in the Nintendo kingdom. Second, hardcore sequels like Perfect Dark Zero or Conker’s remake simply didn’t live up to their originals. Even though they weren’t poor games, their bad press didn’t help when it comes to regain users’ confidence. Which takes us to a third and fundamental reason why Rare lost a good portion of its past popularity: an ongoing crusade against them led by resentful media professionals dissatisfied with the company’s current endeavours. As we were told during last July’s Xbox Holiday Showcase, apparently “there are some gaming journalists who have been following their games forever, that now simply want to see them fail.” Something not that hard to believe, knowing that the dividing line between the worked up editor and the irascible gamer isn’t really there most times.
Somehow related news
- Rare responds to Moore’s constructive criticism ()
- Microsoft defends their support to Rare ()
- Peter Moore defends the importance of Rare ()
- Molyneux wants Rare to come out of the closet ()
- Microsoft could be working on Wiimote’s rip off ()
4 Comments
I think Rare has made some really awkward de decision’s ever since they switched to Microsoft.
Their failure to create a decent graphical style for Perfect Dark Zero. ( The style is really all over the place. it sucks ) Remaking Conker. Continuing Viva Pinata and last but not least. The “This going to either reinvent or completely destroy our franchise” conecpt they came up with for the new Banjo.
I mean. It’s a great concept on it’s own for a new franchise, but why the heck put it in a Banjo game? I mean chances are people are going to hate it by default because its a Banjo game that doesn’t stay true to the franchise.
Comment by Perfect Dark 0 — 18.Sep.08 @ 3:52 pm
To be fair it is true that after the N64 days Rare has been more or less releasing mediocre games, but I have faith that Rare will get things together, especially with a new Perfect Dark.
Comment by The BS Police — 17.Sep.08 @ 10:14 pm