Molyneux wants Rare to come out of the closet
They need to "get well known" and "have more of an identity", he says
Newly appointed creative director of Microsoft Europe and former hype generator of Lionhead Peter Molyneux wants to improve the internal studios’ image. In an interview with Games Industry, the man behind the Fable franchise said he “wants to help Rare have more of an identity and make sure they are seen more within the industry”.
“I was totally blown away from the amount of talent there is at Rare,” added Molyneux, “but it’s just that they come from a background where Nintendo required them to be this very, very secretive company. I just want to give them the confidence to tell the world what they’re doing. I hope you’re going to see more from Rare and I want to help them get well known.” However, he also guaranteed that this new policy wouldn’t interfere with the company’s philosophy when it comes to game development. “You’ll definitely still recognise a Rare game,” he concluded.
Although Molyneux’s infamous tendency to overexpose things took its toll in the past, this time he certainly makes a point. The fact that Rare’s secretive behaviour hasn’t helped at all during the last seven years shouldn’t be news for anyone. Except, perhaps, for Rare itself. Since the very first day they started working for Microsoft, they continued to be the same cryptic studio they were during their Nintendo phase. Yet the only result of such practice was a total lack of interest from the Xbox users and the media as a whole.
For seven years, Rare has been hiding in the dark and slowly becoming a second-class developer in the public eye. And while some argued that this was due a decrease of their games’ quality, the actual reason had always been more apparent. Back in 2002, they faced a new audience that was constantly being bombarded with information about upcoming games like Halo 2 or Fable. As a consequence, those new titles became hits and classics among the Xbox fanbase, while nobody really cared about established IPs like Conker or Banjo. Even today, there is clearly something wrong with Microsoft Game Studios’ priorities, considering that the original Perfect Dark’s arrival to the Xbox Live Arcade wasn’t even mentioned during the E3 conferences.
As obvious as it main sound, in order to get somebody interested in something, first you need that person to know about the product. And the time when the audience would eagerly wait for whatever game was on the works only because of its Rare brand was gone long ago.
Somehow related news
- Perfect Dark XBLA releasing “Early Winter 2010” ()
- Rare “involved” with Project Natal ()
- Shane Kim rules out Banjo and Piñata as big hits this year ()
- Roundtable with Britain’s Pride ()
13 Comments
Brilliant pic.
Certainly Molineux when doesn’t ridicously hype his games says some interesting things.
It’s true that Rare’s latests games (latests as 10 years back) haven’t been the brilliant works that we were used to, but still there have been some genuinely good ideas and very well executed that deserved a lot more attention than what they got.
Comment by Àlarik — 15.Jun.09 @ 10:58 pm
Rare needs to get recongized in Japan. I mean they could be the biggest thing there. Their characters and style could totally fit Japan’s nature; Unusal team ups (Banjo-Kazooie), magical transformations (Kameo (and for gods sake make a sequel already!)), violent animals (Conker (same goes for him too!)), Hot action babes (Joanna Dark (and Kameo if I may add)), *add category here* (Viva Pinata). If they could just increase their recongization their popularity would increase… about 45% if I’m correct. This guy could probably help them do it and I hope he does.
Comment by Hudson — 16.Jun.09 @ 2:47 am
@Hudson: Rare was already well known (as a subsidiary of Nintendo) in the Nintendo era.
Comment by Hudson-is-wrong — 17.Jun.09 @ 8:55 pm I don’t see Rare becoming the great thing in Japan, beside the fact that they were already popular there, the design of their characters is completely occidental, and in Japan the cartoonish characters if are not designed in a japanese-anime style they become utterly ignored by everyone.
eg, mickey mouse is rather unpopular there, and so I believe pixar’s movies.
Comment by Àlarik — 18.Jun.09 @ 9:22 am
I think the problem is Microsoft in this story. They don’t mention Rare enough and they don’t market their games enough. They bought a very expensive studio but they just don’t use them.
Comment by Gratis Geld — 18.Jun.09 @ 9:54 am Excatly.
Comment by Hudson — 18.Jun.09 @ 6:47 pm @ Hudson-is-wrong:
1. Mean name much?
2. That was then. This is now. Nintendo mentioned them enough. Microsoft doesn’t. Some people in Japan probably don’t even know Rare still exsist.
Comment by Hamilton — 18.Jun.09 @ 10:18 pm
The problem lies with Microsoft, sticking them with sh*t projects like Viva Piniata. Banjo Kazooie: N&B seemed like a desperate plead. They need to capture their former glory by releasing a polished game. A number of their titles could fit well on the 360, for example the XBOX360 does not have an established 3d platformer like PS3 does with Ratchet/Jak, or Nintendo with Super Mario Galaxy, a Conker game would be a good choice for the 360. Perfect Dark could crush Bioshock if they worked hard enough, and Jet Force would make a great addition to the 360, They have the skills, they need the publicity and inspiration that comes with it.
Comment by 1stCalamity — 26.Jun.09 @ 4:29 am 1. Viva Pinata kicks ass
2. Rare was working on Viva Pinata ever since the Nintendo 64 era, so really that was their idea.
3. Everything else you said makes perfect sense. Perhaps a toned down Conker in spite of what happened when it was first released. Maybe Conker could go on an adventure of rehabilitation (spelling) to fight his dirty habits and forget about what happened to Berri and find someone else to love.
Comment by Hudson — 27.Jun.09 @ 3:36 am
Their games are great even to this day but yeah they really need their announcements to be bigger I’m not saying they should reveal news every single week to the point you get bored but at least make the announcements to the public more noticeable.
Comment by saicambanjo — 30.Jun.09 @ 7:06 am
this is completely true, it never even dawned on me though. they really should start putting more on the plate. with any other developer you know about at least two games they have in the pipeline at any given time… yes rare is alot smaller of a company, but still… we know NOTHING about their next project other than there “are” projects in the works. half of us arent even excited, lets admitt it, based on their new “style” half of us are thinking “what classic franchise are they going to alter for the “better” next… poor banjo was altered for the “better”. so come on rare, if you want us to be excited again, start giving some HINTS about upcoming games
Comment by billy — 15.Jun.09 @ 8:33 pm