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[The Rare Canceled Game Art Thread]

S

Shiggy

Member
[Nintex] said:
I noticed they removed Ben Talbot [BT] from the list, but they also removed [GM] you know, a fellow by the name of Gregg Mayles...
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Who's that? Didn't he have pretty much the same role as Craig Duncan?
 
N

[Nintex]

Member
Shiggy said:
Yeah, was more like Rare's "We don't them anymore" attitude to its former glorious employees.
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If he's really gone and not just on holiday not on the twitter feed anymore than I guess he could join Retro, they're looking for designers I think.
 
N

Nuclear Muffin

Banned
[Nintex] said:
If he's really gone and not just on holiday not on the twitter feed anymore than I guess he could join Retro, they're looking for designers I think.
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And travel halfway across the world to live in the US?
 
S

Shiggy

Member
[Nintex] said:
If he's really gone and not just on holiday not on the twitter feed anymore than I guess he could join Retro, they're looking for designers I think.
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I don't think this would be any better than working at Rare.
 
N

Nuclear Muffin

Banned
[Nintex] said:
Rare's art director did just that to work on Halo 4 at 343i.
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Ok it's possible, but still pretty unlikely. Most people wouldn't be willing to suddenly drop everything and move themselves and their family to a completely different continent (does Gregg Mayles have a family of his own?)
 
W

watkinzez

Member
Gregg tweeted like, once, when that account was created. They took his name off the description ages ago, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that he left.
 
S

Shiggy

Member
watkinzez said:
Gregg tweeted like, once, when that account was created. They took his name off the description ages ago, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that he left.
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Still sad to see him rot at Rare.
 
W

watkinzez

Member
Shiggy said:
Still sad to see him rot at Rare.
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I grew up playing games by Gregg Mayles, I'd love to see him strike out and make a downloadable platformer or something. That said, he has a reputation of making games that interest him and not necessarily what the fanbase wants (Ghoulies, Nuts & Bolts). If there was nothing left at Rare for him, surely he would have left by now.
 
A

AuthenticM

Member
Can someone tell me why Nintendo has sold Rare? They gave them a lot of AAA games. I don't understand why Nintendo let go such a talented developer. Them being purchased by Microsoft was the beginning of the end in some way.
 
N

NEO0MJ

Member
AuthenticM said:
Can someone tell me why Nintendo has sold Rare? They gave them a lot of AAA games. I don't understand why Nintendo let go such a talented developer. Them being purchased by Microsoft was the beginning of the end in some way.
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In short the Stamper bros.(creators of Rare and owners of just over 50% of the company stock) wanted to sell all their stock due to it's high price at the time.
They wanted to sell it first to Nintendo but a condition was that Nintendo had to buy all their stock, something they weren't willing to do. So the Stampers put it on the market where Microsoft swooped in and bought it all.
Seeing no point in owning any of their Rare stock anymore (they had no say at all now) Nintendo sold all their stock to Microsoft.

I think that's how the story went, you can find a more detailed version in previous pages.
 
K

Kermit The Dog

Banned
Shotgun Kiss said:
You can't pull the "we can't make every..." card when you haven't made ANYTHING along those lines. You also can't say Kinect Sports has been more popular than anything else you've made in recent years as if it means something, when Kinect Sports is the ONLY thing you've made in recent years.

I really feel bad for Leigh Loveday. He has to spout off this crap which I'm sure he doesn't believe in (no sane person would, especially somebody who worked at Rare during their glory days), because it's his job to make them look good.
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Spot on. If I know Leigh, he'd be absolutely hating this.
 
S

Shiggy

Member
NEO0MJ said:
In short the Stamper bros.(creators of Rare and owners of just over 50% of the company stock) wanted to sell all their stock due to it's high price at the time.
They wanted to sell it first to Nintendo but a condition was that Nintendo had to buy all their stock, something they weren't willing to do. So the Stampers put it on the market where Microsoft swooped in and bought it all.
Seeing no point in owning any of their Rare stock anymore (they had no say at all now) Nintendo sold all their stock to Microsoft.

I think that's how the story went, you can find a more detailed version in previous pages.
Click to expand...

Wasn't it more that Joel Hochberg wanted to sell his stock? We've never heard of him again since the sale.
 
N

[Nintex]

Member
AuthenticM said:
Can someone tell me why Nintendo has sold Rare? They gave them a lot of AAA games. I don't understand why Nintendo let go such a talented developer. Them being purchased by Microsoft was the beginning of the end in some way.
Click to expand...
Because Joel Hochberg wanted to retire and Tim and Chris Stamper figured it would be the perfect time to sell because:
A) Rare was at the top of their game
B) People were lining up to buy them

So in any case Rare offered Nintendo their share of Rare first but Nintendo thought the split in ownership was fine as is. So Rare approached various other parties and Activision was interested. For some reason Activision backed out at the last minute and Microsoft came into play. Ed Fries wanted to buy Rare to make MS look 'softer' and as somewhat of a visionary he had great plans I guess. So he knew that Nintendo was still in play and that Activision could still try and outbid them so they offered a premium price of $375 million, knowing that neither Nintendo or Activision would be interested in competing at that price.

So they bought Rare but what they didn't know and what the employees and Nintendo knew was that Rare had become too big too fast. The management was always their weak link and it was the Rare way or no way so they had already done stupid things like they fired the lead coder of Perfect Dark 0 around the time when the deal was struck.
 
S

Syphon Filter

Member
They better make existing franchises. Rare alone has different franchises Microsoft can take advantage of to diversify their library. They can bring Killer Instinct back since fighters are coming out a lot again. Is Rare still 4 different teams?
 
S

Shiggy

Member
Neal Clark: Web and Community Support at Rare Ltd

06c4b5a.jpg


Past:
Web Co-ordinator / Project Manager at Sleepydog Ltd
Web Co-ordinator at The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health
Web Assistant at The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health
 
B

bergcrantz

Neo Member
DSN2K said:
they had a good thing with Nintendo, they should have tried to work out whatever the issues were and supported their platforms. I'm 100% sure the games they put out on the xbox would have been a success on a Nintendo console.
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Yes, even if they cut their ties with Nintendo I don't see why they had to abandon their platforms and continue making the exact same types of games for Xbox instead, makes no sense at all. Maybe they didn't believe they would survive as an independent developer and had to find a new publisher fast.
 
N

[Nintex]

Member
bergcrantz said:
Yes, even if they cut their ties with Nintendo I don't see why they had to abandon their platforms and continue making the exact same types of games for Xbox instead, makes no sense at all. Maybe they didn't believe they would survive as an independent developer and had to find a publisher fast..
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Everyone wanted to work with Microsoft at that time and Nintendo was a sinking ship. Remember that Nintendo people like Ken Lobb jumped ship as well. Sega had just folded and the talk of the day was: "Will Nintendo be next?"
 
T

The Awkward Wizard

Member
I think it's funny/sad that this thread has more info on recently cancelled Rare games/prototypes than the actual Rare fansites do.
Shiggy said:
It was probably just a city running on the Banjo engine and Banjo was just there for showcase reasons. Nothing serious ;)
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I remember back in 2009, IceMario of the Rare Witch Projects confirmed that Bk N&B 2 was in development, which was eventually canned for Kinect stuff (can't find the post). I hope he wasn't referring to this, because I'd kill to see more cancelled Banjo stuff. (Does that billboard just say "Billboard"?) I wonder what the city prototype was for.
 
S

Shiggy

Member
The Awkward Wizard said:
I think it's funny/sad that this thread has more info on recently cancelled Rare games/prototypes than the actual Rare fansites do.

I remember back in 2009, IceMario of the Rare Witch Projects confirmed that Bk N&B 2 was in development, which was eventually canned for Kinect stuff (can't find the post). I hope he wasn't referring to this, because I'd kill to see more cancelled Banjo stuff. (Does that billboard just say "Billboard"?) I wonder what the city prototype was for.
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It was just a city prototype. No gameplay implemented or concepted yet.
 
S

Shiggy

Member
IOnEI Falcon said:
Posted by BIGsheep:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitpic/photos/large/363339602.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJF3XCCKACR3QDMOA&Expires=1312398383&Signature=nHinqKowPPm7zLw7V%2FTkLwuNemw%3D

Sure have a lot of PMs and management.
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BIGsheep
An early success with #FunDo. I've posted this from my lofty new position... http://twitpic.com/60bmmq


IOnEI_Falcon
@BIGsheep Congrats on the promotion! Hehe :)


BIGsheep
@IOnEI_Falcon And I see you didn't waste any time pushing that picture to gaf...
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We're being watched :D
(Hello James!)
 
M

Mael

Member
Shiggy said:
Especially when only the three of us post here :D

[Nintex] 94
Shiggy 85
IOnEI Falcon 81
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To be fair you're doing an awesome job, do NOT stop we kinda need this.
I mean it's depressing but better than what happened to Falcon5....
 
Ooccoo

Ooccoo

Member
RARE has been dead to me since the Microsoft era.

Perfect Dark Zero sucked
Banjo Nuts & Bolts was innovative yet lacking and NOT what fans expected / wanted
Kinect Sports should have been done by less talented studios = total waste of art and ideas
No Conker or Banjo platformer in over a decade
No Killer Instinct or proper Perfect Dark sequel (again, PDZ doesn't exist)

I think no other developer nosedived that much. Their last good game was in 2002 (Star Fox Adventures). You can argue Viva Pinata is fun if it's your cup of tea.

It's very frustrating and they don't care anymore. Fuck this company.
 
S

StevieP

Banned
Ooccoo said:
RARE has been dead to me since the Microsoft era.
Kinect Sports should have been done by less talented studios = total waste of art and ideas
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See, I could agree with some of your other arguments, but not this one.

The Wii has shown 5 million times over that you CAN'T have less talented studios doing minigame collections. It takes people with some talent to pull them off successfully. EAD made Wii Sports, shovelware developers made tons of knockoffs that all sucked 100 times worse. Rare made a successful product out of Kinect Sports, and despite the fact that they haven't made a good "core" product in awhile, it takes a decent studio to give it that level of polish.
 
X

Xun

Member
A guy I know works at Rare, but I haven't spoke to him for a while (he got a 3D artist job in May).

He's looking for another job according to Facebook, so I'll ask him some questions when I get the chance.
 
T

TheNatural

My Member!
So haven't kept up with this Rare thing. What's basically the status of Rare? Releasing one more Kinect game then basically probably going to go under? Whatever happened to the main players at Rare? Like the Stamper Bros., Ken Lobb, etc?
 
A

akilshohen

Member
Haven't played a Rare game other than Conker (GBC and XBOX version), but I would be totally happy with a Jet Force Gemini port to 360.
Does kinect sports count?
 
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