And this, is how you throw your last drop of dignity to your customers

[TequilaClock]

Wow. What the fuck Rare. I knew they had a change of owners and plans but this is just sad.

It's no secret that Rare has suffered one of gaming's most trafic  falls from grace. Once considered the cream of the British developer  drop, Rare's eventual subjugation by Microsoft and subsequent software  output pretty much killed the company in the eyes of fans.


For one major  Rare fan site, however, the final nail was only recently hammered into  the coffin.
 

MundoRare, a fan community with a decade-long pedigree, has closed  its doors after one last-ditch attempt to instill faith in Rare was shut  down ... by Rare itself. MundoRare was planning to shoot a documentary  about the studio, for no money at all, to be distributed online and via  Xbox Live. The site's staff were becoming jaded with Rare after years of  mis-steps, and this documentary was their way of getting the faith  back.
 

Already struggling to justify its own continued existence, MundoRare  was in talks about the ambitious project, until Rare pulled the plug,  claiming that the documentary wouldn't be "on message." That basically  means Rare's corporate attitude killed the last bit of love that a loyal  fan community had for the developer.
 

"Despite its ambitious scope, we felt it was an irresistible offer,"  explains the site. "In fact, we are still puzzled over their response.  It was a risk-free operation to be carried away with all legal safety  measures deemed necessary and full of good intentions. It simply makes  no sense. It has changed our perception of Rare forever and leaves us  with no other option but to end our support for them."


 This just goes to show what a corporate-minded factory Rare has  apparently become. To turn down a free and loving celebration of its  history due to nothing but petty concerns for making sure the company  line was towed, is not the kind of pathetic mentality I'd expect from  any developer, let alone Rare. I think it's safe to say that any hope of  the studio getting back its glory days is well and truly dead. But hey,  at least they have a Wii Sports clone in the works, right?

tl;dr Rare itself just fucked down their biggest and long-lasting fansite. They were going to do a simple documentary of their history and the CEOs just told them to fuck off forever.

Not to point the fingers here, but things started to get odd for them since Peter Molyneaux (Fable series) got in charge of Microsoft of Europe and all the subsidiaries, Rare included.

Well, pretty sad that they are now corporate fucks instead of the friendly "dudes" they were in the first half of the decade and earlier.

[Thor]

I prefer it when once great companies just quietly fade into bankruptcy instead of ruining their legacy with crap, but I suppose stockholders would disagree

[Nightmare Clock]

Peter Molyneaux is a fucking twat.

And hooray the long arm of capitalism continues to extend

[Flounderpa]

obviously rare wants to cut all ties to their past, just look it's new logo

[RobClock]

I just read this not a half hour ago.

This is it. The fucking end. The people who brought me practically every game i've loved in my childhood are fucking dead to me. And for what? A shitty as fuck broken Eyetoy ripoff and a fucking layout for the 360.

obviously rare wants to cut all ties to their past, just look it's new logo

Fuck the new logo, just take a look at the fucking website. What do you see everywhere? Kinect. Just Kinect.

Wait, you say you wanna see about the awesome shit we used to make? TO FUCKING BAD!

Perfect Dark? Conker? Banjo & Kazooie? GoldenEye!? You don't really wanna see that! Why dont you read about our fucking WII RIP OFF!?

Right then,I'm done raging, but honestly I've never been this disappointed in a video game company. I have defended Perfect Dark Zero and Nuts & Bolts, the mediocre shits they are, on the basis of innovation, evolution and nostalgia. And for what? A company that is the shambling remains of something i loved, just like everything they've put out in the last decade.

[Topcatyo]

Just finished reading this.

Yeah, Rare's dead.  Oh well, fuck'em.

Stop bitching guys, it's long past the time to get new heroes.

[YoYoClock]

At this point the company is basically a different one, and therefore it doesn't really matter at all

[AmberArachnidClock]

Basically none of the original members are still on the team, at this point it's just a logo.

[Flounderpa]

it's just a logo.

not even that

[TelephoneClock]

They're zombies, a shell of their former selves now existing for the sole purpose of eating consumers' money by simply tagging along with the latest gimmick and copying what they see has worked in the past.

[buttplug]

Disgusting.

[NintendrCkolc]

They've been dead since 2002.

Starfox Adventures being their last real game. (Fuck you guys I liked it)

[SageClock]

Not surprising. Not too many decent-sized corporations are likely to agree to a documentary filmed about them made by a third party, especially in an industry which is all about keeping what you do secret until you're good and ready to tell the world about it. Having cameras all over their office would have probably revealed too much or disrupted work that needed to be done.

There are exceptions, of course, but I would have been more surprised if they agreed to the documentary, personally.

It looks like MundoRare were just wanting some excuse to quit anyway. Understandable, since Rare hasn't released hardly any games to get obsessive about in awhile. How is the fan site supposed to stay relevant with nothing to obsess about?

[screwdriver_clock]

Not surprising. Not too many decent-sized corporations are likely to agree to a documentary filmed about them made by a third party, especially in an industry which is all about keeping what you do secret until you're good and ready to tell the world about it. Having cameras all over their office would have probably revealed too much or disrupted work that needed to be done.

There are exceptions, of course, but I would have been more surprised if they agreed to the documentary, personally.

It looks like MundoRare were just wanting some excuse to quit anyway. Understandable, since Rare hasn't released hardly any games to get obsessive about in awhile. How is the fan site supposed to stay relevant with nothing to obsess about?

First post that didn't sound like nerd rage.

[VuBawlsClock]

Hehe, they have job openings.

[Loki Clock]

Hahaha they called them British.

[screwdriver_clock]

Okay well prepare to hate me all you Rare fans.

I didn't like much of Rare's offerings.

Sure in the SNES days I was addicted to the Donkey Kong Country games, after all they had cool "3D" graphics but all in all it was just another platformer in a sea of platformers, with shinier pictures.

N64 Era? Zelda took over everything. Banjo Kazooie was cool but it felt like SM64. Don't get me started on Donkey Kong 64 which I guess should feel like a combination of Banjo and SM but Jesus even at that age I felt the urge to call it a copy.

I mean I must really be missing something with the whole Perfect Dark series (never have played them) but I mean other than some pretty graphics in the past it seems like they were like every other game out there but with collect the shiny object being the absolute focus of each.

[SageClock]

For my gaming tastes, Rare only really mattered for the Donkey Kong Country series (and somewhat for the first Killer Instinct game).

I played a lot of Goldeneye, but that was mostly just because all my other friends did. It was fun, but I preferred Quake. Conker was too juvenile for me to get into, and the rest of their N64, Gamecube, and Xbox games didn't keep my attention for much more than an hour. I enjoyed Kameo and Viva Pinata on the 360, but they're nothing to get obsessed over.

But Rare totally nailed it with the DKC series. I'll probably still be replaying those games when I'm 80.

[Marlin Clock]

You gotta give 'em something for Goldeneye.

[Slurpee]

best rare game is blast corps