Stamper Bros Quit Rare

Two decades after forming the studio, the brothers have called it quits at the now-Microsoft-owned company.

Attention Whore Notice: Kikizo is one of the very few game magazines or websites ever to have interviewed the highly elusive Stamper brothers. Speaking right after the acquisition of their company by Microsoft, the duo sat down with us in this exclusive video interview in 2002.

Microsoft has taken a lot of heat for its purchase of UK-based developer Rare just over four years ago. The company spent $375 million to bring the previously Nintendo-loyal creator of such hits as Donkey Kong Country and GoldenEye to its side, but the years have gone by without a major success. This week Microsoft said that Chris and Tim Stamper, two of Rare' s founders, had left the company.

" Chris and Tim have helped shape Rare into the world-renowned development studio that is it today and their impact on the videogame industry as a whole is well known," reads a statement from Microsoft reported at 1Up. " They are simply leaving to pursue other opportunities and we wish them luck in their future endeavours."

In the four years that Rare has been under Microsoft' s wing, the company has pumped out a string of games that suffered development turmoil, most of which switched platforms along the way - sometimes more than once.

Rare played a big part in the launch of the Xbox 360 with shooter Perfect Dark Zero. Most recently the company put out the kid-friendly Viva Piñata for the system, but despite praise from a once-sceptical critical audience the game got lost in the Christmas shuffle and suffered poor sales.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo