Simon Woodroffe joins rare and what it means - Nerd Age

Simon Woodroffe may not ring a bell in everyone’s mind. However the game he worked on, Call of Cthulhu, will. He was also the director of Sega West.

Rare Today

Today Rare has been simply making Kinect games and doing rehashes of their old ones. While they are in no danger of going under, they need a fresh new property to bring them back to the top. We are hoping that Simon Woodroffe is able to bring something exciting to the company.

Simon Woodroffe’s Performance

Simon Woodroffe’s gameography is less than thrilling. While Simon the Sorcerer was well received, it was not exactly a blockbuster. And the Xbox version of Call of Cthulhu he worked on was filled with bugs, although less so than the original game. He was also head of game design for Sega West when they were putting out less than great products. Rare may have just doomed themselves to working on Kinect messes forever.

The Rare Headhunting Philosophy: Behind the Spin

While Rare claims they want top talent, that isn’t what they have been gathering lately. They have been gathering castoffs of major studios who worked on some side projects. The press releases about top talent are a bit amusing to read when you see who it actually is. This top talent includes:

• Jon Vincent, Rare Art Director, who worked at Midway and Pivotal games
• Danny Isaac, Rare Executive Producer, who worked for EA Korea
• Peter Ridgway, Rare Technical Art Director, who worked for Codemasters

As you can see they are gathering people who held side roles. They are also gathering a few who had less than stellar performance in main roles. It looks like Rare is going to be a long way off from the top of the industry at this rate. On the other hand, these castoffs have quite a bit to prove. Perhaps Rare is looking for hungry developers looking to make a name for themselves. Only time will tell whether this gambit will pay off.