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New Rare Office To Utilize Film-Like Production Model
Microsoft subsidiary Rare is opening another UK satellite office, according to a press release. The new Birmingham studio is to house around 90 staff to start with, though the company expects that number to fluctuate with Rare's production schedule. Rare Birmingham will focus on quality assurance and usability work, and the bulk of its staff will be on temporary, project-oriented contracts. The developer believes that by employing a game-building model more akin to film production will have many benefits as budgets continue to climb.
A statement from the company reads, "Rare believes that the current model of massive teams has lead to a boom and bust cycle in staffing terms and sees a film production model as a far better and more efficient way of creating AAA games going forward."
More jobs are always good news, but it would be surprising if this new office is markedly different than the multi-project QA labs that most publishers maintain. Maybe there's more to this new Rare office than appears on the surface, but a studio that employs a bunch of temporary contract workers that can be let go when a project ships is hardly a novel concept.
Then again, maybe 90 usability testers would have made Avatars less awful.
[via develop]
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