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Rare Slashes Art Department
Looks like the venerable English developer is drastically changing gears. The last of its full-time artists have been de facto made redundant, according to several reports.
UK magazine Edge is reporting that two separate sources have confirmed that the 42 permanent members of Rare's art department are now applying for 23 managerial positions at the company's new Birmingham location, or taking severance packages and seeking their fortunes elsewhere.
The remaining artists on staff are contractors, which gives Rare and its parent company Microsoft an easier time skirting European Union employment laws as it tries to keep its business streamlined.
So what's next for the company? Given that their art department seems to mostly have been fired and its by-far largest successes in recent years are (ugh) on Xbox Avatars and Kinect Sports, the obvious conclusion is that Rare is becoming the Avatar development shop with a side of casual, mass-market games.
Our condolences, as always, to the newly unemployed. We weep for the fall of a once-mighty development studio along with them.
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