After offering 10 years of support to Rare, the MundoRare fansite has shut down partially due to the existence of Kinect Sports.
After first opening its doors all the way back in 2001, Rare fansite MundoRare has shut down. This is more than just a case of not wanting to pay server bills anymore though, as the website’s operators were planning to shoot a documentary covering Rare’s entire history, but were denied access.
MundoRare had planned to film the documentary in HD on-site at Rare’s offices in England and were going to release it for free on the internet and through Xbox Live. Rare denied permission to film not because it didn’t want a bunch of sweaty Rare fans in its offices, but because it thought the documentary wouldn’t be “on message.”
Despite the decent amount of criticism that Rare had been getting from much of the videogame industry since being purchased by Microsoft, MundoRare says it was never unfair to Rare and continued to support the company while exploring its development history. Apparently, MundoRare’s first and only negative response to a Rare project revolved around Kinect Sports, which was used as an argument against the documentary.
MundoRare says of the film project: “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.”
In the closure announcement, MundoRare took the gloves off, saying Kinect Sports is: “Not only as an uninspired response to Nintendo’s success, but also as a major turnabout that collides with the interests of our website. As a game targeted to casual players, its audience doesn’t include our readers or us. Naturally, if that’s the path Rare wants to follow from now on, we can’t go along with them.”
In Rare’s defense, nobody at MundoRare has played Kinect Sports yet, so I’m not sure they have full justification to criticize the company about the game, even though it is obviously Nintendo-inspired. However, when even your fansites even stop giving you support, something might be going wrong.
Source: MundoRare via Destructoid
