For three years in the mid-1980s the software house that CRASH called the most famous and most praised in Britain would hardly talk to anyone. Journalists phoned and even knocked on the door at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and got nothing. Behind Ultimate Play the Game were two brothers, Chris Stamper (born 1958) and Tim Stamper (born 1961). When they finally sat down for long interviews, at the end of 1987, it was to explain that they had already left the Spectrum behind and spent two years writing games for Nintendo as Rare.
From the arcades
The brothers started out writing programs for real arcade machines. In 1985 Commodore User traced them back to the game design department of the amusement company Associated Leisure, where they worked with a colleague, John Lathbury. When the director Norman Parker left to set up Zilec Electronics, he took all three with him and made them directors. At Zilec, the magazine said, they programmed twelve arcade games, among them Blue Print, and travelled widely for the business, Japan included. Their own company was Ashby Computers and Graphics, and Ultimate Play the Game was its trading name.
Their first view of the ZX Spectrum was not kind. “The arcades armed us really well for the UK market,” Tim said, “and when the Spectrum came out we had a look at it and thought, ‘What a piece of garbage!’” He admired what it did for its price, though: “for the home computer and the UK he really did it first.”
Ultimate
Ultimate’s first games, Jetpac and Pssst, came out in 1983 and each fitted into 16K. Lunar Jetman and Atic Atac followed at the end of that year, Sabre Wulf in the summer of 1984 and Knight Lore that November. CRASH later counted fourteen Spectrum hits in a row between 1983 and 1986.
The team was small. In August 1984 Personal Computer Games listed it as the two brothers, Carol Ward and John Lathbury: “Chris and John program the structure of the game, while Tim and Carol concentrate on the graphics.” By 1988 CRASH described Ultimate as wholly owned by the brothers and Tim’s wife, Carole. In 1987 The Games Machine described Tim, then 26, as the firm’s business spokesman, “responsible for all the wonderful Ultimate packaging illustrations and on-screen images”. Chris, 29, “smaller, a bit quieter”, concentrated on coding.
They worked very long hours. “While we were full-time Ultimate, we only had two Christmas mornings off,” Tim said. “We worked seven days a week, 8am till 1 or 2 in the morning.” Asked whether the silence was a deliberate mystique, he said it was not: “That’s the way it turned out. We were so busy producing a few products a year and making sure they were right.” Some magazines, he added, gave bad reviews to companies that did not advertise with them, “so we steered clear of speaking to anyone”.
In the same interviews they revealed that Knight Lore had been finished before Sabre Wulf, and held back so that it would not kill Sabre Wulf’s sales. Chris named Gunfright (1986) as the last game the two of them developed as a team.
Rare
Rare Limited was incorporated in April 1985, and by the brothers’ account they had been studying Nintendo’s Famicom since 1983, through contacts in the Japanese coin-op business. About two years before their 1987 interviews they sold a minority stake in Ultimate to US Gold, moved to a farmhouse at Twycross and turned to Nintendo games. By early 1988 Rare had seven Nintendo games finished or nearly finished, with Tim as graphics director and Chris as software director.
Under the Stampers Rare went on to make R.C. Pro-Am, Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie and Perfect Dark. Microsoft bought Rare in 2002. The brothers stayed at the studio until January 2007, when Microsoft confirmed they had left “to pursue other opportunities”.
Sources
- CRASH, issue 51 (April 1988), pp. 35-38: Roger Kean’s feature on Ultimate and Rare: the brothers’ arcade background, ACG, Ultimate’s family ownership, “What a piece of garbage!”, the press silence, the hours they worked, the reviews and advertising, Knight Lore finished before Sabre Wulf, Gunfright as the last team game, the 14 hits, the Nintendo, and Rare’s staff roles.
- The Games Machine, issue 4 (March 1988), pp. 26-32: Roger Kean and Nik Wild’s interview recorded on 17 December 1987: the brothers’ ages, Tim’s packaging and screen art, Rare formed two years earlier, the minority stake sold to US Gold.
- Personal Computer Games, issue 9 (August 1984), pp. 58-59: Sabre Wulf review with the Ultimate team (the magazine spells Lathbury “Latchbury”).
- Commodore User, July 1985, pp. 20-21: “Inside Ultimate Play the Game”: Associated Leisure, Norman Parker and Zilec Electronics, the twelve arcade games and Blue Print, John Lathbury.
- Companies House, Rare Limited, company number 01905690: incorporation on 16 April 1985 and officer records (birth months and years of Christopher, Timothy and Carole Stamper). https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/01905690
- GameSpot, “Stamper brothers leave Rare”, January 2007 (web, secondary). https://www.gamespot.com/articles/stamper-brothers-leave-rare/1100-6163684/
- Microsoft, “Microsoft Acquires Video Game Powerhouse Rare Ltd.”, press release, 24 September 2002 (web). https://news.microsoft.com/source/2002/09/24/microsoft-acquires-video-game-powerhouse-rare-ltd/