Rare promises fair play at new Birmingham base

Rare’s new Birmingham studio will bring in temp staff and students for contract work, some of which could be handed up to eighteen-month projects.

But in an interview published today, studio head Mark Betteridge said that the studio’s focus on temporary staff will not lead to poorer quality of life standards.

“We’ve been very anxious that when we have contract staff in now that they are not made to feel like a second-grade citizen compared to everyone else,” he said.

“We’ve gone out of our way to do everything we can for our own people.”

Rare Birmingham will be a new development base principally used for art design and play testing. The new studio, set to open soon, will house as many as 50 staff, most of which will be there on a temporary basis.

Betteidge said that the flexibility of the studio will offer great opportunities to aspiring game industry professionals.

“The fact that the work is temporary gives new people new opportunities – you don’t need years of coding experience,” he said.

“With the work we did with the NXE avatars, we were able to offer work and experience to people on a three month break from university.

“They’ve gone back to their university course with that on their CV, and so I think some of the opportunities we can offer are very strong.

“But certainly, if people are working for us day-to-day for an extended period, it’s absolutely not our intent for them to be seen as inferior.”

Part one of Develop’s interview with Betteridge can be found here.