The story that recently broke was that Microsoft, because it purchased Rare Studios almost a decade ago, thought it owned the Donkey Kong franchise. This was according to former Rare employee and Conker’s Bad Fur Day director Christopher Seavor, who is currently working on The Unlikely Legend of Rusty Pup.
However, Seavor recently took to Twitter to clarify a couple of things, including that it wasn’t Microsoft as a whole and the comment was more of an off-hand one.
@FangzWithaZ To be fair, it was actually a bland , grey exec out for a free jolly to UK who said it, rather than MS as a whole.
— Christopher Seavor (@conkerhimself) June 30, 2013
@didyouknowgamin Strange how the naiveity of one individual now defines the whole corporation. You need to read what i 'actually' said….
— Christopher Seavor (@conkerhimself) June 30, 2013
@TappWaterStudio @didyouknowgamin Seriously though.. It was an anecdote about something a somewhat asinine individual rather stupidly said.
— Christopher Seavor (@conkerhimself) July 1, 2013
So it was really more of the lack of knowledge of one exec – you know, the people they keep around for the non-gaming stuff like lawyers, accountants and whatnot? – then reflective of the organization as a whole. Donkey Kong has belonged to Nintendo for decades and to think that Microsoft didn’t know that is a little hasty.
Regardless, Seavor has clarified the matter. Now we can all go back to debating whether we thought the DRM was actually a good idea or not.