Stamper brothers

Brothers Tim and Chris Stamper are British entrepreneurs who founded the video game companies Ultimate Play the Game and Rare. They first worked together on arcade conversion kits, which were licensed to companies, but later became developers for the ZX Spectrum home computer in the early 1980s. Chris programmed the games, while Tim designed the graphics. They found success as Ultimate with games including Jetpac and Knight Lore. After reverse engineering the Nintendo Entertainment System and deciding to shift their focus to console development, the brothers founded Rare in the mid-1980s. They became Nintendo's first major Western developer, for whom they developed licensed games and ports. Over the next two decades, Rare enjoyed a close relationship with Nintendo and developed multiple major titles for the company, including Donkey Kong Country and GoldenEye 007. Microsoft acquired Rare in 2002, and the brothers left the company in 2007. After spending several years out of the public eye, the brothers are currently planning new ventures. The Stampers are taciturn toward the press and known for their work ethic and promotion of inter-team competition at Rare. They enjoyed a fervent fandom in the 1980s, were among the most influential developers of the 1990s, and were named "Development Legends" at the video game industry trade magazine Develop 2015 awards. Early life Chris Stamper had a long-standing interest in electronics, and he built an oscilloscope in his youth. While at university, he built a kit computer with an 8-bit processor and taught himself how to program by creating traffic light signalling software. He attended Loughborough University of Technology with the intent of earning degrees in electronics and physics, but left the university in 1981 to pursue computer programming full-time. Chris worked with arcade machine electronics, resolving software bugs and converting Space Invaders into Galaxian machines. He persuaded his brother Tim to join him. The brothers worked as game designers at the arcade game company Associated Leisure with a college friend, John Lathbury. They followed the company's director when he started his own business, Zilec Electronics, which worked on arcade conversions. They worked on 12 arcade games, including Gyruss and Blue Print, and others whose names were kept secret and sold to other arcade manufacturers, including Konami and Sega.