The story
Early history and rise
Ultimate Play the Game was founded in the Leicestershire town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1982 by Tim and Chris Stamper, their friend John Lathbury, and Tim's girlfriend (later wife) Carole Ward. Other members of the Stamper family were also involved in the early running and support of the company, which was initially located in a house next to the family-run newsagent. Both Tim and Chris had worked in arcade game development including, according to one report, Konami's Gyruss, and claimed to be "the most experienced arcade video game design team in Britain" until tiring of working for others and leaving to start Ashby Computers and Graphics. This led to ACG's initial trade being in creating arcade conversion kits, before moving into the home computer software market developing games under the Ultimate Play the Game name. Ashby released four arcade games: Blue Print for Bally-Midway, and Grasspin, Dingo and Saturn for Jaleco.
Ultimate's first game was Jetpac in May 1983 for the 16K Spectrum. In a 1983 interview, Tim Stamper said that they deliberately targeted 16K machines as their smaller size meant development time was much shorter, claiming they could produce two 16K games in one month, or one 48K game. Jetpac was a huge commercial success selling more than 300,000 copies providing the fledgling company with a turnover in excess of £1 million.
This was followed by three further 16K releases, Pssst in June, Tranz Am, and Cookie, before Ultimate stepped up to the 48K Spectrum. Jetpac, Pssst, Tranz Am and Cookie were four of only ten games ever to be released on the 16K ROM format for use with the ZX Interface 2. They were also (except Tranz Am) republished on cassette, with distinctive silver inlay cards, by Sinclair Research.
Ultimate's first 48K releases were Lunar Jetman – a sequel to Jetpac – and Atic Atac, both of which were released in late 1983. Both games were very well received by the gaming press, CRASH magazine in particular praising what Ultimate had managed to do with the extra memory Lunar Jetman used. In 1984 came Sabre Wulf, the first in the Sabreman series, and the first release at a recommended retail price of £9.95. The price of Ultimate titles had previously been just £5.50, which was typical for Spectrum arcade-style games at the time. This increase was to discourage piracy, with the idea being that if customers paid more for a game they would be less inclined to give away copies. This coincided with the introduction of the distinctive Ultimate "big box" packaging (used with all further Spectrum releases until Gunfright, and with various releases on other platforms), which the company felt might also help justify the price increase and encourage gamers to buy the game rather than copy it. The strategy paid off as Sabre Wulf went on to sell over 350,000 copies on the Spectrum alone. This was followed by the release in late 1984 of the next two instalments in the Sabreman series, Underwurlde quickly followed by Knight Lore. Knight Lore was something of a revolution in the home computer game market, using a forced-perspective isometric viewpoint branded Filmation, the style of which would be extensively copied in other games, notable examples being Batman and Head Over Heels from Ocean Software. In a 1988 interview with CRASH, Tim Stamper claimed that Knight Lore, and some of its Filmation follow-up Alien 8, was actually completed before Sabre Wulf but Ultimate decided that it could have a potentially negative effect on sales of the comparatively primitive Sabre Wulf, so it was postponed until late 1984. More recent research into the code of both games has suggested this may have been an exaggeration as the coding routines found in Knight Lore are far more optimised.
Knight Lore was finished before Sabre Wulf. But we decided the market wasn't ready for it. Because if we released Knight Lore and Alien 8, which was already half-finished, we wouldn't have sold Sabre Wulf... There was a little bit of careful planning there... We just had to sit on it because everyone else was so far behind
Ultimate won the Golden Joystick Award for Best Software House in both 1983 and 1984.
Ultimate was criticised somewhat in the gaming media for their repeated use of the Filmation technique in subsequent games Alien 8, Nightshade, Gunfright and Pentagram, though Nightshade and Gunfright used Filmation II, a variation on the engine, resulting in a similar visual style, but significantly different gameplay, with scrolling around a large world and arcade-like play, rather than the room-based puzzles of the earlier Filmation titles.
Decline
With the consistent success of Ultimate's releases there were rumours of a buyout by Ocean, until it was announced in 1985 that the Stamper brothers had sold a minority stake in the company to US Gold, who would continue to release games under the Ultimate label. Later titles such as Martianoids and Bubbler were not seen by the gaming press as being up to Ultimate's previously high standards and sales fell. US Gold released no new Ultimate games after Bubbler in 1987. A final Sabreman game, Mire Mare, was trailed in earlier Sabreman games and was mentioned by Sinclair User as being next up for release, but was quietly dropped during development. In late 1988, Rare bought back the rights sold to US Gold and were reported to be developing games again. Future releases were to have included Solar Jetman, which would eventually appear only on the Nintendo Entertainment System, although home computer conversions for the Commodore 64, Amiga, and Atari ST were completed by Storm Software, but not released.
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Rare Limited
Shortly before the US Gold buyout, the name of another company, "Rare Limited", began appearing on the credits of Ultimate releases. This was in fact another company set up by the Stampers to develop for Ultimate, but not be subject to any Ultimate takeover. Rare (initially under the banner Rare: Designs on the Future) would evolve, after Ultimate's demise, into a prolific developer for the Nintendo Entertainment System. This led Nintendo to purchase a stake in the company, whose success was furthered with such classic SNES and Nintendo 64 releases as Donkey Kong Country and GoldenEye 007. In 2002, Rare was purchased outright by Microsoft for US$377 million, a record fee for a video game developer, and develops games for the Xbox One console. At the end of 2006, Tim and Chris Stamper left Rare to "pursue other opportunities", ending a 24-year involvement in developing home video games.
The Ultimate name in subsequent years
The 1997 Nintendo 64 game GoldenEye 007 contains a ZX Spectrum emulator with ten Ultimate-developed games hidden on the cartridge. This function was originally made as an experimental side project by Rare and was deactivated in the final version, but has since been unlocked through fan-made patches. In 2004, Rare revived Ultimate's Sabreman franchise with the release of Sabre Wulf for the Game Boy Advance. A new version of Sabre Wulf for the Xbox was also rumoured, though it was never released or even officially announced. A racing game based on the Ultimate/Rare universe titled Sabreman Stampede was also in development, but was canceled. In 2007, Rare released the fourth game of the Jetman series, Jetpac Refuelled, for Xbox Live Arcade.
On 8 December 2006 and 16 January 2007 respectively, Rare's owners Microsoft Corporation filed US and EU trademark claims on the Ultimate Play the Game name and logo. The registered purpose is "entertainment services, namely, providing an on-line computer game". Emulated versions of seven Ultimate titles were later included as part of the 2015 game compilation Rare Replay for Xbox One.
From Wikipedia’s article on Ultimate Play the Game, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3