I thought someone would make a thread about this excellent story from Polygon already, but apparently not.
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First change of President
Metroid crunch
Second change of president
Afterwards
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More at the link
A lot of really sad details to hear, like a lot of US game companies from that era, but somehow even worse.
(after a long part about the start of Retro and the famous 4 games...)Retro, today, is known as the studio behind of one of the greatest games of all time, Metroid Prime, its two sequels and a pair of Donkey Kong Country games. The team is a part of the Nintendo family, beloved by fans who grew up with its games. But through a lot of its early years Retro was a studio on the brink of collapse, constantly churning but with no results. It was saved by Nintendo's decision to trust it with one of its long-running franchises. Getting there, though, was a trial by fire that left many without jobs and with bitter feelings about a studio built on ambition and top-tier development talent.
For most of its early history, Retro Studios got direction from Nintendo of America — which was an issue, according to one anonymous employee, because "they have nothing to do with how the games are made. It's all in Japan. … We weren't interfacing with Nintendo of Japan at all. We never talked to Miyamoto. We never talked to Mr. Iwata. We never talked to anybody over there."
(...)
"So basically what happened on their first visit — it was a bloodbath," the employee recalls. "[They] hated everything that we were doing. We weren't developing games in their philosophy. It was a huge cold splash of water in the face."
Between 2000 and 2001, Retro was bleeding employees. According to those we talked to, few felt comfortable; they were scared they were the next to go. During this time, if you walked around Retro's office, Tveraas says, you wouldn't hear people working on games; you'd hear them working on resumes.
First change of President
Not only was Spangenberg increasingly absent, the way he ran his company and his extracurricular activities didn't exactly match with Nintendo's family-friendly image, specifically a website he had been running in his spare time called "Sinful Summer," full of pictures from pool parties at Spangenberg's house with scantily clad women.
(...)
the Sinful Summer controversy — which Spangenberg hosted from Retro's IP address. "Basically this was the thing that cemented the end for him, because once Nintendo caught wind of this, that's when it was pretty much done," Mathews says.
(...)
"They didn't want to give Jeff any money because they thought the way he did everything was reprehensible. They wanted him to exit as cheap as possible," Mathews says. "I think he was backed into a corner; it was either a million or nothing."
Metroid crunch
It was a skeleton crew compared to its former self, but an inadvertent trade-off of Retro's layoffs was that it was left with, as Mathews puts it, "the cream of the crop."
(...)
"Once we hit the Metroid cycle, I think it took us almost six months to do the first level that Nintendo approved, then we had less than a year to do the rest of the game," former senior artist James Dargie says. "Things accelerated quickly. A lot of the theories and senior leadership best practices kind of went out the window at that point."
(...)
"It was probably one of the worst experiences I've ever had," one developer on the project recalls. "We had a rough time with development in general. But we had an enforced almost year's worth of overtime. I think it was nine to 10 months of over time of at least minimum 12-hour days. I worked 48 hours straight on that project without sleeping. It was the worst."
Second change of president
In an effort to retain talent after Metroid Prime's development, a combination of "management and high-level individual contributors," as Mathews puts it, decided to put forth a royalty program.
And at the beginning, at least, it seemed to be made with good intentions.
(...)
But for reasons unclear, after all this work, Barcia came in and changed the numbers. As they put it, that curve became a cliff where seven or eight people were at the peak, paid handsomely, and everyone else was at the base of the mountain.
(...)
When enough was enough, a number of employees planned a mass exodus. Fed up with the way Barcia ran shop, they were going to leave.
(...)
Nintendo, now with a hit under its belt thanks to Retro, didn't take the news lightly. Barcia was replaced by Michael Kelbaugh — then Nintendo's director of business development — in 2003. Kelbaugh brought a better working environment, more stability. Under his rule, the company went on to develop other critical and commercial hits.
Afterwards
Some developers declined interviews, as well, telling Polygon they didn't want to relive their years at the studio.
(...)
"I mean, three quarters of the people you would talk to had really awful experiences," Mathews says, reflecting on his time at the studio. "It's not a blast being anywhere near any of the layoffs. There was a lot of negativity there. But I put out the best games I'm ever going to make. The people I worked with were the most talented people I've ever worked with."
More at the link
A lot of really sad details to hear, like a lot of US game companies from that era, but somehow even worse.
