'Metroid Prime' Was A Mess Behind The Scenes

When someone says “Retro Studios”, we either picture the studios where they first recorded video evidence of a creature called Pac-Man feasting on ghosts, or the studio responsible for Metroid Prime, one of the best games ever made. Looking back at Retro Studio’s gameography, we’ll find a stellar list composed only of absolute bangers, but that’s baffling to anyone familiar with the company when it first started. It is time for another tale of a masterpiece whose existence is a total miracle.

One would assume Retro has been very serious from the start. It would make sense as this is one of the few American companies Nintendo entrusted with making games. The talent sure was there, but retro was founded by Jeff Spangenberg, a nerd who was probably just a cleverly disguised Chad.

Even though Retro first showed off four different projects – more than any new company could probably chew, Nintendo still sent them a load of cash. There was one thing they didn’t know, however. Spangenberg was less of a developer and more of a player – a player who didn't care for games. Things went sour pretty quickly. Spangenberg barely even talked to his development team, let alone reported back to Nintendo, probably because he was too busy partying nonstop and uploading pictures of topless women to a website registered by Retro Studios.

They got rid of the pictures pretty quickly, but that was more than enough for Nintendo to consider that maybe this wasn’t a very good choice for the head of the studio. How did Nintendo fix the problem? Well, by giving Spangenberg even more money to leave the company, but of course! After replacing the upper management, the Retro almost immediately blossomed into the masterpiece-maker we know today.

Don't feel sad for Spangenberg, though, as he went on to find success with something called The Guy Game – yes, that wasn’t just a nightmare – The Xbox did have a game whose gameplay amounted to drinking real beer while watching women show their boobs. If Spangenberg had been famous enough at the time, he could've pulled off naming it Spangenberg Simulator.

Top Image: Retro Studios