Goodnightmoon said:
curl-6 said:
Yeah, it's hard to believe looking at the final product, (which is one of the best games ever made in my opinion) but apparently it's development was a very rocky road.
Nintendo apparently replaced two of Retro's presidents during the production of Prime due to mismanagement.
Hell, according to a former dev there who spoke to IGN about it, the situation was downright atrocious:
"They had also hired quite a few egos - we had several guys who could not abide competition and would torpedo any potential employee who they thought might upstage them, at least until the rest of us pointed out that trend and the head of the art department stopped consulting them. The feeling of the place was secretive and paranoid - not at all good for creative output. The work areas were almost all in a walled-off, black painted interior part of the building where no natural light could reach. All-in-all not a pleasant place to spend your time." He continues, "And there were indeed issues with the higher-ups, including people who used company computer hardware to run porn websites out of their home and others who embezzled hundreds of thousands from the company and fled the country. It's no wonder that Nintendo was able to purchase Retro for the ridiculous price of one million - I'm amazed they wanted it at all. I guess at that point they were in so far they needed to get something out of it."
You can read more about it here: http://au.ign.com/articles/2004/12/18/a-retrospective-the-story-of-retro-studios?page=8
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LOL
That's quite the drama, sounds like a tv show I would love XD
I'm specially impressed with the talent of Retro, more than ever, even with those work conditions and all the drama they managed to make such an historic achievement? amazing.
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Yeah, it definitely makes for a great story, that they went through so many difficulties and setbacks but still produced a masterpiece.
It's worth noting that many gamers back in 2001-2002 predicted that the game would suck, not only because of the development problems, but because it was in first person and developed by a Western team. I guess it just goes to show, sometimes pre-judging a game can backfire.
