Would any of us honestly be surprised if after being fired Spangenburg was like "Well I just go make my own best game ever, but with blackjack and hookers" and that was where The Guy Game came from?
Seriously, the guy would’ve probably been able to take most credit for reviving Metroid and the Metroid Prime series in general if he would’ve just showed up and not hosted a porn site.
What's most ironic about the whole story is that Nintendo's background is actually in illegal gambling and sex motels. Hiroshi Yamauchi's family ran and owned the latter, and Nintendo's first franchise, Mach Rider (which was remade in 1985 by Gunpei Yokoi for arcades and the NES), was originally a set of hanafuda cards made for Yakuza-run gambling circles in the 1960s. No joke, look it up.
It sounds like they had a good grasp of Metroid's design philosophy, were well equipped for the graphical and lore updates it needed for 3D, and Miyamoto's bizarre requirements ended up being exactly what MP1 needed. Probably a *good* thing spangenberg screwed up so much in the end, huh?
@@NachostheXth Could be, but if Jeff did his job, it's possible all promised titled games including Prime would had come out. It just highlights that Jeff was wasting the talent and (and the studio) with his own shenanigans.
@@worldofthought8352 Didn't Matt say that the only reason they got the chance to make Prime was because, in a weird opportunity, the barely started concept for one of their games convinced them they could do it. If it was released I get the feeling they would have considered a Metroid FPS redundant, especially if the game failed in the market.
Ugly duckling stories like Prime's never fail to put a smile on my face. When stuff that had disaster written all over it just pulls through and becomes a legendary piece of media that will be talked about for generations.
Fun fact; I was offered the Lead Design position on "Action Game" by Spankberg, over the phone. When I was flown down to Texas, during the interview (which was meant to be just a formality), Spanglebunk says to me, "you don't LOOK the way you SOUND..." then, promptly tells me the other team members I was meant to meet are all sick. Funny that... O_o
@@Snacks256 In reality, the only stressful part of game development is adhering to deadlines, last minute changes from execs/leads, and team compatibility.
Seeing such a negative reaction to Metroid Prime before it's release from the gamers back in 2000 makes me shudder to imagine the awful abuse that Retro Studios staff would've faced online if this game was developed nowadays.
Its not new, zelda share the same fate with windwaker and even mario with sunshine. Gamecube is such a revolution in nintendo's franchise while I prefer mario 64 and oddysey to sunshine, I apprecite their courage to try something new.
@@FunkyGhost37 The difference is that Other M isn't...good. So regardless of how people on the whole reacted, most negativity towards the game was unfortunately justified. So long as none of it was directed at the game developers themselves since they were just doing what they were told.
@@okagron The "backlash" against Sunshine was more to the tune of... is that it? You're going to follow up one of the most capital-I Important games ever with the same game but at the beach? Oh, he has a squirtgun; that's super. It wasn't really "backlash", just a general disappointment at the seeming lack of imagination one got from the trailers.
@xg223 Dude. The PS2 sold like hotcakes because it was a DVD player and a game machine. He's saying that if it had actual DVD's and not mini DVD's it could've had more success rather than be 3rd place that generation. If Nintendo had the foresight to use actual DVD and had DVD movie playback they could've been able to be in 2nd place and beat the Xbox.
Wow. When playing it, Metroid Prime always felt like a perfect game made by professionals who were masters of their craft. I never would have guessed it was made by a bunch of panicking college grads who were shitting their pants. It really was a miracle!
Even better, make it a hidden boss, similar to the one Nier: Automata DLC where you fight the CEO of Square Enix as an in-game boss, except it's Samus Aran getting into a super duper secret room that requires 100%ing the game, and has Jeff Spangenberg, (except it's a legally dubious knock-off named Jeffrey SpankinBurger or something like that) and, despite being a guy in a tanktop, is by far the hardest boss fight in the game, has multiple phases, and requires use of all the gadgets and upgrades obtained along the way. I would pay Nintendo actual money for that.
Metroid Prime is the greatest example of don’t judge a book by its cover when it comes to video games. What looked like a generic FPS game riding on the current trends, ended up being one of the best action-adventure games of all time.
@@darthcinema4262 Seeing Samus and the Slayer using their grapple beam and meat hook to yank and enemy toward them and blast them to bits with the super missile and super shotgun would be a dream come true.
@@KRS2000 Even better: A tag team glory kill. Doomguy latches onto the upper body, samus latches onto the bottom, they yank said enemy apart and blast their pieces to bits.
@@senounatsuru6453 I meant to say that earlier. Even having Samus ripping zombie guys shields out of their hands with her grapple beam, and then the Slayer jumps in and saw them into pieces. A cool glory kill would be the Slayer blowing off a Cyberdemons (or Tyrant) leg, dropping it, and Samus jumps on and pulls its head back, and she jams her arm cannon down its throat and fires a super missile, and completely blows its body apart.
"Everyone is cowards" Sounds like a good title for an indie game, just need a good idea to go with it (as well as being able to develop it, and not over promise on kickstarter)
Could be a last man standing type of multiplayer game. Where you need to avoid physically contacting people or you lose. But the trick is the arena/environment is setup in a way that makes it difficult to avoid contact. Or a reverse Pac-Man game where everyone is a ghost and the last person still alive wins (Pac-Man 99 is sort of like that).
Miyamoto really saved this entire game, holy shit. I mean, obviously credit to Retro's developers for coming up with all these solutions to morphball mode and "having a bugs head," but those ideas really boosted the game beyond just being a FPS. This is one of my favourite games of all time and it's wild to hear all this summarised.
I never really thought about until now but the scan visor and stuff really added a lot. It makes you feel like the terminator that you can tell a ton about something just by looking at it
@@RyanStorey1231 Basically Sticker Star and every Paper Mario game after it when it comes to Miyamoto making bad decisions. Someone really should convince him to make Paper Mario more like the first two games.
Actually, I would say that it wasn't so much Miyamoto's ideas, but his insistence on pushing the team into uncomfortable places and designs. Encouraging them to step outside their comfort zones and actually think big. After all, he didn't say "scan visor"; it was the team that piggybacked off of his idea about altered perspectives and used it to create an innovative storytelling mechanism.
Meteoid Prime was my introduction to the Metroid universe. (playing Samus in Smash64 doesn't count) And I was hooked. To this day Meteoid Prime 2 Echoes is _STILL_ my favorite game. And that game is almost two decades old. Nothing has beaten it since. Some have gotten close mind you. But none have taken Aran's crown. I still remember when Nintendo came on YT and said "we have scrapped Meteoid Prime 4 as it hasn't met our standards. We will be bringing in Retro Studios who helped with the original trilogy to help make this game right. We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience this has caused and we hope that you'll give us some patients." All of the internet was like "TAKE YOUR TIME! ME WANT GOOD GAME!"
Prime 1 was my introduction to the series but I didn’t get completely hooked until I played the GBA games. After that, I replayed Prime 1 with a better appreciation and did a 100% play through
Prime and Fusion weren't my intro but the first time I really ever got into Metroid and "got it". Previously Metroid as a whole I just couldn't get my head around how to approach the games.
Damn, all the young programmers that have the dream to make a game for a big dog like Nintendo, and this Spankingburgers guy gets stupid ideas. Just think about it, this guy could have nuked Nintendo's trust in American developers.
Now that he's doing "Wha Happun" to good games, may I suggest doing one on Kirby's Return to Dreamland? That game has been through some serious development hell. It went from a 2.5D game like Kirby 64, to a full on 3D game, to a pop-up book styled game etc.
Meta Shade --- maybe first The Witcher game? I know that the game might not be very good, but it's development is really fascinating to cover. (it was been in development for around 8 YEARS, and like around 1/4 was different studio's work)
Wow, that story of Spaggenberg spending company funds on lavish parties and sports cars kind of reminds me of the story of Pat Lee and his short-lived comic book company Dreamwave Productions... which itself published a comic book adaptation of Metroid Prime, fittingly enough. Speaking of which, if you're ever thinking of dabbling in comics in this series, you have _got_ to do a video on Dreamwave. The story behind that disaster is amazing.
@@jet100a Unfortunately, I have to say know for both. Dreamwave went out of business in the mid 2000s for various reasons (thus my suggestion for a Wha Happun on the subject), and to my knowledge the comic has never been reprinted so any existing copies can likely only be purchased on eBay for ludicrous prices. If the rights to the comic are anything like Dreamwave's Transformers license, then they've likely defaulted back to Nintendo, and considering how seldom it licenses its IP to other companies for multimedia projects (they infamously turned down Archie/IDW Sonic writer Ian Flynn's pitch to make a Mario comic), I don't see the rights going to another comic company anytime soon. Afraid I don't have a link either. While I do not doubt scans exist online, I've never sought them out myself. I honestly only know of the comic's existence because previews were printed in issues of Nintendo Power when I was a kid, and was just remembered because Spaggenberg's conduct reminded me of DW head Pat Lee (except toned down from Lee, if you can believe it), and my brain made the connection from there.
The number of stories where Miyamoto asks vague "What if you did this?" questions that led to ground breaking game mechanics is crazy. It's amazing how he's able to direct people without actually telling them what to do. He seems to prefer to allow people to figure things out on their own.
I love the story that everyone at Rare was cringing that Donkey Kong brought out a realistic shotgun, so Shigsy sketched out the Coconut Gun on a piece of paper and that was the end of that.
Never knew how difficult something so simple like the Morph Ball was one of the biggest and complex features that made it or break it for the game. Thank god they did it, what followed was some of the best games ever made.
Often, many things that seem simple are exceedingly difficult to do. Indeed, the fact that they *seem* simple is precisely what makes them hard: because you have to get everything about it *right.* Where does the camera go? In a 1st person game, that's not even a question you ask. So once you say you're putting in 3rd person play, you have to *write* a camera system in a game that maybe wasn't designed to have one. But more than that, it has to work in open areas just as well as tight corridors. Which means you have to build a camera system that can be overridden based on where Samus is. Where artists can build environments and say "put the camera here when in morph ball", and you have to make that work. And remember: these aren't experienced masters of programming; they were mostly people some scumbag hired off the street. And they're not working with Unreal Engine 4, but something they created from whole cloth. At a time in 3D gaming when being good at cameras was still more art than science.
It isn't an unknown concept for Nintendo. Owning a sex motel chain made them big in Japan at the start, and they also own the '90s Super Mario porn movies (although they bought those rights to keep off those miserabilities off the market)
The classic “Bugs Head” challenge. You love to see it. It’s when you hire a team of talent, then tell them something about making it like a bugs head. They never know what to do, but it always comes out good
Very surprised to see how the origins of Retro Studios were a mess created by an uncaring head. They ended up becoming a widely well regarded studio after their successes and it's shocking to see that Metroid Prime was almost a bust before becoming one of the best Gamecube games around. You sure do keep making great videos, Mr. McMuscles and I can't wait to see what you put out next!
Looking forward to Metroid Prime 4 - What Happened?, where we finally find out what hot garbage Bandai Namco cooked up that got Nintendo to spam the eject button immediately.
"It's lamentable that I have to talk about this waffle of a human being-" Eh, I'm not a fan of documentary-style videos making super negative judgements on people during it, it just seems a bit unprofessional and shows some bias. "Spangenburg, once he received the money, barely came into work to help lead, spent the production budget on cars and pleasantries, and ran a porn site off of Nintendo's dollar." You know what nevermind, I get it now.
Matt McMuscles on May 29th, 2021: "Retro seems to excel in launching polished, fully formed experiences, oftentimes out of nowhere." Nintendo on February 8th, 2023: "We're bringing Metroid Prime Remastered to Switch...and you can download it from the eShop starting TODAY!" And given the remaster's massive critical acclaim (it has a Metacritic score of 94 as of this writing), Nintendo and Retro Studios' effort to shadow drop such a polished, fully formed remaster out of nowhere has paid off beautifully!
I knew it was gonna be great, but even I was surprised at how beautifully the remaster was brought to the Switch! Playing Metroid Prime on the go is almost too good to be true, and yet here we are 😁😁
I think that, after the whole"the guy game" debacle, Jeff spangenberg, out of shame, made a facial modification surgery and change name to try to escape the ridicule.
The whole entire Prime trilogy is a masterpiece, from the gameplay, the graphics, story, and music. I adore the music from this game trilogy. Retro went on to make another amazing production of Donkey Kong Country which is awesome in itself.
Good video, was surprised about Miyamoto's involvement. I did read once he mentioned about the helmet feature but that was it, but didn't think his involvement was this extensive and that he had more ideas that shaped the direction of the game. He gets praised for Mario games, but should get be as much recognized as getting things done, given how things were spiralling under Jeff Spangenberg, the whole sleazy dealings under Retro's server is mindbogglingly absurd, to the point I'm still finding it hard to believe!
That "See You Next Mission" card towards the end put a big smile on my face, I'm looking forward to seeing what Retro's going to cook up next. Also a nice touch to put the actual time the video is at there!
My mind LIVES in the gutter, Matt! Rule34 forever lol but even as big a pervert as I am, I'd never spend money my bosses gave me to develop a game on strippers or starting a porn studio on their dime.
This has been a fun episode, didn't know Metroid Prime went through as much Hell as it did, great that despite the odds Retro Pulled through and made a name for themselves, very impressive.
After playing the remaster, it baffles me how they were able to make the vast majority of this game in under a year. From the interconnected world to the endless power-ups and visors, it’s crazy they were able to pull it off with such little time. Even with the immense crunch it’s a testament to the skill of everyone who worked on the game that it does not feel rushed or half-baked in any sense.
I think my brain is warped after binging a bunch of Caddicarus videos, because that title sounds like a joke he'd make and it caused me to giggle like a schoolgirl. 😆
Exactly. The term not necessarily defines specifically by Super Metroid & Castlevania Symphony of the Night as there was plenty of games with similiar structure that preceeded them. But as it is, it had resonated for alot western people as far as I concerned and it still baffled me.
Matt McMuscles I document the game exclusively and the changes are all for the worse. This is like nothing I’ve seen before. Anthem, Fallout 76, No Mans sky & Cyberpunk combined.
Dude was making and distributing porn with the money given by Nintendo. What a legend. **slow clap** If Jeff wouldn't have done this, there would have been no Metroid Prime as we know it.
Considering everything and how they pulled it off, there is no way this would have been possible today. One could say Retro was power-bombing themselves with a project that should never have been good. And today, I still consider Metroid Prime to be my favorite game of all-time.
I was one of the doubters when I first heard about the "first person shooter" Metroid game. I know a lot of people were, but it's kind of silly in retrospect. Some of the earliest PC role playing games had elements of first person exploration, so the idea that a first person perspective game could only be a mindless actionfest never really made sense, but i guess a lot of us felt that way.
Prime 2, in my opinion, is gaming perfection. It has been unmatched and I have been anxiously, *anxiously* awaiting another game to come along to match it. I can only imagine what Prime 1 could have been had old Jeff not blown Nintendo’s money on his own selfish greed. I hope Prime 4 delivers. This is the one game I need to be right.
Retro studios has only ever made incredible games. Let this complete list of all retro's developed titles sink in: Prime, Prime 2, Prime 3, DKCR, DKC Tropical Freeze, MK7. There is no other developer whose weakest game is as good as Donkey Kong Country Returns and has also made so many absolute classics.
Jeff Spangenberg... Imagine Viktor Frankenstein using liters and liters of Monster Energy instead of electricity to give life to the Creature. The result will be this man.
@@ForrestFox626 I personally like to believe Matt likes it but has accepted it's not going to be a thing. His insistence on it seems a bit too jokey to be completely sincere.
This is an interesting one... What Happened to N3: Ninety Nine Nights. Seriously that game got quite a bit of marketing behind it and after the sequel it kinda banished in the air.