A Retrospective: The Story of Retro Studios

Personally, I have always wondered what it is like at Retro Studios. Are the floors made of gold? Are the walls covered from floor to ceiling with flat-panel LCDs? Contrary to popular belief, Retro Studios isn't (or wasn't) the Emerald City we all imagined it to be.

"Herman-Miller Aeron chairs galore, nice desks, lots of dark corners to work in, free sodas, etc. It was still the height of dot-com craziness," explains Jason Hughes. "The [Retro NFL] Football team was particularly tight-knit; we tended to have lunches with ten or twelve people. I knew nearly everyone in the company for a time and was friendly with them, but the floor plan of the current building emphasized privacy and isolation between teams, presumably to reduce interruptions. Within a team area, though, it could get noisy, as every (fairly large) cube-like office had two or three desks and lots of hard surfaces to reflect sound."

Looking back, Jason remembers the early days to be fairly laid-back. "We worked hard, but played hard too. The whole company went out to lunch with Jeff sometimes, all ten or fifteen of us, or went drinking in the fashionable Warehouse District in downtown Austin. As the company bulked up and the pressure increased and deadlines approached, we worked more than we played. Most of the teams were doing 12-hour days for months at a time, and doing some good work too. The core of the [Retro NFL] Football team was there even longer hours, and most weekends."

Another former employee, desiring to remain anonymous at this time, recalls how different the culture at Retro Studios was when compared with his pervious employments. "The first time I turned on my VCR at Retro to have Star Wars playing (behind my back) while I worked, Jeff Spangenberg nearly flipped. So I quickly figured out that it was a different kind of company! But it sounded like there were going to be a lot of opportunities, so I figured it was worth it."

James Dargie also remembers the focus and concentration at the company. "The work environment was very focused at Retro," he recounts. "We were given our latitudes to be as relaxed and at ease as we wanted but still had a structured production that kept us on track for the most part. Like I stated earlier, I didn't know anyone there, but others at the company knew each other from previous employment and working relationships. Most all of us were doubled up in offices of a pretty good size. Leads, Producers and our Director had their own spaces to conduct their business in, as it should be. Later on as the building became more...vacant, most all of us got our own offices. For most of my time there, I shared an office with a great 3D guy, Ryan Powell. He wasn't very good at Puzzle-Bobble, but proved his worth where it counted."

Communication, both in the casual and work-related sense, was highly supported within the company. James comments that, "Although you'll find that most teams at video game companies try to keep bits and pieces of knowledge to themselves to stay ahead of the curve, Retro was a departure and had a good database of programming and production techniques that aided each team (with a little of the former too...hey, nothing's perfect)."

"Retro's team atmosphere was further encouraged via weekly staff meetings that were held in the main theater." James explains, "There we would look at our progress individually and collectively on the big screen. It was a typical work structure with team meetings sporadically scheduled throughout the day. Other than that, there were really no rituals like exercise. It was not influenced by Japanese culture in any way if that is what you may have been wondering. It was straight up Texan with barbeque for dinner with margaritas."

When asked about the typical workday at Retro, Dargie explained in detail, "At first it was an 8-hour day to the minute. I was not used to this structure and frankly it felt odd. However, things should run like [that] for the most part. No one minds working a little extra to get the job done right, but constant crunch can burn out a developer to the point where he/she is ineffective regardless of the time they put in. As the project [Metroid Prime] progressed, the hours increased and for a while it was your typical "Death March" to get the product done as best as it could be. There were always deadlines imposed by Nintendo for us to meet milestones and prove our progress was moving us in the right direction. All in all, nothing different from other companies I've worked for but near the end, so I am told, it got pretty hairy."

"There wasn't a traditional 'punch in/out' there," according to James. "However, your ID card/security badge opened the door for you and it kept a log of that activity," he explains. "We speculated for a bit that they were secretly keeping track of our time that way, which was formally denied. It came out later that they did in fact check these logs to see who was working what hours and when people arrived in the morning. Ultimately this doesn't prove a lot as several people can walk in the door once it has been open, without registering their ID. It's all nonsense really. If you're getting your scheduled tasks completed properly on time, it should be assumed you are putting in the time to do that. We give up a lot of our personal time and energy for game creation. One of our 'perks' is the right to arrive at 10:00 a.m. some days because we worked until midnight the night before. Sometimes it can be a more extreme example...all night even. In the end, I think they saw the value of what the team had to offer over punching a clock."

At first glance, it might appear that Retro is located in a rather run-of-the-mill office building. Prospective employees may especially wonder whether or not the studio has any recreational areas or if its employees receive an impressive benefits package. Many development studios have recreation centers. For example, EA Canada in Vancouver has a 3,000 square foot theatre, fitness center, and cafeteria. How does a small studio like Retro measure up?

"No formal recreation area, at least while I was there," says James. "They did offer us a free membership to a local gym though. We did have a big kitchen area with snack machines, coffee, free soda, various food items, ovens, refrigerators and the like. Also sprinkled throughout the building were smaller "Pit Stops" with microwaves, coffee, tea, etc. In the main kitchen area was also a row of video game machines ranging from individual Pac-Man types to the big MAME machine that played most every game you think of."

Retro also featured a very open management to employee relationship; however, these policies really depended upon how each individual employee decided to optimize it. "Everyone at Retro was a professional from the start," James tells N-Sider. "That means they were approachable, personable and open to suggestion. Steve Barcia was always there for us if we needed to talk with him about anything. Jeff Spangenberg was always approachable as well and if you didn't know any better you'd think he was just a regular employee. He didn't put on any kind of false facade or the feeling he was too good to talk to us. All in all, the atmosphere was refreshing and welcomed at the beginning there."

When we asked Jason Hughes about management he readily agreed that there was always an open-door policy. The problem was that few people took advantage of it. Yet, the chain of command was still very strong at times. However, he admits that virtually all the upper management of the company has changed hands since then, so he is likely not describing the Retro Studios of today.

As far as benefits programs go, Retro has had two distinct programs over the years. One was a private program of Retro's, while the other is believed to be Nintendo's own corporate program. Once Nintendo purchased Retro in 2001, Retro Studios employees became eligible for Nintendo's corporate package. "Typical stuff: 401K, Medical, Dental, Life, etc... Compared to other studios it was okay," says James Dargie. "Some [aspects] are better and some are far more lacking. When I was at Square, I hardly ever paid a thing when it came to medical or dental. I think the birth of my daughter cost us $50 back in 1999 in Hawaii. It's kind of hard to beat that, but Retro offered a good package and it was more than adequate. When Nintendo took over I don't know if anything changed, benefits-wise."