Spyborgs dev speaks about how the game was rushed, pre-beta version shipped in the US, rough Bionic/Capcom relationship
Former Bionic Games creative director Mike Stout has shared some incredibly interesting insight into the development of Spyborgs.
For those who are unaware, Spyborgs is Capcom’s Wii-exclusive title developed by Bionic Games. After its initial reveal, the project underwent a major overhaul following feedback from fans.
Stout says that Bionic had just six months to recreate its game from scratch for Capcom. Amazingly, Capcom ended up shipping an incomplete, pre-beta build in North America as the final version. Unlike Europe, the US received a game with untuned difficulty and companion AI that “just didn’t work.”
Stout also touched on the relationship between Bionic Games and Capcom. Sadly, both companies ended up treating each other very poorly.
You can find all of Stout’s tweets after the break. Please note that some of the messages contain strong lanauge.
Anyone want to hear a story? I just realized my NDA on Spyborgs has been expired for some time now.
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
Here's the basic gist: We all killed ourselves to make a game under impossible pressures. (6 months to re-create the game from scratch)
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
Then, before Beta, Capcom sent the game code to a dev in Texas. The dev fixed all the "Lot Check" bugs and Capcom shipped that build.
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
For whatever reason, Nintendo stopped them shipping the Texas version outside the US. Probably because you couldn't complete it 100%
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
We had no knowledge of this, because we were still working on the game at the time. And since the company folded immediately after…
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
Who knew!
Yaaaay, history!
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
Now I know it LOOKS like Capcom was trying to not pay us and knowingly sent a broken product to it's audience, but I doubt that's the story.
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
There was a lot of shit going on with that game. A LOT.
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
Bionic was intensely shitty to Capcom. Capcom was shitty RIGHT back. This was not a case of the big bad publisher VS the innocent dev.
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
This is a case of what shit is like every day between 3rd party devs and publishers. Both suck really hard. And the fans get screwed.
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
@iandioch It started off as a game aimed at 13 year old boys and girls. They wanted us to remake it into a game for 16 year old guys.
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
@iandioch They did this because a) The game we were making was f***ing shitty at the time, and b) Their fans hated the stuff we were showing
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
@iandioch The game we ended up with was okay, given that we made it in 6 months. The game they shipped in North America was dog shit.
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
@iandioch The EU countries and the UK should have gotten that one, at least according to what I've gathered watching YouTube.
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
@iandioch Biggest play differences are the 2nd player AI and the difficulty tuning (both work in the final).
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
@iandioch It threw it all off, yeah. Made the game almost unplayably hard (even on easy). There were hundreds of other things too, but small
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
@iandioch The texans didn't cause those balance problems. They were in the code at the time they got the code. All they did was clean it up.
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
@iandioch We were in the process of completely rewriting the companion AI system at the time that snapshot was taken.
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
@iandioch If they'd been able to wait 2 weeks for the milestone, it would have been fixed. We had those problems fixed for Beta.
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
@Matth3w_90 Our version shipped overseas. The North American version is the incomplete one.
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
@Matth3w_90 The North American one's difficulty was untuned, plus the companion AI just didn't work. So the game was unplayably hard.
— Mike 'Dodger' Stout (@MikeDodgerStout) May 1, 2014
