Rockstar will not have anything to do with Team Bondi's next game, thanks to a break down in the relationship between the publisher and the L.A Noire developer.
"It's pretty well reported now that the working conditions were bad. What hasn't been discussed yet (from what I've seen) is the relationship between Team Bondi and Rockstar," a former Team Bondi staffer told GI.biz.
"I've heard a lot about Rockstar's disdain for Team Bondi, and it has been made quite clear that they will not publish Team Bondi's next game. Team Bondi are trying to find another publisher for their next title, but the relationship with Rockstar has been badly damaged - Brendan treats L.A. Noire like a success due to his vision but I think Rockstar are the ones who saved the project.
"They continued to sink money into LA Noire, and their marketing was fantastic. Without their continued support, Team Bondi would have gone under several years ago."
"Rockstar also made a huge contribution to the development; their producers were increasingly influential over the last two years of the game's development, and overruled many of the insane decisions made by Team Bondi management.
"At a lower level, Rockstar also pitched in with programmers, animators, artists, QA, etc. Part of the conflict between Team Bondi and Rockstar was due to Rockstar's frustration with Team Bondi's direction, and eventually Team Bondi's management in turn resented Rockstar for taking lots of creative control. It's also worth pointing out that Rockstar used to be very keen on making Team Bondi something like 'Rockstar Sydney' - the more they worked with Team Bondi management, the more they came to understand that this was a terrible idea. I have a few logs that show the relationship souring - see below."
One of the logs, an email from Team Bondi boss Brendan McNamara to the rest of the studio, shows disagreement between McNamara and Rockstar over pulling out of 2010's E3.
A second log is a bit more fiery and shows McNamara's reaction to a Rockstar redesign of the L.A Noire logo and the lack of a Team Bondi logo on the game announcement.
"Brendan's reply was only supposed to be to Simon, but he replied to everybody at Team Bondi by mistake," said the source. "He claimed he was only talking about commenters on news articles, but it was pretty clear to everyone that this wasn't true."
From: Brendan McNamara [Team Bondi founder]
To: Everybody List [everyone who worked for Team Bondi]
Every dog has its day and there's going to be hell to pay for this one. I'll never forget being treated like an absolute **** by these people.
This all comes, of course, after Team Bondi was caught in a storm of controversy about the treatment of its staff during development of L.A Noire.
The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) was set to investigate claims of unfair work policies at the Australian studio at the end of last month.
Comments
29 comments so far...
StonecoldMC on 5 Jul '11 said:
The infighting you get between Devs and Publishers seems to be getting worse.
It looks like ti all comes down to the crunch and how different Devs deal with it, by all accounts Team Bondi didnt do too well!
I didnt buy LA Noire but I played a good few missions over at a friends and to be honest it strikes me as the kind of Game that will be brilliant once they get to the third iteration of it, until that point its a good but seriously flawed Game.
murph_77 on 5 Jul '11 said:
Bye bye Team Bondi.
AJDarkstar on 5 Jul '11 said:
I'm inclined to think Rockstar know what they're doing, but it sounds an awful lot like Team Bondi's managers don't have a clue whatsoever. This all explains why LA Noire came out so well - it was all down to Rockstar reigning them in.
WHERESMYMONKEY on 5 Jul '11 said:
Ungrateful bastard, It was the R* logo on it that helped it sell so well. For a lot of gamers its a almost a seal of quality. I've never played a bad rockstar game. LA Noire was a good game but without that endorsement i doubt it would of done half as well.
KK-Headcharge78 on 5 Jul '11 said:
Rockstar are one of the best publishers out there and Bondi will need to be s**t hot to survive after this, god help them if they get EA or Activision
As for the game itself, I like it but it suffers heavily from repetition, take the rough with the smotth I guess.
boskersrevenge on 5 Jul '11 said:
The Team Bondi Wiki page is sparse and a little bitter.
Leders on 5 Jul '11 said:
Who else failed to relate to Cole Phelps? From all the games I have played, including some truely horrific titles, he is the worst Lead character I have had the misfortune of playing as, as funny as a kick in the nuts (although saying that, seeing others getting kicked inthe nuts can be quite entertaining).
RandyChimp on 5 Jul '11 said:
I enjoyed LA Noire, but it definitely lacked something found in Rockstar developed games. The Team Bondi boss guy sounds like an arrogant tool, he should show some respect to the company that saved his one f**king game and got it some amazing sales figures.
G00N3R on 5 Jul '11 said:
Agreed. The first half of the game he came across as insanely arrogant. Of course it doesn't help me relate to my character when a very important moral decision (to cheat or not to cheat) is taken complely out of my hands, and then the last few missions I'm forced to play as a totally different character who until then has been portrayed as the bad guy.
PMIKE5 on 5 Jul '11 said:
Rockstar are notorious for burning all bridges sadly. I remember there was a lot of talk of there being high tensions with the faction of Rockstar that made Red Dead and of course the famous videos from the actors who voiced the characters in GTA4.
Come on Rockstar, let's try and keep some of our friends...
Shamanix on 5 Jul '11 said:
I agree, i would never have brought la noire if it were,nt for rockstar getting involved and savong there ungratful asses! I thought la noire was a okay game, but nothing compared to what rockstar had done in the past!
Jensonjet on 5 Jul '11 said:
Team Bondi have a point about their logo being prominent on the game, and I can understand why they're upset about Rockstar's insistence on using their version of the game logo.
Saying that, it amazes me that developers can't actually finance their own product and require the funds of publishers to survive and get games into the high street. Perhaps if developers were more self sufficient and less reliant on publishers situations like this wouldn't exist. I don't know exactly how the industry works but it appears many developers have a team in place and an idea for a game, then require a sugar daddy, in form of a publisher, to effectively turn the idea into a tangible product. Maybe I should get together with a few mates and approach a publisher with a game idea! (only joking, I would not want to work in that industry, pumping out clone after clone)
TheCrimsonFenix on 5 Jul '11 said:
Probably the only part of LA Noire I actually liked was when they had the same voice and body actor who played Mark Hammond from The Getaway in it. It was a nice nod to one of their old games, which was to be honest, flawed but still highly enjoyable. Which is more than I can say for LA Noire. Overhyped and bleeding the gimmick of emotional interrogations with the rest of the game feeling crap. Maybe if they had spent a little time in coming up with better actual gameplay that doesn't feel like a third rate knock off, they'd have had a more enjoyable game on their hands. It just didn't feel like anything that R* would put their hands on. Glorified tech demo, nothing more.
Rise_ofthe_Mike on 5 Jul '11 said:
Maybe Sony will pick them up again...
boskersrevenge on 5 Jul '11 said:
..and in the same breath gamers want new hardware. Developing a game is horrendously expensive and this project had a unique selling point putting it's development costs much higher.
anytime on 5 Jul '11 said:
La noir was a good game but not great, you could almost sence that a great game was trying to break through when you where playing it. And you could see the influence of rockstar dotted around parts of the game experiance. The ending was a total cluster f**k though, whoever was in charge of it needs sacked. The gunfighting needed work aswell.
Like has been said, the R* involvement sold more copies, purely because of the name. Personality clashes.
BenThomasFoster on 5 Jul '11 said:
wait so rockstar went to far with it's publishing role, Team Bondi losing their identity and power along the way. and they are the criminals. I'm sure there would be up roar if activision did the same to bungie or infinity ward
Matriculated on 5 Jul '11 said:
Neither Rockstar or Team Bondi seem particularly easy to work with. We all know about the RDR development and the ridiculous hours the staff were forced to work to finish the game.
Team Bondi has a similar problem. Sony was originally going to publish LA Noire, then dropped support after several disputes with Brain McNamara (head of Team Bondi)
It also seems like McNamara isn't particularly liked within his own studio: http://www.develop-online.net/news/3811 ... and-brutal
Mr Black on 5 Jul '11 said:
The problem I had with La Noire was that the game reeked of the getaway. The style of the city was very similar in terms of looks and that almost flat appearance. The driving felt similar and the shooting mechanics were the same.
Now as we know the head of team bondi is the guy who created the getaway and we all know how the getaway and its sequel turned out IE: not very well.
I think rockstar brought an element of polish and by the sound of it some design sense to la noire that had it not had it would have been the 1940's getaway.
jim2wheels on 5 Jul '11 said:
Why do we have to relate to the lead character to enjoy the story? Did you relate to the lead character in any Final Fantasy game, God of War, Silence of the Lambs or Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I don't get this need to like/relate to a character in games - it's a ridiculous notion and ome that should in no way detract from a good story - I thought the main story was pretty tight for gaming standards.
The game is indeed flawed in many ways, and if you want to be pedantic about things, you could say the story is flawed. But, show me any film or story driven entertainment that doesn't have flaws? Hell, even Star Wars has countless flaws in it's story (one of the oldest plots in the history of plots being plotted) but we all love it anyway.
The game was different, trying to break the mold of existing genres that are so fatigued it's getting beyond a joke. It wasn't perfect by any means, but I'm glad it did well for the sake of innovation and taking a risk.
MPH on 5 Jul '11 said:
I've completed the game and got all the achievements, but you should really put a spoiler warning on your post. One thing I cannot stand is people that spoil games for others. I've added them on to the quote myself ¬.¬
almanac2015 on 5 Jul '11 said:
Star Wars was s**t. Really s**t. Honestly, it's nothing but flaws and how the franchise has become so successful I have no idea. Crap characters, ridiculous dialogue and as you said - an unoriginal plot. C-3PO and R2-D2? They're embarrassing.
gmcb007 on 5 Jul '11 said:
This
If they marketed it with 'from the creator of the getaway' then I don't think it would have been as appealing!
He should have learned from similar previous dev slander events that it can only end badly.
The_KFD_Case on 5 Jul '11 said:
My sentiments on the matter as well. I think both sides in this dispute have valid grievances, and neither side is completely innocent of antagonizing the other; perhaps it was unintentional to start with, yet one thing led to another, and before you know it both sides feel not just frustrated but actually hostile towards each other. That said, it does seem to me that R* is the party responsible for saving L.A. Noire from becoming a fiasco.
Sleepaphobic on 5 Jul '11 said:
The way he's talking abt working conditions is as if R* was whipping them all day.
humanhand on 5 Jul '11 said:
Quite a relief, LA Noire was good in a lot of ways, and bad in a lot of ways. The bad parts of it just spoiled it all rotten for me. Good riddance.
djreplay on 5 Jul '11 said:
Bet they'll be back in bed together for the inevitable release of LA Noire 2.
jim2wheels on 5 Jul '11 said:
That sig always brings a smile to my face.
God knows how you get away with it.
procion on 9 Jul '11 said:
I don't want to get back up onto my anti LA Noire soapbox, but I've said in forums several times over the past few weeks "Just how much Rockstar is there in this Team Bondi game anyways". I'm not saying a game has to have pie in the face antics to be fun or even playable, but apart from driving around the hugely detailed but lackadaisically vibrant map, I shudder each time I think of actually starting or continuing a mish. Which doesn't leave much else to do. After Rockstar(?), or was it Team Bondi fun-policed any access to making ones way outside of the map in the last patch(and it was fun to doss around the edges of the map and to see how they put these things together), I thought something was very wrong at the dev elopment-decision making end of the game. It's not like you could very easily fall out of the map's edges, so why be so anally fixated on killing that aspect of ANY of the available fun out of the game. LA Noire: A game made definately not to have any fun with...(