LA Noire developer goes titsup
Team Bondi hits dark times
Australia’s international gaming success story, Team Bondi, the developer behind LA Noire, has been placed into administration.
The development studio has been hit by some controversy in recent months, with rumours that it had sold its IP to rival development house, KMM Studios, last month and an unceremonious parting of ways with the publisher of LA Noire, Rockstar.
Disgruntled former employees have also circulated stories about bad working conditions and management issues in recent months.
The studio was founded in 2003 by ex-Sony boffin Brendan McNamara and was seen as the leading light in commercially successful Australian game development.
It is understood that administrators will attempt to raise cash for creditors by selling off assets, reducing costs or finding a buyer for the troubled studio.
Rumours have been circling in recent weeks that key members of Team Bondi management were seen at filmmaker George Miller’s studio, prompting talk of a buyout. Miller owns KMM and digital animations offshoot Dr D Studio.
According to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Riad Tayeh and David Solomons of de Vries Tayeh were appointed as joint administrators of the company on August 30.
A creditor’s meeting is due to take place in Sydney today (Friday September 2nd). ®
COMMENTS
And people at my work ask me why I left games...
The games industry, as a place to work, sucks. I'm sure someone somewhere made a lot of money on LA Noire. I'm also sure it wasn't the guys who put in the hours to create it.
@ GameCoder
"I'm sure someone somewhere made a lot of money on LA Noire. I'm also sure it wasn't the guys who put in the hours to create it"
Replace LA Noire with any given software project and you'll not be far from the truth, sadly.
OTOH if I was bankrolling a bunch of people doing _any_ kind of work and it looked like they weren't going to deliver the goods I'd also reserve the right to get involved.
I wonder how much it costs to employ a whole game studio - my guess is lots and lots. If the end results doesn't sell then all that money is wasted so it's a high risk environment.
Reminds me of the game APB
Everything I read about that suggests it was management making an arse of things that lead to the bankruptcy of the developer. Except here, the spending must have been even more out of control. For Team Bondi to go tits up, the debts the game accumulated in development must have been incredible, especially considering the game sold well.
After all the bad reports
Is anyone surprised?
I am not sure if any former employees are shedding any tears
Ehhhh what goes around comes around I say.
It is usually the top level people at companies that are jerks anyway.
Take the software package that originally went by the name of Q named of course after
Q from STNG. The software package was abke to predict when your network will go down before it does go down. It is sold at $6k and $27k or more depending on various conditions of your network.
Well since then the software company was sold and renamed and the lead programmer was some mr sassy pants who did a food run and we gave him list of food and gave him money and he left and then came back 2 hours later with no food and no money. He claimed the cashier had bad vibes and he did not want to get those bad vibes by taking the money or food from her hands.
LOL I hope the worst in life for that programmer.
