L.A. Noire dev Team Bondi enters administration
L.A. Noire's deeply troubled developer Team Bondi has entered administration in a bid to regain solvency and keep from going under.
L.A. Noire's deeply troubled developer Team Bondi has entered administration in a bid to keep from going under, official documents show. It's far too early to say whether the process will save the Australian studio and pay off its debts or see it close.
Australia administration is similar to the USA's Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It allows failing companies to keep from shutting down while an appointed administrator attempts to regain solvency, reorganising the business, selling off assets, and laying off staff if needs be.
Team Bondi has yet to comment on entering administration, but business records (via Gamasutra) show the stark truth.
The studio has had a rough time since the launch of L.A. Noire in May, despite a strong critical and commercial reception. First, it was alleged that over 100 people who had worked on the game were left out of the credits. Then, complaints about 100+-hour working weeks and a hostile workplace led to the International Game Developers Association launching an investigation into the studio. Unconfirmed reports later suggested that the bad situation at Team Bondi went far beyond working conditions.
One report said that Noire publisher Rockstar would have no interest in publishing Team Bondi's next game, after being frustrated by dealing with Team Bondi's direction, or lack thereof. Rockstar taking more creative control also led to resentment from the Aussie management, so the story goes.
Another report, earlier this month, said that Team Bondi had sold its intellectual property and assets to Australian multimedia production studio Kennedy Miller Mitchell. It was also said that Team Bondi staff were offered a choice of new jobs at KMM or severance pay.
The best of luck to the folks at Team Bondi in these troubled times.
"But what about me?" you may ask. As the PC edition of L.A. Noire is in development at Rockstar Leeds, not Team Bondi, that's almost certainly safe.
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Alice O'Connor posted a new article, L.A. Noire dev Team Bondi enters administration.
L.A. Noire's deeply troubled developer Team Bondi has entered administration in a bid to regain solvency and keep from going under.-
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What Jason Bergman said. 8 years creating an open world game and building a brand new motion capture face-scanning technology from scratch would make it hard to make the money back, and their bad reputation also probably left this studio without a publisher for their next game. Rockstar refused because of the mismanagement, and they own L.A. Noire, so any other publisher probably just sees Team Bondi as a studio that takes forever to ship a game, with a burned-out workforce, and they don't even have a valuable IP.
Plus, games are expensive. Rumour has it that despite being a huge seller, the first Assassin's Creed didn't break even due to the cost of building the engine, all the assets, huge marketing, etc. They depended on it becoming a massive hit so they could make their return on investment with the sequels.
It sucks for the Team Bondi employees though. The years of working ridiculous overtime under an asshole manager, they probably thought of the success at the end of this endeavour to push them forward. Now they're probably going to be unemployed and not get any bonuses that were due to them.
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I think they're survival was very dependent on Rockstar, so when Rockstar decided not to publish their next game, their future was in limbo. From what I've read, it didn't seem like they were being managed well financially, so when Papa took away the credit card, they weren't in a good place to support themselves.
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