Former Team Bondi employees dish on LA Noire's troubled development

by Jessica Conditt on Jun 25th 2011 4:35PM

Perfection comes at a price, kid, and payday ain't for weeks. Capisce?

LA Noire spent seven years in fiery development Hell under production by Team Bondi, and now the gritty details about its tumultuous birth are surfacing like a quick glance away on a pretty face. Following dozens of reports of inhumane work conditions, 60-hour weeks and extreme turnover, IGN Australia contacted 11 unnamed former Team Bondi employees and bossman Brendan McNamara for the lowdown on developing LA Noire Down Under.

One recurring point of contention was overtime: "No overtime was officially paid in the three years and three months that I worked at Team Bondi," one of the anonymous former employees said. McNamara responded to this complaint (and many others), saying Team Bondi had overtime pay in place, "but contractually, we don't have to do that."

Another anonymous source described McNamara as a "24/7 corpse grinder with perpetual crunch and weekend overtime." McNamara didn't seem to have a response to that one. Read all of the complaints and McNamara's rebuttals in the full interview.

Source: IGN Australia

Tags: brendan-mcnamara, LA-Noire, microsoft, playstation, ps3, Rockstar-Games, Team-Bondi, xbox

Reader Comments (98)

Is Jessica the new hire from the pre E3 call for applications?

@TheDarkWayne I suppose those slavish working conditions that L.A. Noire was built under were good for something: Your deductive reasoning skills are now razor sharp, gumshoe!

Jordan Mallory from the post before last is also new to the site, and this is the less-trafficked weekend slot they were advertising for, so there you go.

Welcome to Joystiq, you two. :)

@TheDarkWayne Seems so. Guess I didn't make it.

Welcome Jessica! Your first post felt very much like typical Joystiq. Have fun!

@TheDarkWayne

Yeah. They announced it on their twitter just earlier.

@TheDarkWayne
I thought they were going to choose one of joystiq's fellow commenters...

60 hour work weeks is hardly "crunch time" for software development. It's not real unusual.

@godzillaWax

If you read the source article there were also several weeks worth of 110+ hour crunch times and times when they'd spend 100s of hours a week getting a demo ready for press only to find out no demo was even going out. They were told "the launch is less than 12 months away" for over 3 years and were in a constant state of "crunch time" because of it.

@sonicspike41

Talking more about joystiq's description of the complaints. I absolutely believe Team Bondi put in a lot more than 60 hours per week. But joystiq treats "60 hour weeks" like it's something notable, which it's not.

@godzillaWax
I blame the new writer!

@godzillaWax Just because it's "normal" doesn't mean its right.

@(Unverified)

No less right than Americans only getting two weeks vacation, but that's the norm. There's lots of things about working as a software developer (in any industry) that aren't ideal, but it tends to get balanced out (pay, atmosphere, whatever).

Again, I'm not saying Team Bondi wasn't boned. It sounds like they got worked to the bone. Just saying the article is poorly written.

@godzillaWax

Overtime? What's that?

If you are employed in any kind of creative role and paid salary you usually don't get overtime. I don't know why people seem to think this sort of thing is unusual.

If you have a deadline approaching then working whatever amount of hours it takes to get there is commonplace. Weekends, evenings, mornings are all routine for my company. I've often pulled 36 hour work days in my job.

@arkweld Programming is very rarely creative. Maybe what you're saying is true for the animators and 3D modelers, but I feel safe saying most employees at Team Bondi are not being paid salary to fulfill their fancy dreams of sublime art.

@godzillaWax
Yes, actually 60 hours IS definitely notable and not normal for software development. I've been working in software development for 15 years at 5 different companies and while it can be said that some overtime (occasional few hours in the evenings or weekends for maintenance or whatnot) is normal, and some places enforce working extra on occasion (translating into about 50 hours) for a few weeks or months, permanent 60 hour week in week out is most definitely an exception. Sure, I heard of people working in jobs like that, but it's not typical. Ironically, people I knew who were doing those hours certainly didn't find neither pay nor job stability any better - most of them got laid off anyway. I understand that young people these days must accept any job in hopes of gaining experience but they really should make sure they invest the time wisely. If the job demands long hours and the pay is low, then you better be gaining very valuable skills on the job, and fast.

@andrew07

My experience is roughly similar in length of career / number of past employers. In my opinion, 60 hours is not normal but it's not exceptional either. I've worked at least 50 hours my whole career and often times 60. So agree to disagree, I guess.

@TheDarkWayne

Not creative? You're doing it wrong.

@godzillaWax I'm just saying, it's definitely not in the artistic and creative sections of the US Department of Labor occupational handbooks.

Hard to believe in perpetual crunch time given the seven year dev cycle. You would think they were working half days.

@TheBatman4141 You could easily crunch for years if you have inept management, inexperienced staff, very high turnover, and lots of changes to the requirements. That's how you end up with games like GT5 which was in development for 6 years and still came out partially baked, or Duke Nukem Forever that took over a decade and sucked.

I love this game, as I do most Rockstar games, but they have some serious issues when it comes to burning their employees out.

And PS: I know it's Team Bondi developed.

@KungFuChaosNinja

So that means you negated your own post with that PS.
:lol:

@DigitalEmporer

Nope, not one bit. The publisher has most of the say, so Brendan was just doing their bidding.

@KungFuChaosNinja

True.

But, in this day and age of 'blockbuster' games, with $100m plus budgets, these stories always come out about over-worked employees etc, most of whom are 'let go' come release, even with games like this, which are critical success stories.

But, I can imagine there are a lot of comparisons with architects, builders, even movie studios that suffer the same fate as these people.

I just assumed that this was the norm these days, it appears to be.

I know a lot of us would LOVE to get into the business, albeit movies, games or other forms of entertainment, but would we do it knowing that these are the common practice work hours?

Answer = Yes, probably we would!

I read the full article, and the main thing I walked away from it with is: "I can't believe how much of a dick that guy is!"

sadly I've had bosses just like him, so it's not like he's even an individual dick: he's a generic Dick.

I kinda wonder if the boss from the Office (the British version) wasn't modeled off of this guy ... only not funny because it's real.

So Rockstar routinely draw up horrible contracts and make desperate people sign them. Nice working practices. Who is going to say no to a job at Rockstar? Why would Rockstar be such jackasses, EXPLOIT their workers and then be jackasses about having done it? They aren't short of a few bob, yet they won't pay their workers for work done.

Bastards.

@Dick Socrates Or Team Bondi, or whoever. I don't know the precise relationship between the two.

@Dick Socrates

from the article it sounds like the work conditions were appalling even to the reps from Rockstar when they did a walk through.

@Dick Socrates

Because that's capitalism at its finest. Get the most return for the least investment.

@SisypheanLife

I wouldn't blame capitalism, as it's quite clear that communist countries work their workers to the bone and do it for very little. At least in the US, there's somewhat decent pay in comparison, and even though the game industry isn't, unions can bargain for its members.

@Dick Socrates I think Team Bondi is an independent developer. Rockstar had very little to do with the game. They were just publishing it.

@Dick Socrates I said no to a job at Rockstar. Then again, I was able to because I was still comfortably working somewhere and didn't need to condemn myself to that place to make ends meet.

Was I the only one who read the headline as "Former Team Banzai employees...."?

love them Hong Kong Cavaliers

Now all the human immolation at the end of LA Noire makes sense. I guess the developers had a bit of pent up aggression?

Just read the article on IGN Australia... disheartening stuff.

You can interpret it however you want, and likely will, but all I came away from reading it was this:

Brendan McNamara says "I" a lot when talking about game development. That's a red flag all by itself. If half of what is said is true, I wouldn't want to work for him, I don't care what the game is.

Life's too short to be spent under the thumb of an egomaniac.

The funny thing is that IGN is reporting on it, yet they do the exact same thing themselves.

It sounds like this fiasco could have been in the game itself!

"Bondi
Slaves"

Much of that time must have been spent making that incredible recreation of L.A. Shame that most players never get to see most of it - There should have been more side missions.

"You can't treat the working man this way. One day we'll form a union and get the fair and equittable treatment we deserve. Then we'll go too far, and get corrupt and shiftless and the Japanese will eat us alive!"

In the end it was just another Rockstar overhyped and payola'ed game.

I found it pretty effing boring.

Sadly, that's a normal environment for QA.

As a Sydney-ish based indie game dev horror stories about the development of L.A. Noire have been floating around the local dev community for a long time now. Sadly the local industry is pretty tough so if you want to get into professional game development you take what you can get.

Did the industry not learn from the EA Spouse (http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html) incident? Things like this can and do make it into the spotlight and any worthwhile company would take steps to avoid fallout like this. Not sure if I want to put money toward LA Noire once it is available on PC.

If I knew about all this management bs involved in LANoire's development I would have never bought it.

I've worked in these conditions and know how bad it is.

This has probably been said before, but it's time for a video game developer union. No one can treat their workers this way. No one.

In this day and age of 'blockbuster' games, with $100m plus budgets, these stories always come out about over-worked employees etc, most of whom are 'let go' come release, even with games like this, which are critical success stories.

But, I can imagine there are a lot of comparisons with architects, builders, even movie studios that suffer the same fate as these people.

I just assumed that this was the norm these days, it appears to be.

I know a lot of us would LOVE to get into the business, albeit movies, games or other forms of entertainment, but would we do it knowing that these are the common practice work hours?

Answer = Yes, probably we would!

That just sounds like a recipe for a mess, it's amazing that LA Noire is so awesome. An epic scale project, with an new management/ownership team, millions of dollars and large numbers of inexperienced workers.

@Courtney
It's not new talent, read the interview. When the uppers say go this way and completely reverse that decision, you abide. Seems like this happened one too many times and people simply burnt out. I love Rockstar games, but it happened with RDR as well. That's the industry isn't an excuse. Valve has a 98% retention rate. There's reasons for that.

@darkhellmutt

I did read the article, and it sounded like the McNamara and his inner team from London were all new to owning/running a company. They might have all be industry vets, but that doesn't mean that they were prepared to actually be in charge of a business with dozens of employees and millions of dollars. It's a completely different role.

I am not surprised at all with this article, contractors in Australia are often bend over deliberately to work stupid hours and are held under a pressured hand. This is across web development, media agencies, advertising agencies and the game industry.

The 3month contracted probation period in Australia is like working under a gun. Contracts often state a ambiguous responsibility on that individual if things go wrong, often you work twice the hours for the same cash, even if scoping issues and creep were caused by management/clients.

Its a way they think they are saving money! Complete BS and a reason why I won't ever treat my staff like that, because I want the best out of people.

And it will continuing on like this... Its the Australian way!

Previous 50 Comments

L.A. Noire

Former Team Bondi employees dish on LA Noire's troubled development

Reader Comments (98)

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 5:30PM TheDarkWayne said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 5:45PM onan said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 5:45PM Arsenic13 said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 5:47PM sonicspike41 said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 8:08PM eNriqeu said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 5:33PM godzillaWax said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 5:51PM sonicspike41 said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 5:55PM godzillaWax said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 8:07PM eNriqeu said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 10:02PM Excessive said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 10:06PM godzillaWax said

Posted: Jun 26th 2011 12:36AM arkweld said

Posted: Jun 26th 2011 3:57PM TheDarkWayne said

Posted: Jun 26th 2011 4:26PM andrew07 said

Posted: Jun 26th 2011 10:01PM godzillaWax said

Posted: Jun 27th 2011 9:44PM TheDarkWayne said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 5:37PM TheBatman4141 said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 6:24PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 5:52PM KungFuChaosNinja said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 5:59PM DigitalEmporer said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 7:31PM KungFuChaosNinja said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 8:30PM DigitalEmporer said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 6:00PM Fakeassname said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 6:00PM Dick Socrates said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 6:01PM Dick Socrates said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 6:39PM Fakeassname said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 6:41PM SisypheanLife said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 7:33PM KungFuChaosNinja said

Posted: Jun 26th 2011 3:46PM MAINEiac4434 said

Posted: Jun 28th 2011 1:25PM Gaddes said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 6:12PM tensider said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 6:18PM KillerSlinky said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 6:28PM docstrange said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 6:39PM SpanWolf said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 7:25PM Dhexodus said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 7:59PM Pure Black World Tendency said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 9:40PM Sgt Osiris said

Posted: Jun 25th 2011 11:12PM RussellGorall said

Posted: Jun 26th 2011 1:45AM djseifer said

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Posted: Jun 26th 2011 12:43PM SamJ said

Posted: Jun 26th 2011 2:50PM ISitOnAcid said

Posted: Jun 26th 2011 3:43PM MAINEiac4434 said

Posted: Jun 27th 2011 1:58AM DigitalEmporer said

Posted: Jun 27th 2011 2:49AM Courtney said

Posted: Jun 27th 2011 3:33AM darkhellmutt said

Posted: Jun 27th 2011 10:06AM Courtney said

Posted: Jun 27th 2011 8:22AM elliotrock said

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