Rockstar will not publish Team Bondi's next game

Funny how so many people seem to dislike LA Noire now, yet it was praised as the second comming of Christ when it came out.

@Ahmad_Metallic said:

That's great news. L.A. Noire was a good game, but that stiff dry gameplay is not what i look for in Rockstar games 

Sarcasm?

Gallery

@DoNotBanMe said:

good i wanna see this development team go down the shitter

Thats a bit harsh. From everything we've been told, its the management at Bondi that is terrible, not the development team. I get the point you're making in that for the management to get what it deserves, the whole team has to be effected, but its not the team thats at fault. Whatever happens, I hope everyone involved gets rightfully paid and credited for their work. I can only imagine how aggravating it must be to not be properly paid or credited for your time and work.

Funny how so many people seem to dislike LA Noire now, yet it was praised as the second comming of Christ when it came out.

"This just in: An anonymous source says he doesn't really get along with his boss, going as far as saying he believes management was poor overall and he himself could have done it much better. In other news, sharing a motel room with a silverback gorilla might be hazardous to your health." 
 
While I do understand Gamesindustry.biz does not simply check their inbox for some random whiny letter sent from a gmail account, and journalists work with sources they trust, trust doesn't mean it's always the truth. Additionally, there seem to be multiple claims about the bad working conditions from multiple sources. The danger this brings with it that people might conclude that this must be the truth: surely, where there's smoke, there must be fire.  
 
I understand that at this point you have altered your view of Team Bondi's, and it's management's appearance, but I still think it's unnecessary to completely jump on Team Bondi without showing any doubt or reservation concerning the sources or their motives behind their claims. Even more so, when this is used as an excuse simply because you didn't like LA Noire.  

Funny how so many people seem to dislike LA Noire now, yet it was praised as the second comming of Christ when it came out.

I understand that at this point you have altered your view of Team Bondi's, and it's management's appearance, but I still think it's unnecessary to completely jump on Team Bondi without showing any doubt or reservation concerning the sources or their motives behind their claims.

@mnzy: As one of the vocal opponents of LA Noire on these forums since release I can say that there was a pretty clear split. A lot a people thought it was amazing, but a fair amount saw its flaws straight away.

@mnzy said:

Funny how so many people seem to dislike LA Noire now, yet it was praised as the second comming of Christ when it came out.

Seemed pretty divisive among gamers at launch to me. Definitely a split between how critics received it and how gamers received it, at least here on Giant Bomb.

It was a painful birth but you've got to separate the end product from your feelings about the creative process. Still, it saddens me to know LA Noire won't become another R* IP.

Considering Rockstar probably got the most useful thing out of them (the face-camera tech), and Team Bondi was horribly managed, I can't see Rockstar being anything but happy dumping what is by now a toxic asset.

I guess you are right, I read more reviews than forums or blogs on LA Noire, they definately were very positive.

I can go to anyone I want," McNamara told IGN when we raised the topic of studio structure. "It's my game. I can go to anyone I want in the team and say, 'I want it changed'." Rockstar's Sam Houser, he told us, can also make the same requests of his teams. "I've been doing it for a long time," he continued, "and it seems to have worked so far for me."

When we raised the issue of staff turnover, and mentioned that our sources indicated that around a hundred staff had passed through the studio's doors, McNamara took us by surprise: "I'd say more," he replied. "

McNamara is unsure how often regular working hours were exceeded during the game's seven-year development period, but concedes that his own "standard workweek" may not be representative of the norm. "If you wanted to do a nine-to-five job, you'd be in another business," said McNamara, citing routine hours from 9am to 8pm - "whatever days it takes" – with frequent travel and 4am calls with the New York-based publisher. 

@FluxWaveZ said:

@Napalm said:

I like how nobody payed attention to any of this when the game came out and now everybody wants to act like they give a shit.

What are you talking about? This all started with the IGN exposé and that's when people started "giving a shit". It's not as if we knew a ton about this even before that article was posted.

To be fair, the Veracious Shit twitter--who is even cited in the IGN article in question--had posted the original statements about Rockstar taking more control over LA Noire and putting Leeds and other teams on to developing side missions and doing other things to put more into the world and being horrified by the state of the game back in September. The tweets got some forum chatter here and there, but it went mostly unnoticed. We've known that shady business had been going on at Team Bondi and Rockstar for a while; the information we're getting now is only telling us the extent of that shady business.

Rockstar owns the IP? Team Bondi must have been in quite a state and in need of money when Rockstar stepped in if they bought the IP from them.

@ShaneDev said:

Rockstar owns the IP? Team Bondi must have been in quite a state and in need of money when Rockstar stepped in if they bought the IP from them.

Not exactly. Sony owned the IP when LA Noire was going to be published by them, and Rockstar bought the rights from them to the tune of something like a $40 million exclusivity deal for another game (Agent). $40 million, by the way, is how much Team Bondi had spent of Sony's money by the time Rockstar bought it!

I really, really hope that a LA Noire 2 never comes out. Good video games don't need sequels, they're still good on their own.

@doejonathan said:

@FluxWaveZ: I'm not trying to be right for the sake of being right. But if the situation is already proven as you say, why are the IGDA researching it? I'm reading the highlighted comments differently, it doesn't prove to me working conditions were awful. I'm reading hs statements as made by a guy who poured his heart and soul into his project. I've noticed allot of people took it bad when he talked about La Noire being his game. But I can image him feeling that way about the project, now, whether he should say it in public, well that's definitely up for debate. If condition are unexceptable (not by my or your standards, but by law), I do hope something gets done about it.

I don't think you understand what "researching" means. Based on the statements McNamara made about how he ran the company, they are going to do their own independent survey and find out how bad the conditions are and if they should take action against Team Bondi management. The research is kind of the important next step to figuring out how to take action.

@Paperlink said:

Considering Rockstar probably got the most useful thing out of them (the face-camera tech), and Team Bondi was horribly managed, I can't see Rockstar being anything but happy dumping what is by now a toxic asset.

Definitely this.  Kinda sucks for Bondi, but you reap what you sow I guess.

@Ahmad_Metallic: Woah woah woah, don't give Rockstar credit for Max Payne. That was all Remedy, because Remedy is a fuckawesome studio. Rockstar didn't even step in until the game was ported to consoles.

Let's not pretend that Rockstar doesn't have a horrible reputation for being mismanaged too.

Let's not pretend that Rockstar doesn't have a horrible reputation for being mismanaged too.

Just makes me even more mad that Team Bondi wasn't on the cover of LA Noire.