http://ps3.ign.com/articles/117/1178844p1.html

Another describes McNamara as "the angriest person" he's ever met. "It's one thing for him to be angry behind closed doors, but it was incredibly common for him to scream at whoever was pissing him off in the middle of the office."

Another source who left the company in 2008 called his experience at Team Bondi the biggest disappointment of his life. "I left because of stress and working conditions, mainly. But the trigger was this: I received a reprimand for 'conduct and punctuality' for being 15 minutes late to work. I arrived at 9:15am – despite the fact I had only left work around 3:15am the same day, and paid for my own taxi home! I never would have thought you could put a sweat shop in the Sydney CBD."

quite tough, but good. There didn't seem to be much direction, either technical, artistic, or overall. We had a CTO [chief technology officer], but he wouldn't really talk to people, or give directions.

"Often the leads weren't involved," remembers a programmer. "If you'd talk to your lead and say, 'Hey, Brendan's making this unreasonable demand,' they'd be understanding, but they're ultimately powerless. They can't go and tell Brendan that it's not feasible, just as much as I couldn't tell him. He just won't listen to reason."

"massive turnaround, especially in the coding department. Out of the 45 people that no longer worked at the studio, 11 were fired. Out of the 34 that actually decided to leave, 25 of those were coders; most of whom had no job to go to, since they decided that it was better to be unemployed than to be working there. I was one of those."

A former gameplay programmer recalls that when one of his colleagues left, "I inherited all their stuff to work with. And of course, once that happens, I'm quite unproductive for, like, a month, trying to figure out which way's up. That happened to me three or four times; I ended up inheriting four peoples' stuff."

"No overtime was officially paid in the three years and three months that I worked at Team Bondi," one artist told us. According to this source, staff contracts were worded in a manner which ensured that the only way employees would be paid for their overtime would be to wait until three months after project completion. Those who left the company before this time were not entitled to overtime payments.

In essence, the article perpetuates as Team Bondi being a fucking hell hole to work for, McNamara as a fiend who doesn't care about regualtions, process and people.

I only posted small snippets I found interesting, some more crazy stuff are in the article, its worth reading

Sounds like a similar story to Red Dead. Where did that end up going? Nowhere?

Meh la noir was a mediocre game IMO

Sounds like a right cunt.

@shinigami420 said:

Meh la noir was a mediocre game IMO

Hmm, I gotta argue against that. In my opinion, the gameplay was really focused on the investigation aspect rather than shooting, which was really refreshing. My beefs with the game are the expedited ending and the useless open world. Definitely not mediocre though by any stretch of my imagination.

Ugh sounds horrible.

Another describes McNamara as "the angriest person" he's ever met. "It's one thing for him to be angry behind closed doors, but it was incredibly common for him to scream at whoever was pissing him off in the middle of the office."

Why are people so fucking terrible at making video games? Developers need to buckle up and learn how to create a functional workplace because stories like this come out way too often.

Is this becoming a trend with rockstar? I remember hearing similar stories with Red Dead Redemption.

@SSully said:

Is this becoming a trend with rockstar? I remember hearing similar stories with Red Dead Redemption.

Team Bondi isn't rockstar, Rockstar is the publisher but yeah, same stories of therockstar studio that made RDR

@Dany said:

@SSully said:

Is this becoming a trend with rockstar? I remember hearing similar stories with Red Dead Redemption.

Team Bondi isn't rockstar, Rockstar is the publisher but yeah, same stories of therockstar studio that made RDR

I am aware of that. Who the developer is irrelevant in my post, I am just drawing the connection between these recently published Rockstar games, but thank you.

Man, great article. It's really interesting to see into the life of video game developers and the apparent nightmare they had to face.

Such a shame though. I can't imagine what it would be like to work with a boss like that. To the point of screaming at people in the middle of the office? What the hell? Not acceptable.

Poor guys. At least they helped deliver an excellent game. One for the history books! Oy!

Sounds like a rough environment to work in if its true. Wasn't there a rumor about how the head of the studio had a major falling out with the head of SCEE as well.

You should hear the stories that come out of the Japanese animators and artists that work for manga/anime companies.

@Dany said:

@SSully said:

Is this becoming a trend with rockstar? I remember hearing similar stories with Red Dead Redemption.

Team Bondi isn't rockstar, Rockstar is the publisher but yeah, same stories of therockstar studio that made RDR

Do you have a link? I'm interested in hearing about this as well.

I still don't understand bosses that work like this. Yes, you have to stay on top of people but being a cunt face will just demotivate them.  
 
You know what bosses I've worked the hardest for in the past? Not ones that sound like this dick head. 

Interesting, that's the problem with working for hostile agressives, they already made up their mind and you can't talk some sense into these types of ppl because they won't listen. But L.A noire turned out quite good, so maybe it was forgivable.

@N7: http://www.joystiq.com/2010/01/12/sources-red-dead-redemption-development-in-trouble/ here is one link. I am looking for some more, there were other articles I remember that had interviews with the team talking about the working conditions and how damn poor the management was.

@SSully: Well keep up the good work. Maybe you could work this into a blog of how Rockstar related games are always seemingly so clusterfucked with mismanagement and poor studio conditions.

@shinigami420 said:

Meh la noir was a mediocre game IMO

Hmm, I gotta argue against that. In my opinion, the gameplay was really focused on the investigation aspect rather than shooting, which was really refreshing. My beefs with the game are the expedited ending and the useless open world. Definitely not mediocre though by any stretch of my imagination.

Disturbing.
It's possible to make a big game, without management from hell. Some of this stuff is just down-right creepy.

@OmegaPirate said:

@demontium said:

@shinigami420 said:

Meh la noir was a mediocre game IMO

Hmm, I gotta argue against that. In my opinion, the gameplay was really focused on the investigation aspect rather than shooting, which was really refreshing. My beefs with the game are the expedited ending and the useless open world. Definitely not mediocre though by any stretch of my imagination.

If by gameplay, you mean walking around until the controller vibrates and the jingle plays, then yes you are correct

I will admit the clue finding was gimmicky, but, not that doesn't encompass the entirety of the gameplay. It's investigation, interrogation, car chases, sneak missions, shooting, and it's all brought together by a grabbing narrative.

It seems like it was worth it so...

damn dude

That's actually disgusting. I mean jesus, there's a time and a place for working everyone hard, but when they'd set dates for the game to come out, and then didn't even deliver? That would really piss me off...
Really, this is the issue with upper management, far too many dicks who talk right out their arses about how they 'all work equally'....my ass they did. If they all worked equally, the game would have been on time and released long before 2011. At least this explains why LA Noire seemed to be glued together and seemingly incomplete in my point-of-view. That much in-house turmoil can kill a game...and it really did in this case....

Sounds awful, but hey, it obviously worked out pretty well. I hope that doesn't make people feel like their behavior was justified though. I think they probably got a little lucky.

Good article, I really enjoyed the game. but it's a shame to hear that some people got so burned out in the process. It might just be the article, but McNamara comes of more than a little evasive and never seems to answer the questions directly. To be fair, this kind of hellish work environment isn't unheard of in the industry, but it is definitely something that needs to be fixed, especially as it grows so quickly.

It makes you wonder what other games and studios go through the same sort of hell that we never hear about.

I'm sure the only reason it ever came out was because Rockstar put so many of its studios on the job; just like Red Dead Redemption.

It's not just game studios, but the entire entertainment business. There's a lot of money tied up in release dates for big games like this, and a lot of pressure on managers to keep budgets under control and development on time. And too many unrealistic expectations when production goes off the rails (which it almost always does). I've seen similar situations in a lot of different industries, so I can't say I'm really surprised by it. Usually this has less to do with the company in general than it does with having managers without management skills. Anyone going around and using the development team this way needs to be fired. Because of institutional momentum and the kink in release dates that can occur when replacing management ... well, firing these assholes isn't always as easy as it should be. Eventually someone needs to realize that it's better to release late than to release a lame game. LA Noire was ... alright. Its flaws aren't technical, but can be traced back to a dev team that was clearly not being led well. If the team isn't working together with management, the result is going to be diminished.

http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/

Think you guys should read that, you might find it interesting. It's a few years old now but it's still an eye-opener.

Wow, Team Bondi is like any other job. Shocking.

Sorry I couldn't help the smart ass comment, but really there are jobs people complain about, and jobs people love. Not everywhere is the best place to work but they get things done. Some people like that kind of atmosphere for work others don't. I do not condone nor condemn either work place atmosphere as each have their merits- now obviously I prefer the nicer one but... you cant always get what you want.

I have no idea why people are so prepared to suffer these kind of conditions just for the 'privilege' of working in the game industry as it is today. I can understand it in small teams where everybody involved has a sense of ownership and a chance to do well out of it, but otherwise it's like being desperate to go and work on a car assembly line or something.

One of the big things that struck me after reading that was that McNamara didn't even seem to realise that he what he was doing was wrong. The man seems doomed to repeat his mistakes over and over and until it cripples him.

Sounds like McNamara is a total renegade.

@jorbear said:

Sounds like McNamara is a total renegade.

Not really. There are lots of 'visionaries' like him.

Sounds like McNamara is a total renegade.

He wasn't just the manager though, he wrote the game's script and thought up the gameplay mechanics. He probably just needs to get some good middlemen in there.

I would care except I have worked for a place that regularly gave employees only 6-8 hours between shifts, required actual physical labor, and fired someone for being only one minute late 3 times in 3 months.  Welcome to the real world coders fresh out of high school or college.

Not surprising, Team Bondi fits perfectly with Rockstars MO, brutal working conditions.