Team Bondi and Rockstar put out a great title in LA Noire. Â The game was both a critical and commercial success, by many standards, but recently news broke about working conditions at the Sydney based studio. Â Today, more bad press for Team Bondi comes in the form of reports that their was extreme stress in the working relationship between Rockstar Games and Bondi.
According to a recent interview, Team Bondi’s next title won’t be being published by Rockstar, and the relationship with the developer has been damaged beyond repair. Â In the recent report, Brendan McNamara reveals the tribulations that the game went through in it’s extended development period. Â The project manager claims that Rockstar “continued to sink money into LA Noire, and their marketing was fantastic. Â Without their (Rockstar) continued support, Team Bondi would have gone under several years ago.”
McNamara just sounds like a hard guy to work for, or with. Â He’s openly claimed that it was his way or the highway when it comes to games he’s developing, even if the standards by which he treats his employees would deemed unfair. Â He also left out many of the people that worked on the game, in it’s final credit call. Â LA Noire was a great game, and Bondi probably won’t have a problem finding someone to publish their next game, but having someone actually work on that next game, that’s another situation entirely.