Team Bondi

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Team Bondi Pty. Limited
Company typePrivate
IndustryVideo games
Founded2003; 21 years ago (2003)
FounderBrendan McNamara
Defunct5 October 2011 (2011-10-05)
FateLiquidation
SuccessorKMM Interactive Entertainment
Headquarters
Sydney
,
Australia
Key people
ProductsL.A. Noire
Number of employees
35 (2011)

Team Bondi Pty. Limited (

Sony Computer Entertainment Australia, although all publishing duties later switched hands to Rockstar Games. L.A. Noire was released by Rockstar Games, initially for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
in May 2011, to both commercial and critical success. Despite the positive reception, Team Bondi faced several allegations of poor working conditions by several former employees, causing controversy for the studio and leading Rockstar Games to part ways with Team Bondi following L.A. Noire's release. As a result of this, the developer saw itself unable to sign a publishing deal for a new game that was being written by McNamara.

In August 2011, the company's assets, as well as the

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
's withdrawal from the Whore of the Orient project as its publisher; the game, despite receiving government funding after the studio's closure, was cancelled shortly after. A successor to both Team Bondi and KMM Interactive Entertainment, Intuitive Game Studios, was announced by two former L.A. Noire and Whore of the Orient developers in May 2013.

History

Foundation (2003–2004)

Team Bondi was founded by Brendan McNamara in mid-2003.

Sony Computer Entertainment Australia for a game on "third generation PlayStation" hardware.[4]

Controversies (2011)

In early June 2011, former Team Bondi staff launched L.A. Noire Credits, a website dedicated to displaying over 130 credits of L.A. Noire developers that had been listed incorrectly or were left out completely in the game and its manual.

chairman Brian Robbins explained that "12-hour a day, lengthy crunch time, if true, are absolutely unacceptable and harmful to the individuals involved, the final product, and the industry as a whole".[13][14]

In July 2011, an anonymous former Team Bondi employee leaked a series of confidential emails to

GamesIndustry.biz, alongside their own comments in regards to them.[15][16] Furthermore, the source stated that the relationship between Rockstar Games and Team Bondi had been badly damaged, and that they were confident that Rockstar Games would disdain from the publisher and refuse to publish any of their future games.[17][18][19]

Closure (2011)

Brendan McNamara, Team Bondi's founder and creative director

In early August 2011, it was reported that Team Bondi was seeking a buyer,[20] with McNamara being seen around the offices of Australian film studio Kennedy Miller Mitchell, believed to negotiate acquisition deals.[21][22] On 9 August 2011, Kennedy Miller Mitchell announced that they had acquired all of Team Bondi's assets as well as the intellectual property to the game McNamara was presently writing the script for.[23][24] All employees, 35 at the time,[25] were given the opportunity to move to Kennedy Miller Mitchell for future employment.[26][27] Team Bondi was placed into administration on 31 August 2011.[28][29] At the request of Team Bondi's creditors, the company entered liquidation on 5 October 2011.[30][31] The liquidator, deVries Tayeh, handled the sale of Team Bondi's remaining assets and payment of outstanding debts.[32][33]

Team Bondi owed over 40 creditors as much as A$1,400,000, with unpaid wages or bonuses accounting for over 75% of those debts.[34][35] 33 staff credited for their work on L.A. Noire were owed a combined A$1,074,283.28 in unpaid wages or bonuses.[36][37] Among those, McNamara claimed to be owed US$102,495.16, general manager Vicky Lord A$99,155.21 and lead gameplay programmer David Heironymus A$43,652.[38][39] Depth Analysis was also reported to be owed A$145,795.83.[40]

Successors and Whore of the Orient (2011–2014)

Following Team Bondi's liquidation, Kennedy Miller Mitchell merged the staff previously acquired from Team Bondi into their KMM Interactive Entertainment subsidiary.

government funding.[53]

Whore of the Orient was set to be a

Human Rights Commission.[74] Lo further underlined "It's the use of the word 'Orient', more even than the word 'whore', that is the issue. [...] The O-word is very similar to the N-word for African-American communities."[75][76] Whore of the Orient was not heard of from that point on; when asked about the game's status in a June 2014 podcast hosted on Gamehugs, producer Derek Proud stated "I don't think so", implying that the game had been cancelled.[77][78]

Meanwhile, on 28 May 2013, Whore of the Orient lead designer Alex Carlyle and storyboard artist Kelly Baigent announced that they had founded Intuitive Game Studios as a successor to both Team Bondi and KMM Interactive Entertainment.[79][80] Carlyle explained that he wanted to stay in Australia to work in the domestic video game industry, unlike some of his colleagues, who moved abroad, such as to Canada, to further pursue such ventures.[81][82] Furthermore, Carlyle's personal website implied that the two-man studio would be working on an original intellectual property named Canonical Five.[83] Like Whore of the Orient, Canonical Five received funding from Screen NSW, amounting to A$30,451.[84] McNamara founded Video Games Deluxe in Sydney, which had worked on L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files and is currently working on another AAA open-world VR game for Rockstar Games.[85][86]

Games developed

Year Title Platform(s) Publisher(s)
2011 L.A. Noire Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One Rockstar Games

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