LA Noire developer Team Bondi has been placed into administration, according to documents filed with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
The documents show that the Syndey-based studio filed a notification of discharge last week, before going into administration earlier this week on August 30.
Gamasutra has contacted Team Bondi for comment.
Although LA Noire received critical acclaim when it was released in May, the development studio behind the game has been shrouded in controversy ever since.
I just assumed it was some sort of punishment, like being sent to the principals office. "Team Bondi, stop pulling your employees hair or you'll go to administration!!"
It's not that strange if you read the article under Related News. Apparently the company was horribly managed all around and lost Rockstar because of it. Most dev studios of this size can't last without someone in the background giving them money to stay afloat, and in this case they drove all potential investors away with their "management" style.
4 million but it was in development for nearly 10 years, of which it had a staff of over 100 for most of that time so... the math just didn't work out for Bondi. The post mortems by various testers and developers paint a very bleak picture of the studio. After R* dropped their partnership it was pretty much inevitable.
When your culture and studio are that terrible and everyone finds out about it, no one wants to give you money or a project. It had nothing to do with the game and everything to do with the studio.
What would be fun (sarcasm) is to see exactly where all that money went too. I know that this company was being operated by a really nice guy who put others before himself.. i know ever cent that came into this from the profits was definitely paid first to all the hard over-worked staff.. Pachter was right.. everyone will get a even share of the profit pool.. because.. that's how capitalism works.. all for one and.. all for one.. i'm not a huge fan of unionization (i hate red tape)... but stuff like this certainly paves the way.. i just think someones not going away empty handed..
Well, in this case, capitalism worked exactly the way it's supposed to work. A corrupt, horribly-managed company has effectively been shut down by the market itself, not some over-bearing government agency or bureaucratic union.
Capitalism isn't perfect, nor are governments or unions, and I don't have the answer on how to effectively balance those three competing forces amid the myriad of complicating factors. However, very often the market works the way it was meant to, and this is a great example.
Oh wait.
Capitalism isn't perfect, nor are governments or unions, and I don't have the answer on how to effectively balance those three competing forces amid the myriad of complicating factors. However, very often the market works the way it was meant to, and this is a great example.