Team Bondi Pty. Limited ( ) was an Australian video game developer based in Sydney. The company was founded by creative director Brendan McNamara, formerly of Team Soho, in 2003. The studio's first and only title, the action-adventure game L.A. Noire, was announced in July 2005. The development was originally funded and overseen by 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 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 intellectual property to a new game being written by McNamara at the time, were acquired by film production company Kennedy Miller Mitchell. Team Bondi was placed into administration on 31 August 2011, and finally entered liquidation on 5 October 2011. Many former Team Bondi staff members were transferred to Kennedy Miller Mitchell's KMM Interactive Entertainment subsidiary, and started developing the game around McNamara's script, which would eventually become Whore of the Orient. KMM Interactive Entertainment was shut down in April 2013, following 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. McNamara was previously employed at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's Team Soho studio, located in London's Soho area, where he directed The Getaway (2002), but decided to move to his home country, Australia, to found his own studio. The opening of Team Bondi was announced in January 2004. At that point, McNamara had hired many former Team Soho staff, of which especially The Getaway developers, and had arranged an exclusive publishing deal with Sony Computer Entertainment Australia for a game on "third generation PlayStation" hardware.
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. Most of these were employees who left the studio or were laid off during the game's development. The same month, following initial statements made to the Sydney Morning Herald, Andrew McMillen published an article on IGN's Australian outfit, titled Why Did L.A. Noire Take Seven Years to Make?, in which he quoted eleven anonymous former Team Bondi personnel on the studio's managerial style, the staff's turnover rates and the working hours and conditions associated with the game's development. Additionally, McMillen interviewed McNamara, seeking his point of view on the statements made by the anonymous sources. As a result of the IGN Australia article, the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) announced that they were launching an investigation against Team Bondi and verify the claims made in the article. IGDA 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".
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. 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.
Closure (2011)