• Team Bondi is a truly shitty place to work!
    83 replies, posted
Article: Why did L.A. Noire take seven years to complete. It basically aims to tell the story of the studio. I expected a brief "behind the scenes" or another "yada yada" about the tech. all you hear is that the lead writer was manically obsessive and abusive towards employees, essentially seizing control with the whole project. Conditions got real bad and it sounds like a proper horror story of the industry. [release] [B]The early days[/B] In 2003, when Team Bondi was established, the core team consisted of Brendan McNamara and his cohort of transplants from Team Soho, the London-based studio that worked on The Getaway. Five staff – dubbed the "first Aussie hires" – started at Team Bondi in March 2004. One of these former employees describes the initial situation as "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. We were mainly left to our own devices with very high-level tasks and weekly reviews. We grew from there, relatively quickly, to about 30 people over the first year," he says. They soon moved to a larger office in Ultimo to accommodate the company's expansion. "In that first year we shipped a couple of milestones to Sony, but they weren't that good. When the pressure started mounting to deliver stuff, and [management started] seeing how we weren't delivering – mainly due to technical problems – things started getting worse and worse." Another of the original "Aussie five" comments that "at first, it was fun. New studio; big, new game. As time went by and the project wasn't coming together as fast as management wanted it to, they started to become aggressive and demanding. That led to people quitting, or being forced out when they didn't obey direct orders. It became a nasty place to be. When I left, there was a little over 100 people working there." [B]The studio structure[/B] Team Bondi's lead staff were cherry-picked from Team Soho. According to a source, McNamara "coaxed these people to come join him with the promise of lots of money and a wonderful life in Sydney. They brought with them preconceived ideas on how things should be run, and how awesome and mega-cool their company would be." The developers accounts all indicate that the studio functioned under a decidedly informal hierarchy. If writer/director Brendan McNamara wanted something changed, he'd just go and talk to the staff member implementing it, rather than going through lead staff. "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." "I can go to anyone I want," McNamara told IGN when we raised the topic of studio structure. "It's my game. I can go to anyone I want in the team and say, 'I want it changed'." Rockstar's Sam Houser, he told us, can also make the same requests of his teams. "I've been doing it for a long time," he continued, "and it seems to have worked so far for me." Part and parcel of this approach, according to a number of the ex-employees we spoke to, was McNamara's need to exert total control over what goes on in the studio. When asked whether that was true, he chuckled and asked "And is that a bad thing? I make video games. They're personal statements for me. I write 'em, I direct 'em, I put the technology together to make them. I go out to the world and say, 'Will you fund them?' So if you think that's obsessive: absolutely." [B]Staff turnover[/B] A recurring theme throughout the interviews that we conducted with the Bondi Eleven was that the mindset of Team Bondi's management was to hire junior employees, and make employees "work longer and faster," accepting high turnover in the course of it. "There was simply an expectation that you'd work overtime and weekends," said a source. "I was told that I was taking the piss by saying that I couldn't give every single one of my weekends away. We were looked at as a disposable resource, basically. If you weren't in the 'inner circle'" – an exclusive group which seems to have consisted of the former Team Soho employees – "you were just a resource to be burned through," he says. "Their attitude is: 'it's a privilege to work for us, and if you can't hack it, you should leave'. I heard one of the upper echelons say pretty much that. I thought it was disgusting. I don't understand how they can't see that maintaining talent would actually be good for them." An artist with 12 years professional experience recalls, "They created a below-junior position; 'graduate junior', I think, so they could pay less and push people around." Team Bondi was the first – and last – game development company that he worked for. "I don't want another job in the game industry because of my experience [at Bondi]. Most of the [artists] I know who worked there, never want to work in games again." A former programmer says that, during his three year tenure, the studio had a "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." This was echoed by a gameplay programmer, who had no prior game development experience. "They have a massive turnover; a huge attrition rate," he says. "I remember sitting in a meeting with all of the gameplay programmers. There were around 20 of us at the time. I looked around, and realised that out of all of them, other than the team lead, I'd been there the longest. And I'd only been there for under 12 months." [IMG]http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/117/1178844/la-noire-20110623065531427.jpg[/IMG]New motion scanning technology, a massive script and lofty goals for its recreation of Los Angeles made L.A. Noire a tough project to begin with. When we raised the issue of staff turnover, and mentioned that our sources indicated that around a hundred staff had passed through the studio's doors, McNamara took us by surprise: "I'd say more," he replied. "Of the people we tried to build the game with, most of them would've never had any experience with this kind of thing before. And most of them would never have made a game that had these kinds of expectations." Several of the Bondi Eleven mentioned the knock-on effects from poor staff retention. 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." He was working simultaneously across so many systems, that when a Rockstar executive producer visited the studio, he was shocked to discover that the programmer was doing four peoples' jobs. "I was like, 'tell me about it, man!'", he says. "But when I left, I handed all those four things on to somebody else, and they hired some new people, and just kept going. If they'd maintained their talent, they'd operate a lot more efficiently, and it wouldn't have taken them so long." [/release] I dunno about this. Seems like a pretty shitty way to run it. "Old Fashioned" would be putting it nicely. I can't make out if this is real bad leadership by a borderline sick fuck or just the dark side of the business. I can't help but wonder if 3d realms had it the same way? Sure puts a dent in an otherwise fine release. Do keep in mind, this is an IGN article. Source: [URL]http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/117/1179020p1.html[/URL] Supplemental shock-value paragraph: [release]All eleven ex-employees who went on record blamed many of Team Bondi's problems on the studio's leadership. One programmer cited unrealistic goals, unreasonable deadlines and verbally abusive behaviour. 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." In our conversation McNamara talked openly about his management style, saying that he sees getting into arguments as part of trying to get things done: "Am I passionate about making the game? Absolutely. Do you think that I'm going to voice my opinion? Absolutely. But I don't think that's verbal abuse."[/release] [QUOTE=Take_Opal;30694580] a similar situation happened with Red Dead Redemption...[/QUOTE] Not only this. Turns out there are spouse-letters related to bad management at Max Payne 3 too. Rockstar really can't manage their subsidiaries for shit!
3D realms suffered from virtually no project director.
not going to buy this game because i'm poor
[QUOTE=Gaza Pen Pal;30694006]not going to buy this game because i'm poor[/QUOTE] I'll buy it you if you want :)
:eng99:
Not going to buy this game. As a result of reading this.
It's essentially a studio run by the "people are cattle" mentality. Creativity must have been depressingly low. No wonder it ships with a "no colors" switch. [quote=reader]"McNamara'd responses are typical of the type of sociopaths that get into management positions and ruin companies that otherwise should be great places to work and be creative. Look at Epic and Insomniac as examples of well run companies with low turnover of staff. If you invest in people and treat them well you'll reap more rewards than abusing them and creating a gulag."[/quote]
[QUOTE=Bomimo;30694124]It's essentially a studio run by the "people are cattle" mentality. Creativity must have been depressingly low. No wonder it ships with a "no colors" switch.[/QUOTE] No color was pretty much there just because of the style of old noir films and how they were in black and white.
[QUOTE=Nikota;30694158]No color was pretty much there just because of the style of old noir films and how they were in black and white.[/QUOTE] It's still a great parallel to the depressing work-conditions related to creating it!
[quote]"There was simply an expectation that you'd work overtime and weekends," said a source. "I was told that I was taking the piss by saying that I couldn't give every single one of my weekends away. We were looked at as a disposable resource, basically. If you weren't in the 'inner circle'" – an exclusive group which seems to have consisted of the former Team Soho employees – "you were just a resource to be burned through," he says. "Their attitude is: 'it's a privilege to work for us, and if you can't hack it, you should leave'. I heard one of the upper echelons say pretty much that. I thought it was disgusting. I don't understand how they can't see that maintaining talent would actually be good for them." [/quote] That's fucking disgusting. If I hadn't already purchased the game I wouldn't.
[QUOTE=Bomimo;30693802]I dunno about this. Seems like a pretty shitty way to run it. "Old Fashioned" would be putting it nicely. I can't make out if this is real bad leadership by a borderline sick fuck or just the dark side of the business. I can't help but wonder if 3d realms had it the same way? Sure puts a dent in an otherwise fine release.[/QUOTE] 3DRealms went under because George Broussard is a deluded manchild who wanted his "baby" to be perfect, even if it meant scrapping 3 years of work to implement some sort of superfluous technology. Also, I am surprised that McNamara didn't get assaulted by one of the workers at some point.
Damn... first Infinity Ward now Team Bondi. I would like a L.A. Noire 2, but mostly developed by Rockstar. Let Team Bondi do the motion capture work, but Rockstar should take the heavy burden.
McNamara, more like Mcasshat
[QUOTE=Zeke129;30694185]That's fucking disgusting. If I hadn't already purchased the game I wouldn't.[/QUOTE] I feel the same way. I was momentarily prepared to break the disc and mail it to them, but then i realized that it's only going to affect me. I'm in the middle of the game and i'm shelving it in disgust. I can't guarantee that i'll ever be able to finish such a clinical game, knowing that it has no soul and what it's cost people to make it. But then again. in hindsight, i felt it would have been better for the people behind DNF (their dignity) if it was just not released. I mean, people enjoyed it. But it's being bashed left and right for being "too harsh-going" and outdated/flat. I guess i'm weird about these things.
I was planning on buying this game, but now that i read this... i might not.
That's actually the dark side of the industry, I'm afraid. There are workplaces where the boss literally orders you to start cleaning his desk just because the janitor is going to be late that day.
Get the fuck over it. Just because the leader was an ass doesn't mean you shouldn't buy the game. It's not like he's swimming in all your money and making his writers and coders wipe his ass manically as he laughs at sales charts of L.A. Noire rising while tracking the shipping of his one million custom ties covered in acolades from various game journalism publishments. Only a portion of goes to Team Bondi let alone this faggot. [B]Edit:[/b] Also, a similar situation happened with Red Dead Redemption...
The leader was an angry ideas guy, this is pretty terrible.
Now I get why this game was a massive bore and a disappointment. This solves everything, no heart or motivation went into making a good game.
[QUOTE=Take_Opal;30694580]Get the fuck over it. Just because the leader was an ass doesn't mean you shouldn't buy the game. It's not like he's swimming in all your money and making his writers and coders wipe his ass manically as he laughs at sales charts of L.A. Noire rising while tracking the shipping of his one million custom ties covered in acolades from various game journalism publishments. Only a portion of goes to Team Bondi let alone this faggot.[/QUOTE] Buying a game made by this man is equal to being conned. I feel cheated and it's perfectly normal to react that way to this kind of news. I won't "get the fuck over it." What's sad is that this goatfucker is higher paid than those who worked harder for it than he did. All he did was self-sucking and egotrippin'. There are better ways to realize a vision and there are healthier/ more sane ways to channel passion. This is poor work ethic and i regret supporting it!
don't buy this game, don't support the devs for their great work and these guys salary great idea gUYS
So you think the people who were abused for seven years to make this game, which despite the conditions they were put through, are probably very proud of it and how well it's been received would rather get no sort of compensation no matter how small it is. People have families and needs, just because they have a huge dick of a boss doesn't mean they don't want the money they deserved for working for the man.
[QUOTE=Raiskauskone V2;30694542]There are workplaces where the boss literally orders you to start cleaning his desk just because the janitor is going to be late that day.[/QUOTE] You can't be forced to do something outside the reasonable scope of your job duties. If that happens, report them to the labour board.
[quote] An artist with 12 years professional experience recalls, "They created a below-junior position; 'graduate junior', I think, so they could pay less and push people around." Team Bondi was the first – and last – game development company that he worked for. "I don't want another job in the game industry because of my experience [at Bondi]. Most of the [artists] I know who worked there, never want to work in games again." [/quote] Jesus christ this is fucking awful.
[QUOTE=Kid Cudi;30694646]Now I get why this game was a massive bore and a disappointment. This solves everything, no heart or motivation went into making a good game.[/QUOTE] funny because i feel the exact opposite the amount of work they put into the game is insane and they should be applauded for it
I think of those people who quit the game industry and think about what it'd be like if they had gone over to Valve and see how their views would change. Oh the wasted potential.
ITT: Shitty boss, lets fuck up the employees by not buying a really good game
Looks like I'm not buying this game, which sucks because i really wanted to play it.
Glad i haven't finished the game yet.
[QUOTE=RaptorBlackz;30694803]Glad i haven't finished the game yet.[/QUOTE] Why? They don't get more money if you finish the game.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.