LA Noire developer investigated by IGDA

By Fred Dutton Published 28 June, 2011

Brutal working conditions looked into.

The International Game Developers Association is investigating L.A. Noire developer Team Bondi following reports of brutal working conditions at the Australian studio.

IGDA chair Brian Robbins told Develop that it intends to look into claims made earlier this month and wants to hear from any affected Team Bondi employees.

"Certainly reports of 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.

"We encourage any Team Bondi employee and/or family member to email qol@igda.org with comments about the recent past and current situation - positive or negative."

Staff at the studio have reported being asked to work 110-hour weeks during crunch periods, often without overtime pay. Studio boss Brendan McNamara was accused of being abusive to staff, while 130 developers have complained of being left off the game's credits.

McNamara then offered little in the way of denial or apology when asked to answer the accusations earlier this week.

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (44) Latest comment 11 months ago

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  • Lexx87 #1 11 months ago

    Hope he gets sacked to be honest if the allegations are true, while he's all "hey ho off to work we go" about it all.
    Edited by Lexx87 at 28/06/11 @ 17:33

  • Shotofen #2 11 months ago

    Good. Based upon McNamara's arrogant non-denial of the allegations yesterday, this needs to be investigated. The more we put up with bad working conditions, the more they will spread.

  • dirtysteve #3 11 months ago

    But IGDA has no actual clout, beyond name and shame, and possibly censuring Team Bondi, IF it's a member.

  • FuzzyDuck #4 11 months ago

    Decided to not touch L.A. Noire with a poopy stick while that McNamara ponce is running the show.

  • LazyNinjaUk #5 11 months ago

    He probably doesn't mind it because he gets triple the salary of anyone else at Team Bondi

  • jablonski #6 11 months ago

    The statement from McNamara this week showed he has no remorse for how he does business.
    He seems like an arrogant meglomaniac and I hope he is found out

  • optimusprym8 #7 11 months ago

    I seem to remember similar stories surrounding him and the development of The Getaway

  • dickothe1st #8 11 months ago

    There has been too many reports such as this stemming from working conditions in Rockstar studios. It is disconcerting as they are probably amongst my favourite 3 games developers alongside Valve and Bethesda (although I am aware Rockstar only published LA Noire). I do hope this doesn't continue as it really lowers my opinion of their true talents. It takes significant skill and vision to create the products they do; the staff should be greatly rewarded for their efforts.

  • OxWearingSocks #9 11 months ago

    Bondi should create a satirical DLC based upon arresting a pimp named 'Namara McBrendan' for abusing his pro's. Prick.
    Edited by OxWearingSocks at 28/06/11 @ 17:42

  • superfurry #10 11 months ago

    Surely their Australian labour laws that should be covering this

  • Red-Moose #11 11 months ago

    What's particularly sad is the the human cost in terms of working conditions is definitely not compensated by financial rewards for the company that does it. Chances are, they lose money as people are less productive if pushed into these situations, and as it's not an industrial lumber mill with assembly lines, faster definitely does not equal higher quality or higher sales.

    I.e., it's an entirely pointless exercise for everyone concerned.

  • coastal #12 11 months ago

    Will this be the plot for the DLC?

  • dirtysteve #13 11 months ago

    'We want the correct ambience, you'll all be working under 1940's conditions'
    'Didn't they have unions?'
    'FIRED'

  • davoshendo #14 11 months ago

    I thought 12 hour days were pretty standard for games company crunches. QA depts at publishers can be even more extreme at times, 17-20 hour overtime sessions sometimes (although overtime is generally paid).

    Can't abide the credits issue though. Where's the problem with having a couple hundred more names on something that no one ever looks at. The other thing is that there will be plenty of Rockstar staff who automatically make it onto all credits, regardless of amount of work/time spent on the game.

  • -cerberus- #15 11 months ago

    Phelps: "Brandon McNamara? Cole Phelps, LAPD. We're investigating the disappearance of a significant amount of credits from a video game called "L.A. Noire". Several ex-employees also claim the working conditions were inhumane."

    McNamara: "That is simply not true."

    *Y/Triangle*

    Phelps: "You're lying, Mr. McNamara... We've got about 130 testimonies that claim otherwise so spill it! Or we'll take you out in the alley and we'll knock it outta you!"

  • Soton4084 #16 11 months ago

    I have to admit this whole saga has put me off purchasing Rockstar/Team Bondi games in the future. Take-Two should be conducting an internal investigation of their own, as these working conditions create negative publicity and it could be argued that such a poor working environment damages the quality of the game.

  • BigDannyH #17 11 months ago

    What a wanker. He reminds me of Stuart Baggs "the brand". I'll work 24/7 for you Lord Sugar. Twat.

    Bosses shouldn't be allowed to milk their staff dry. Hire a few more staff or wait longer for it to be finished, it won't affect your profits that much. And if it does, you've got a shite business model.

  • miiiguel #18 11 months ago

    Props to all the working class heroes out there, but shit me not, I love LA Noire.

  • drxym #19 11 months ago

    Heh serves them right. The irony is if they had treated their staff right in the first place they wouldn't have found themselves in a vicious circle of grind, resignations, knowledge drain, catch-up, grind etc. all fuelled by screaming incompetent management. Happy permanent staff would have meant the game would have come out far earlier and they'd be working on something else. Maybe LA Noire is getting reasonable reviews now its finally out, but who would really want to hire Bondi again considering all this crap?

  • metalangel #20 11 months ago

    @Cerberus: followed 30 seconds later by...

    PHELPS: Thanks Mr. McNamara, you've been a big help.
    CRAZY CAPTAIN WHO IS IRISH DON'T YOU KNOW: Well done Phelps. So long as we send someone to the gas chamber, even if it's obviously the wrong guy, I'm happy. Have four stars. I'm docking you one star for no apparent reason. Begorrah!

  • gjgjg #21 11 months ago

    Good news, I for one have been put off buying these games new because of this and the likes of mcnamara. If take2 make some positive moves because of this then that's one step forward for the games industry

  • Paul_cz #22 11 months ago

    Nobody forced anyone to work there. If someone hates their job or working conditions or whatever, they can leave. If enough people do it, management will either have to change or perish. As it should be.

  • gammelfisch #23 11 months ago

    If Eurogamer really believes this is unacceptable behaviour by Team Bondi and have concrete evidence to support this, then it should either have been taken into account with the review score or they should have refused to review the game at all. Intolerable working conditions aren't "a game", so Eurogamer and gamers need to be clear about what is acceptable for a game developer to ship a product. Unpaid overtime and inhuman working hours clearly aren't acceptable. If what is claimed is true then I'm really annoyed I ever bought it.

  • BBIAJ #24 11 months ago

    @gammelfisch:

    I'm pretty sure that these practises weren't known about at the time of the review, makes sense, no?

    Regardless if which, it shouldn't factor into the games overall score, a good game is a good game, regardless of how they got there in the end.

  • subedii #25 11 months ago

    "Certainly reports of 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."

    Hahaha, no.

    Not that this isn't bad, but this kind of behaviour is ridiculously common across the games industry, and the IGDA pretending to be shocked at the whole thing is a freaking joke. It's a regular occurrence and they know it, and devs associated with the IGDA even tacitly endorse it. Heck, devs like Epic positively revel with pride about getting people to "crunch" for weeks and months on end.

    [link url=http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22945
    ]http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_in...[/link]

    (the comments section is fairly telling there)

    And another post on this issue.

    [link url=http://playthisthing.com/mothers-dont-let-your-children-grow-be-game-developers
    ]http://playthisthing.com/mothers-dont-le...[/link]

    Specifically of note is how it's pretty frequent for game devs to burn out within 5 years of entering the industry. Pure freaking attrition. But hey, if you can get them to work for free for longer, out of their "passion for the goal", that's good right?

    Across the industry it's viewed as standard behaviour instead of what it should be: A real failure of planning and management. You'd think everyone would have learned that after the EA Spouse debacle.
    Edited by subedii at 28/06/11 @ 20:21

  • gammelfisch #26 11 months ago

    @BBIAJ

    Maybe we (gamers) didn't know, but surely an "industry"website like Eurogamer has more inside information than we do? If this is just about getting hits from new stories, then I'm not impressed.

    The issue about the score isn't about whether La Noire is a great game or not. It is about what standards we feel apply to this things we consume. Would you buy a game/anything at all you knew was made by slaves? I wouldn't and I don't think you would either, no matter how great it was.
    Edited by gammelfisch at 28/06/11 @ 20:52

  • Zelf1 #27 11 months ago

    I hope he gets what he certainly deserves from the way he is running Team Bondi and the people that work there. Its unbelievable that all the extra work they were putting in and they didn't even get paid the overtime. The other article i read mentioned that when people left or were forced out their work load would be past to someone else who had their own work load and one guy mentioned doing 4 peoples workload at on point, is modern day slave labour by the sounds of it.

  • subedii #28 11 months ago

    @gammelfisch :

    The issue of working practices at the developer is only coming out now. Why didn't Eurogamer know about it? Well why didn't anyone else know about it? Any of the other games websites? Why didn't YOU know about it?

    The information wasn't out there. It's only recently that some of the former developers behind the project started coming forward with this (largely in light of them being left off of the credits roll).

    Eurogamer is a games news / reviews website. I don't see how being part of the "industry" means that they are now either mind readers or fortune tellers any more than anyone else is. They have as much "inside information" as people are willing to give them.

  • JeffGerstmann #29 11 months ago

    japanese developers scoff at this

    thumbs up to people who dedicate themselves to their work

    and to the guys with 100+ hour weeks; I'm sorry to say but L. A. Noire really isn't a game. It's the pit of real life simulator we all fall in once in a while.

    going for the record in thumbs down

  • Dubya #30 11 months ago

    Awesome, hope this pig gets his ass handed to him.
    Be brave and come forward, employees!

  • AOFanboi #31 11 months ago

    "Dedicated to the work"? Well, "dedication" is a two-way street: A company gets as much love as it gives. If the company wants to buy 12 hours/day from their employees, then they should pay for those 12 hours. I mean, if you go to a baker and buy three buns, then come back for more because you are still hungry, do you expect him to give you more for free? Employees sell their time and skills.

    Also, humans are not supermen, no way crunch time stress leads to the same quality that a rested employee can do in normal hours. An hour spent coding while in an exhausted stupor just leads to two hours the next day spent fixing the bugs introduced in that hour, for a net loss of time.

    And even if you compensate the crunch overtime with time off, the comp time is usually then taken right after launch... when you want people around for bug fixes and the like...

  • Pantburster #32 11 months ago

    It's not like they were in a backstreet factory breathing in cancer causing chemicals then given a bowl of rice as payment! i say get on with it pussies!!!

  • Alex_976 #33 11 months ago

    The staff are stupid for doing it. I certainly don't give any of my free time to my employer.

  • djed #34 11 months ago

    If they appeared in the credits, Team Bondi would have a weaker case when trying to hold back overtime payment (I'm assuming it's more or less the same people).

  • djed #35 11 months ago

    Oh, and I would like a bit more of a pro-worker stance from the eurogamer editorial staff. I realize it might be easy to simply "report the facts" in a case like this, but this isn't a topic that's in any immediate danger of being slanted as 'sensationalist' or anything, so why not call for more investigation/clarification?

    For example, instead of saying that Mcnamara "offered little in the way of denial or apology", how about "McNamara replied by claiming he was a rock-star and that he expected his workers to die for him."?

  • Harmonica #36 11 months ago

    @djed

    Libel is fun, kids!

  • drxym #37 11 months ago

    @subedii crunch near the end of the project is to be expected. The deadline is set in stone and everyone recognizes all the stops have to be pulled out to meet it. But crunch for years? Crunch with no end in sight? Crunch because people keep leaving because of crunch? It's poor management pure and simple. The irony is if staff weren't treated like shit in the first place then the knowledge would have been retained and there would be no need for continuous crunch.

  • Spong #38 11 months ago

    "It's not like they were in a backstreet factory breathing in cancer causing chemicals then given a bowl of rice as payment! i say get on with it pussies!!!"

    Sing it!
    110-hour weeks? If they were mining a coal face, I could sympathise. But 110 hours sat in a cushy chair staring at monitors and tapping away on a keyboard? Well boo hoo, pardon me if my heart can't bothered to bleed.

  • geeza2020 #39 11 months ago

    ^^^ obviously has cushy government job doing compressed weekly hours of about 30 a week.

  • grussbarbar #40 11 months ago

    gammelfisch has a good point; I do not want to be entertained over the back of overworked and unrespected people. I would very much like to see Eurogamer put on their journalist hats and investigate in which studios this kind of practice is common.

  • dfooster #41 11 months ago

    The game was overrated anyway. They should have made the staff work harder on more variety in gameplay, car handling and side missions. And as for the suspects rolling their eyes looking sheepish only to be telling the truth, it made the game difficult to get totally absorbed in as it felt like pot luck unless you were investigating someone with evidence to back it up.

    Why do all the suspects who turn out to be innocent end up legging it away from you remains a mystery to me further confusing things with the slightly flawed facial interrogation thing. I just plodded through the whole game and was glad when it ended probably reflecting the thoughts of the staff who worked on it.

  • Murton #42 11 months ago

    If IGDA wants to make themselves useful why not look into the practice of laying off pretty much everyone the moment a game is finished, surely that's infinitely more harmful than unpaid overtime?

    As much sympathy as I have for the people living under McNamara's reign of terror at least they're still working in an industry which they love. Can't say the same for the poor entry level guys who get dumped upon release and left to fight their way back into the jobs market, those are the guy I really feel sorry for having been in that sorry position myself.

  • Kalak #43 11 months ago

    to work 110-hour weeks during crunch periods, often without overtime pay

    WTF ???!!! more than 15 hours/day ?

  • jimjiber #44 11 months ago

    Uh, that's just how it is in the games industry. When you've got plenty of muppets who do these sort of shifts without making a fuss the bosses will continues to take the piss. I only worked for one company and we certainly had a megalomaniac tosser of a boss. Talking to my colleagues at the time I was under the impression it was the same at all studios.

    LA Noire is fucking turd anyway, so all that effort was in vain, much like the crap I worked on. Ho hum...

    BTW, we didn't get paid overtime either. Also, my particular favourite, I was once approached by a Producer who informed me that I should do more overtime. I told him I was on top of my (heavy) schedule and he told me that that was not the point - the bosses had noticed I wasn't doing as much overtime as some of the others. So he suggested giving me some extra (pointless) work so that I would fall behind schedule and thus have to do more overtime. Fucking mental.
    Edited by jimjiber at 29/06/11 @ 20:14