Bondi cut LA Noire desks to fit Blu-ray

By Tom Phillips Published 21 July, 2011

"There might have been a better arc."

Controversial Team Bondi co-founder Brendan McNamara has blamed Blu-ray's disc size for L.A. Noire shipping without its planned Bunko and Burglary cases.

Bondi's original plans would have seen L.A. Noire's crime-solving story expanded over 11 extra investigations.

"We had a Bunko and Burglary desk - bunko is fraud and burglary is just people robbing houses and stuff," McNamara explained to PSM3 magazine (via CVG). "We had 11 full cases for that, which we wrote and did the design for to a certain extent - we even did the art for them too, but it just got to a point where we were never going to fit it on one Blu-ray."

Team Bondi shipped L.A. Noire on a single PS3 Blu-ray, but had no qualms spreading the content over three DVDs for the game's Xbox 360 version.

According to McNamara, going over one Blu-ray disc in size "just becomes super prohibitive", despite the fact that the game "might have been a better arc if we did do that - you get more of a chance to introduce different things."

In-game dialogue still mentions the abandoned sections of main character Cole Phelps' career - the Burglary sections would have immediately preceded Phelps' stint in Homicide.

Other dropped ideas include a penalty system for poor performance on cases, which would result in players having to prove they were still up to the job.

"There was a kind of system where if you failed a case your captain would scream at you and you'd go out and do hot car chases or smaller robberies and muggings and all that kind of stuff in the world," McNamara revealed.

"You'd have to do enough of them to get to a point where you get offered another case... It was too much of a distraction."

Since release, publisher Rockstar has supplemented L.A. Noire with four extra cases not found on the game's disc. Available through the downloadable Rockstar Pass promotion, all have now been released.

L.A. Noire launched to commercial and critical success, although McNamara-headed developer Team Bondi has since been blighted by controversy over accusations of brutal working conditions during the game's lengthy development period.

L.A. Noire's added Reefer Madness case.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Phillips

Tom joined Eurogamer in 2010 and has quickly made his mark writing news and columns and coming up with puntastic straplines. Questionable beard. @TomPhillips151 on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Phillips archive page.

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Comments (70) Latest comment 10 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Inmediasress #1 10 months ago

    That's just hahahahahah.
    Excuse me, it's just well funny do people believe this shit???

  • thesonglessbird #2 10 months ago

    Does the PS3 use single or dual layer blu rays? Surely they could've got it all in 50GB?

  • MasonMk #3 10 months ago

    3 DVD's = 21GB (ish) (Double Layered)

    1 Blu-Ray - 50GB (Double Layered)

    Yeah Right.

  • patch #4 10 months ago

    I don't see why that comment needs to be made. I'm sure every game could be never ending if it weren't for storage limitations. Uncharted 3 could last for 100 hours, Gran Turismo could have every car ever made and Fifa could have every player in every league in the world. He didn't mention the fact that their shareholders are probably very glad there's a chance to sell more content by download.

  • evnewell #5 10 months ago

    I believe most are single layer, but dual layer is an option. Now I believe that going onto 2 BDs might be cost prohibitive, but then what - maybe 4 or 5 DVDs for the Xbox. Custom packaging for the 5 disc game? That wouldn't factor into the cost? I just don't know - seems like a foolish thing to say. Blaming the larger capacity disc for data limitations.

    This Mcnamara guy might be better at digging holes than developing games.

  • IonOnion #6 10 months ago

    Im just basing on the pirated version but the total filesize of the PS3 version is 22.65GB.

    Thats a single layer disc.

    Why didn't they use a dual layer disc when so many other games already do?
    Edited by IonOnion at 21/07/11 @ 17:14

  • monkeybiscuit #7 10 months ago

    Homicide was enough of a drag without a whole load of cases before it.

  • neilka #8 10 months ago

    Blol-ray

  • smelly #9 10 months ago

    >3 DVD's = 21GB (ish) (Double Layered)
    >1 Blu-Ray - 50GB (Double Layered)
    >Yeah Right.

    Well, far be it for me to have to explain techy stuff to people on the internets.. But here goes. DVD's are considerably faster than shitty-ray. Therefor, unless you want a 50gb install - they'd have to position data sequentially on the disc to improve loading times... This is especially important in a game which has a lot of streaming.

    The will, in turn dulplicate data quite a lot on the disc.. And subsequently take up considerably more disc space than the dvd version would need.

    And that's PRESUMING they actually used dual layer shitty-rays - which are exponentially more expensive to produce than single layer ones.

    And thus endeth your lesson for today.. Watch a load of fucktard fanboys negate me because they wont understand this and will just think that bigger = better... The same as those people who never seem to get how the worldwide economy works and why things cost more in the uk...

  • Golgo #10 10 months ago

    I guess that's why they left out the names of many of their staff as well. No room left on the blu-ray. Makes perfect sense.

    @Smelly: +1 for the info, -1 for the attitude.
    Edited by Golgo at 21/07/11 @ 17:24

  • Machetazo #11 10 months ago

    That's commitment for you - their offices will never be the same! ;)

  • Collymilad #12 10 months ago

    I'm sorry but all I have to say is:

    EL O FUCKING EL.

    You people do realise that a lot of the data on a blu-ray game is REPEATED DATA to make up for the pathetic 2x access speed of the drive on the PS3 yea? Probably not actually, but 50Gb Capacity =/= 50Gb of space for a game.

    Yeah basically what smelly said.
    Edited by Collymilad at 21/07/11 @ 17:30

  • telboy007 #13 10 months ago

    Stupid blu-rays limiting my game conten.... hang on!

  • jeebthegreat #14 10 months ago

    "There was a kind of system where if you failed a case your captain would scream at you and you'd go out and do hot car chases or smaller robberies and muggings and all that kind of stuff in the world," McNamara revealed.

    See, when you do badly on a case, your captain DOES shout at you. And when I was playing through it, I thought to myself, oooh does this mean I have to prove myself and do other stuff before I get another case? I think that could have really expanded the gameplay and made it feel like less of a drag by mixing things up.

  • Der_tolle_Emil #15 10 months ago

    From what we have read in the past few weeks about how crappy work was at Bondi I am somewhat glad for all the employees there that they did in fact drop a few things. Imagine how much worse it would have been if they had to finish all the dropped ideas even though everyone was already working much more than they should have.

    It just shows how bad management really was. Too bad, I definitely would have loved to see the burglary cases.

  • ricochetguro #16 10 months ago

    @Smelly

    Thats not entirely the case and it isn't as bad as when they first started. Still doesn't change the fact that it took 3 duel layered dvds(which ironically enough repeat data) and 1 single layer blu-ray to store. Such a techie should also know that blu-ray allows higher quality audio which adds to the space taken(ps3 version has 7.1 surround among with many other options)

    Also worth nothing is that the ps3 install for La Noire is about 1 gb. Its about 2 for each 360 disc to get comparable load times and keep your system quiet.
    Edited by ricochetguro at 21/07/11 @ 17:45

  • deano2099 #17 10 months ago

    Did anyone playing LA Noire really think it needed to be longer?

  • bikmate #18 10 months ago

    read this if you want to know the difference in read speeds
    [link url=http://www.gamespot.com/pages/profile/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=23916169&user=skektek
    ]http://www.gamespot.com/pages/profile/sh...[/link]
    [link url=http://www.maxconsole.net/showthread.php?65317-2x-Blu-ray-Vs.-12x-DVD-AKA%28PS3-vs-360-Drive-Read-Speeds%29
    ]http://www.maxconsole.net/showthread.php...[/link]

    but to cut it short:
    "At 2x Blu-ray can read as fast as 12x DVD's minimum read speed. At just
    3x Blu-ray is comparable to DVD at 12x; through the first half of the
    disc 3x Blu-ray is faster, through the second half of the disc 12x DVD
    is faster.
    And at only 4x Blu-ray manages to best a 12x DVD's maximum read speed
    by 9%."

  • CopyCat #19 10 months ago

    @smelly
    "And that's PRESUMING they actually used dual layer shitty-rays"

    Actually they didn't, it's just a normal 25GB BluRay. So they would have had a lot of extra space for the missing desks, if they had used a 50GB Disc. Even with duplicated data.
    More likely they didn't want to use like 5-6 DVDs, so the cut everything down to fit "half" a BluRay.

  • azic #20 10 months ago

    @Smelly
    Please explain and justify to me why we pay more in the uk. Why $29.99 becomes £29.99. Why x Car costs $26.000 in the great old US OF A and that's with all the extras but costs £32,000 here with sweet FA and rises north of £37,000 with all the extras.

    I would be enlightened to have the answer from you? As I presumed as with many other official bodies that it boils down to the fact that they can!

    I await your respon

  • UncleLou #21 10 months ago

    Well, far be it for me to have to explain techy stuff to people on the internets.. But here goes. DVD's are considerably faster than shitty-ray

    Neat how you start with a rant, end with a rant, and get it all massively wrong in the middle part. But then you are smelly, that's what you do.

    And yes, please, stay far away from explanations of "techy stuff" in the future.

  • Snake_2011 #22 10 months ago

    there are 100GB disks that work for the PS3 what is this guy talking about?

  • Tuckie #23 10 months ago

    The more Branden McNamara opens his mouth, the more poorly it reflects on his game.

  • smelly #24 10 months ago

    >And get it all massively wrong in the middle part. But then you are smelly, that's what you do.

    Yip.. As expected.. fanboys on the internet think they know more about a tech subject than someone who actually does understand it.

    Fine.. go back to going on about how they "hate" the ps3 or other such nonsense.

    >And yes, please, stay far away from explanations of "techy stuff" in the future.

    Yeah - I should leave that stuff to clueless people like digital foundry - who the forumites seem to love as he's totally clueless too.

  • vibroguy #25 10 months ago

    perhaps this explains why the story jumps around with little clue as to character motivations or development for the 2nd half of the game. The whole Cole - Elsa love tryst just didn't make any sense whatsoever. Very sloppy, ruined what could have been a very captivating storyline

  • smelly #26 10 months ago

    >Such a techie should also know that blu-ray allows higher quality audio which adds to the space taken

    The space audio takes up on a disc in minimal in terms of percentage.

    >there are 100GB disks that work for the PS3

    Publishers like to work on single layered discs.. it's cheaper to produce. Why produce stuff which will take them a few meg over the limit and therefor make it more expensive when they can fit on a single layer?

    Nope.. forgot .. this is the internets - common sense goes out the window on this stuff doesnt it?


    >Please explain and justify to me why we pay more in the uk.

    I have done many many times - whenever a new console is announced. But internet forum kidz are predictably dumb and dont get it.

  • smelly #27 10 months ago

    >-1 for the attitude.

    Yes - because on the internets - slagging off peoples hard work because you dont understand the technical problems is okay.. and makes you "cool"

    But someone slagging you off for doing that is bad.. m'kay!

    Shite like angry game nerd, thatguywithglasses and angry joe have a lot to answer for nowadays... The interweb is full of cretins.

  • AdamAsunder #28 10 months ago

    It was already way too long and tedious.

  • arcam #29 10 months ago

    @azic

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discr...

  • metalangel #30 10 months ago

    More cases to make the story coherent wouldn't have changed the fact the game was boring, Phelps was unlikable and you spend half the game knowingly arresting innocent people!!

  • Smoped #31 10 months ago

    Now, seriously guys. No matter how bad or good, long or short L.A. Noire was, or how big a monster McNamara might or might not be, I don't see why he would lie about the Bluray thing. It might be down to the way they're organizing/streaming the data from the disk, or some other complex/mundane reason etc, but I just don't see the guy waking up one day and deciding: "I know! I'll start claiming we were constrained by the size of the Bluray disk even though we had more space than we could ever have filled!"

  • dfooster #32 10 months ago

    The game was a great idea poorly implemented. Way way waaaay overrated by the media. Didn't deserve more than a 7/10 for me as it had too many issues that held it back. Everyone got caught up in the brilliant facial animations and didn't acknowledge the fact that the gameplay, characters and pacing was well short of the mark.

  • SylarsStubble #33 10 months ago

    Macnamara while sipping his hot chocolate before bed: "no la noire reports in the media for a while... how can I fix this? Oh.. er... bluray capacity maybe? Yeah."

    I feel sorry for the staff who put up with him then and now have to put up with him bitching about the shortfalls of their work.

  • sybixsus #34 10 months ago

    Well I'm sure I'm not the first to call BS on this. If this was remotely true, it would have been released one case at a time for £5 a go, and we'd have been told that it was never intended to be part of the game, because it was created by a separate team of developers who need to be paid for this DLC.

  • GiarcYekrub #35 10 months ago

    The lack of a penalty for being crap is my main problem

  • Darren #36 10 months ago

    As others have said, 3 x 360 DVDs = 21 GBs vs. 50 GB on a BD so Team Bondi are talking utter bollocks, hardly surprising for a bunch of slaves drivers though! They're never nice or honest people, are they? ;)

    Yes, BDs come in single layer 25 GB and dual layer 50 GB varieties but they're both still single discs.

  • Murton #37 10 months ago

    Erm, Brendan, it's called dual layer.

    When saying that something has limited your game you really should be looking at what the actual limitation was, in this case the 6.2GB available per dual layer 360 dvd, not the 23GB per layer PS3 BD.

    The best course of action would obviously be to keep your mouth shut and simply not speak as every time you do you manage to raise more questions than you answer.

  • Darren #38 10 months ago

    P.S. I'm sure the real reason is the licensing costs of exceeding the Xbox 360's DVD limit. I read somewhere that publishers prefer to keep the number of discs down to three or less otherwise the licensing costs increase significantly with each extra disc. Can't remember where I read it though so don't quote me on it.

  • Kaminari #39 10 months ago

    Are we talking about Brendan "Pennywise the Dancing Clown" McNamara?

  • andijames #40 10 months ago

    @smelly

    First of all blu-ray isn't slow it's the reader that is as it's only 2x in the PS3 unfortunately. If you had an 8x then the problem wouldn't exist period. But even with an extra 25+GB to store another 2 desks the sequential data wouldn't take up that much more room.

    I take it you don't have a high def blu-ray player then for HD films? You know. Since you hate them so much. Shame. You're really missing out on some good stuff. They even do the Saw films and Disney ones you kids like these days on it :)

  • smelly #41 10 months ago

    >If you had an 8x then the problem wouldn't exist period

    But the ps3 doesnt.. So what the hell kind of point is that you're trying to make?

    Sheesh.

    >I take it you don't have a high def blu-ray player then for HD films? You know. Since you hate them so much.

    Why the hell would i "hate" a disc format?

    Fanboys are weird.

    But as you ask - no i dont. I tend to stream movies nowadays. I even then i dont tend to bother with HD as it doesnt make the acting/directing/plot (i.e the things i care about) any better... But that's completely meaningless - we're talking here about the ps3's slow shitty-ray drive... Which has slow reads and a rediculously bad seek time.

    Sheesh.

  • riseer #42 10 months ago

    I smell bull$HIT..50 gigs is alot of data to fill up.I doubt the game is on a dual layer bluray disk.

  • smelly #43 10 months ago

    @riseer : *facepalm*

    Okay.. my intelligence has got up and left the building....

  • andywilkie35 #44 10 months ago

    What the fuck is "bunko"?

  • andijames #45 10 months ago

    @smelly

    My point being you were slating blu-ray not the PS3's blu-ray drive. Hence why i mentioned the speed. It's not the format that's the problem it's the reading speed.

    And yes plots in films are excellent and i much prefer it to mindless babble that some films pass off as a plot these days but if i'm going to watch one i quite like the extra quality Blu-ray offers. Or even any HD format. For someone who likes to explain to the technologies of today like you did i'm a little baffled why you don't like what's on offer for movies especially.

    If you're going to troll at least make sense kiddo

  • riseer #46 10 months ago

    smelly,Blu-ray is alot faster then dvd the problem is Ps3 only uses a 2x Blu ray drive their are blu-ray drives that are 12x now and run circles on dvd drives.Blu ray drives are alot faster then dvd drives the problem with the Ps3 drive it's 2x which is hella slow but it has to read more data then a dvd drive. a 4x blu ray drive is faster then a 12x dvd drive.When Ps4 hits their will be nothing less then 12x blu ray drive in it and the disks should hold around 500gigs.

    Ps a 2x Blu ray drive reads 13.5mb/s this is only 2.0mb/s slower then a 12x dvd drive 16.0mb/s a 4x blu ray 27mb/s.

  • andijames #47 10 months ago

    @riseer

    You're right there it does read at a good pace. The problem being a lot of stuff isn't compressed on Blu-ray's as there has been relatively no need for it to be used. So, for instance, textures that are 100MB on a compressed DVD maybe 170-200MB on a blu which just extensuates the read speed problem.

    Anyway back on topic i'm sure if they wanted to include all these extra desks they could of. Producing DL Blu at production level of purchase wouldn't of cost that much more. I think Darren has a point about it being more discs on the Xbox side of things maybe that's what affected their decision? Well. That and the work team probably didn't want to work a minute more for this imbecile.

  • riseer #48 10 months ago

    smelly,Yes Ps3 has a slow drive i bought another blu ray player just for movies.Ps3 is old and Blu ray drives have advanced the past 5 years.It's still a nice piece of hardware and it's only really slow when booting up the disk.

  • riseer #49 10 months ago

    @andijames,Yea this guy seems like a real prick quite sad how they treat their dev team.Look at Naughty Dog everything they touch is top notch and you never hear anything bad about them.

  • smelly #50 10 months ago

    >My point being you were slating blu-ray

    No i didnt.. I sustinctly said "shitty-ray"

    Blu-ray isnt shit.. the drive in the ps3 is .. thus it's known to me as "shitty ray"

  • smelly #51 10 months ago

    >smelly,Blu-ray is alot faster then dvd the problem is Ps3 only uses a 2x Blu ray drive


    I KNOW!!!!!! FFS!!!!!

    Sheesh!

  • smelly #52 10 months ago

    quote : "Ps3 is old and Blu ray drives have advanced the past 5 years."

    I... KNOW!!!!!!

    I was explaining why the data will consume more space on a ps3 blu-ray than a 360 dvd (Thanks to the slow read/seek times).

    What part of this dont you understand?

    Right.. im leaving.. you morons have trouble understanding simple things.. Im going to try to do something easier - like explaining rocket science to a 2 year old.

    Some of you fanboys are going to have your mind blown when you figure out the wii-u has a blu-ray drive in it.

  • Fonzie #53 10 months ago

    What an absolute twat.

  • alcides #54 10 months ago

    what I don't understand is how I can still see smelly when I have consistantly been hitting the ignore button for the last two years.

  • cobaltfram #55 10 months ago

    My God, you have to be kidding. Even if he's kidding, how in the hell can you say you would have time for more plot development when you spend twenty hours shouting at me for failing my investigations and then throwing your plot together in the last two minutes? You have to be joking.

  • orangpelupa #56 10 months ago

    simple explanation. Bluray 25GB is faster to read than 50GB. Maybe thats the reason why brendan say something like that maybe?

    Reading first layer is faster than second layer.

  • IonOnion #57 10 months ago

    @orangpelupa
    If that is so why don't they just increased the install size? LA noires install size is only 1.3GB. Thats pretty small considering other shorter games have more than 3GB.

  • metamorphic #58 10 months ago

    Sorry Brendan, but just please stop making excuses like they grow on trees.

  • ZizouFC #59 10 months ago

    Am I the only one who really hopes these cases are released as DLC??

    The penalty system would've been nice too.

  • Murton #60 10 months ago

    @riseer

    I don't think it's fair to compare conditions at Naughty Dog to Bondi or anyone else, except maybe Polyphony Digital, Bungie while still with MS or R* North. These studios aren't so much given slack as simply not tied up in the first place. When you have that level freedom you can just let people get on with it and there's no bad blood as a result of that. Bondi on the other hand appear to have been under constant pressure from both R* and Take2 and their management simply couldn't handle it so took it out on the staff, happens all too often, look at R* San Diego and RDR.

  • Retro_ #61 10 months ago

    I'm struggling to believe this, sounds like BS to me.

  • tnt_2008smum #62 10 months ago

    Wow who broke smelly!!!!

  • geeza2020 #63 10 months ago

    @smelly:
    "Okay.. my intelligence has got up and left the building.... "

    I dont think it was ever here, buddy.

  • minimong #64 10 months ago

    @smelly
    Grow up mate.The only raving fanboys in this thread seems to be you.Your over the top hatred for the PS3 is really pathetic.How can a grown adult hate a piece of electronics so much.

    I assume you are an adult, if not then it explain everything.If you are, then its just sad.

  • Ryze #65 10 months ago

    What an idiot.

  • kongzi #66 10 months ago

    So this basically means that about half the content was cut, some of it brought back as DLC.. but still.. how piss poor is Bondi-management?

  • DwarfyP #67 10 months ago

    I'd buy extra desks for PDLC.

  • philreid #68 10 months ago

    What a load of hairy haw maws

  • Jabjabs #69 10 months ago

    Naughty Dog once said that the reason why Uncharted was only on a single layer blu ray was because it was much quicker to prototype and test due to vastly quicker manufacturing times. I imagine that this is the same problem that Team bondi was having.

    It's possible that it was just not feasible in terms of building it to schedual for dual layer production of testing discs thus they are forced onto a single layer disc.

    As for... "You're right there it does read at a good pace. The problem being a lot of stuff isn't compressed on Blu-ray's as there has been relatively no need for it to be used. So, for instance, textures that are 100MB on a compressed DVD maybe 170-200MB on a blu which just extensuates the read speed problem. "

    Stuff is usually compressed exactly the same as on Xbox, textures are usually limited by system RAM which directly impacts the file size.
    Edited by Jabjabs at 22/07/11 @ 17:47

  • drxym #70 10 months ago

    What horseshit. The PS3 and 360 game are very similar so we can use the size of the 360 game to work out the game's likely footprint. 3 360 DVDs = approx 22GB (since copy protection eats a chunk), and maybe 1.5GB of discs #2 & #3 would be duplicated game code & common assets which means the game and english audio probably occupies 18-19GB tops. Throw in 4 or 5 localized audio tracks, maybe 2Gb apiece and you have something which would comfortably come in under the maximum 50GB of space with room to spare.

    Claiming that Blu Ray was the limitation when the content fits on 3 DVDs is pure crap. I wonder why devs even have to lie like this. Just be honest and say DLC was always on the cards which is the obvious truth of the matter.