Team Bondi, the Sydney, Australia-based development team behind one of the most critically acclaimed and best selling console games of 2011, LA Noire could be shutting its doors. The Smart Company web site reports that Team Bondi has been placed into administration. The developer was rumored earlier to be negotiating with KMM, the movie production company owned by director George Miller (the Mad Max trilogy, Happy Feet). The rumors claimed that Team Bondi was going to sell its assets to KMM. However there's no indication that such a deal was finalized. A creditor's meeting involving Team Bondi will be held on Friday.

Founded in 2003, Team Bondi worked for years to develop and complete its first, and possibly its only, game. LA Noire was an ambitious crime action-adventure game set in 1940's Los Angeles. The game suffered from a number of delays as well as a switch in publishers. Sony was originally going to release LA Noire as a PS3 exclusive but later Take Two Interactive's Rockstar Games brand took over as publisher and added the Xbox 360 to the game's platform list. LA Noire was finally released by Rockstar Games in May 2011 and got both solid reviews and high sales. It topped the NPD Group's list of best selling games in both May and June of 2011.


After the game's release, a number of former Team Bondi members complained that LA Noire's final credits left out a large number of their names. Other reports claimed via unnamed sources that work conditions at Team Bondi were poor with team members working extremely long hours during the game's development.


Rockstar Games has announced plans to release a PC version of LA Noire later this fall. The PC port will be handled by Rockstar's internal development studio in Leeds, UK.

Source: http://www.neowin.net/news/la-noire-development-team-placed-into-administration

Posted: Sep 01, 2011 12:33 pm