The Emails Behind The Whistle Blowing at Team Bondi

Last month a story on IGN called "Why Did L.A. Noire Take Seven Years To Make?" detailed the lengthy process wherein Sydney-based developer Team Bondi worked on the biggest, most expensive video game ever made in Australia. Published by Rockstar Games, L.A. Noire - released worldwide in May - was expansive in scope and revolutionary in concept. 

At the story heart's were eleven testimonials – delivered by former Team Bondi employees interviewed under the condition of anonymity – which detailed the oppressive work conditions that hundreds of staff endured throughout those seven years. Among their complaints were an "ominous crunch" period of development which continually shifted year to year; a studio-wide expectation that staff would work overtime and weekends; a praise-free working environment; and a boss named Brendan McNamara, who one of the sources called "the angriest person I've ever met".

In the last few weeks, the story has been read and reported around the globe. Both fans and the game development community have reacted with contempt for Team Bondi, and for Rockstar Games, who seemingly condoned the Sydney-based studio's incessant whip-cracking. The International Game Developer's Association (IGDA) has declared that they are seeking comments from former Bondi staff as they investigate what they deem to be "absolutely unacceptable" working conditions.

As the original author of the report I've been contacted by developers who have worked under Brendan McNamara at other studios over the years. All have concurred with the assertions made by the Bondi Eleven. "When Brendan came on board, it became clear that he was a huge bully with no talent, vision or management skill. But he really knew how to intimidate," wrote one. "Fits with my experience of McNamara," tweeted another.

Several more ex-Team Bondi employees have also contacted me to express their gratitude. "On the day the article was posted, I had been linked it by a dozen or so other Team Bondi ex-employees in the first few hours, and then it was re-linked on Facebook for the rest of the day," one source told me. "Everyone I've spoken to is really grateful that it's 'out there', and completely shocked that Brendan agreed to the interview."

Two former Bondi staffers, in particular, have supplied evidence which refutes comments made by Brendan McNamara in my original story, and strengthens the validity of claims made by the Bondi Eleven. Between them the pair spent years labouring under the Team Bondi banner. As with the original Bondi Eleven, the pair have supplied information under the condition of anonymity. Their rebuttals to their former boss follow; their evidence includes time-stamped internal emails and staff employment contracts.

Deterioration of relationship with Rockstar

Source: "It's pretty well reported now that the working conditions were bad. What hasn't been discussed yet (from what I've seen) is the relationship between Team Bondi and Rockstar. I've heard a lot about Rockstar's disdain for Team Bondi, and it has been made quite clear that they will not publish Team Bondi's next game. Team Bondi are trying to find another publisher for their next title, but the relationship with Rockstar has been badly damaged - Brendan treats L.A. Noire like a success due to his vision but I think Rockstar are the ones who saved the project. They continued to sink money into LA Noire, and their marketing was fantastic. Without their continued support, Team Bondi would have gone under several years ago."

"Rockstar also made a huge contribution to the development; their producers were increasingly influential over the last two years of the game's development, and overruled many of the insane decisions made by Team Bondi management. At a lower level, Rockstar also pitched in with programmers, animators, artists, QA, etc. Part of the conflict between Team Bondi and Rockstar was due to Rockstar's frustration with Team Bondi's direction, and eventually Team Bondi's management in turn resented Rockstar for taking lots of creative control. It's also worth pointing out that Rockstar used to be very keen on making Team Bondi something like 'Rockstar Sydney' - the more they worked with Team Bondi management, the more they came to understand that this was a terrible idea. I have a few logs that show the relationship souring – see below."

Date: Tuesday, April 06, 2010.

From: Brendan McNamara [Team Bondi founder]

To: Everybody List [everyone who worked for Team Bondi]

Hi Everyone 

I found out this morning that Rockstar have pulled out of the E3 show. I'm trying to find out more information as to why. I don't agree with this decision as I think the case we were going to show is looking great and that we could do some real damage there. Jeronimo [Barrera, Rockstar VP] is talking to the Marketing Team to ascertain what the Marketing Plan is going forward. Once I know what is happening and why I will get back to you. 

Brendan

Source: "The context on this second one is that our Production Designer (Simon Wood) posted an email with links to a new L.A. Noire logo designed by Rockstar (which Brendan hated). The announcement apparently had a Rockstar logo, but no Team Bondi logo alongside it. Brendan's reply was only supposed to be to Simon, but he replied to everybody at Team Bondi by mistake. He claimed he was only talking about commenters on news articles, but it was pretty clear to everyone that this wasn't true."

Date: Monday, October 11, 2010

From: Brendan McNamara [Team Bondi founder]

To: Everybody List [everyone who worked for Team Bondi]

Every dog has its day and there's going to be hell to pay for this one. I'll never forget being treated like an absolute **** by these people.

L.A. Noire continually being 'six months from completion'

Source: "We were constantly told that the project was only six months away from being done to justify the long hours - it was always "the final push". There are so many emails like this talking about a 'final push'; I don't have all of them, but it was a constant theme. Management knew this was untrue, but maintained the lie anyway to keep people working. I only recall one time where a lead confirmed that they knew we weren't going to hit a release date but that they were maintaining the lie to keep the hours up, and it was just in a private discussion, so can't post any email/chat transcripts for you. Our first official internal release date was some time in September of 2008."

Date: Tuesday, September 11, 2007

From: Vicky Lord [Team Bondi general manager]

To: Everybody List [everyone who worked for Team Bondi]

Since January this year, we have been liaising with Rockstar in regard to the release date of L.A. Noire. As we are close to finalising this with them now Take 2 have announced to their financiers where this income will be reported, as they have not yet reported any financials to them so far to-date. This has prompted articles and speculation on the net to develop. Rockstar are close to confirming to us when our release date will be and as soon as we have it confirmed in writing, we will notify everyone.

Jeannette has been working with the Leads over the last couple of months to assess the amount of work still required. As soon as we have the release date, we'll sit down with everyone and go through the plan to get us to the finish line.

Thanks, Vicky.

Source: "The context for this email is that we had our internal release date as September 2008, but there were rumours circulating on the net that the game had been delayed due to Take 2's financials not reporting about it. Vicky was trying to assure us that the release date would still be in that same ballpark, but they just needed confirmation from Rockstar."

Date: Monday, Jan 01, 2009

From: Brendan McNamara [Team Bondi founder]

To: Everybody List [everyone who worked for Team Bondi]

This is the year when we release our game to the world so its going to be very exciting to see what the world thinks of our endeavours. We will be having someone from Rockstar here for most of the year starting in February and will be doing a number of trailers as well as press visits from online and print journalists. Your leads will be working through pay review letters today and will discuss these with you individually hopefully tomorrow.

Brendan

Subject: Getting to the finish line

Date: Tuesday, August 04, 2009

From: Brendan McNamara [Team Bondi founder]

To: Everybody List [everyone who worked for Team Bondi]

Hi Everyone, 

As Naz announced a few weeks ago, we are moving into the latter stages of the game and we are currently in Sub-Alpha. Features are being polished and the game experience as a whole is being pulled together by the gameplay, design and animation teams. The art-team are working on optimization, bugs and adding polish to locations from feedback driven by R* and the design team. I'm working with Oly putting together a plan for motion capture and scanning. 

This is an amazing result for 4 hard years and I'm proud of what we've achieved this far. The game is huge in size and scope and will be a real breakthrough. We have almost re-invented the adventure game whilst including the action elements that people expect in a modern game. Its these action elements that we really need to tighten up. 

That said, anyone who has worked on a game or film before knows that to make a AAA title is going to take a big push at the end to get it complete.  This is not uncommon within our industry and while it's not ideal, it is what we need to do to get a polished result to the standard of the competition. 

To achieve this result we're introducing two new working practices, effective immediately: 

The first is a longer working day, standard hours will be 9am to 7pm.  This will include Fridays and beers on Friday will be available but not until 7pm.  The first day of longer working hours will be Thursday 6th August.  Without this additional time I don't believe that the project will be completed to the standard required within the time we have left.  Many of you already do this on a regular basis (and much more) which is very much appreciated.  Luke, Nick, Steve and Sam, to name a few seem to live here.  As we get closer to the finish line we will need to work Saturdays, and then Sundays as well.  The first two Saturdays that we require you to work are this Saturday (8th August - 10am to 5pm) and next Saturday (15th August - 10am - 5pm).  The reason being is that we have people here from Rockstar and we need to maximize their time with the team.  Obviously some people will have situations that they can't avoid but in general I would like you all to come in.  The hours on Saturday will be compensated through the weekend working scheme, giving everyone the opportunity to take payment at the end of the project, or an extended holiday period. 

As I said this isn't ideal, but it is typical of what it takes to get a game finished.  It's now time to look at whatever you are working on and say what needs to be done to make it shippable and competitive with the best games that are out there.  We need to iron out sucky controls, animation glitches and bad AI so that the experience is cohesive and the glitches don't constantly pull you out of the experience.  We need to trim the script and make it snappier.  Don't blame Daniel.  That one is with me.

The second new working practice is that we're going to eliminate the lockdowns associated with the weekly build.  We have been sending daily builds to Rockstar for the last couple of weeks, each day selecting a stable build for submission.  From this point onwards we will treat each day as a daily "build day", eliminating the differentiation between this build and the weekly build.  In short this means we do not need to have the restrictions of lockdown, allowing people to work efficiently all week. 

Thank you to everyone for all your efforts. 

Best, 

Brendan.

Source: "This next one is from Vicky. It's from January 2009; you can see she mentions a few topics. She asks for the big push, talks about how marketing is just around the corner (our first real press was in Game Informer's March issue 2010, so 14 months after she wrote the email), and Team Bondi working on a new project at the end of 2009?"

Subject: Summary

Date: Tuesday, January 13, 2009

From: Vicky Lord [Team Bondi general manager]

To: Everybody List [everyone who worked for Team Bondi]

Dear all,

Thank you all for your time this afternoon. To summarise the discussion you all had with your Lead.

We have two milestones left to complete the game content and features before we head into the Test phase of finishing the game. The first one Milestone N10 finishes in six weeks. We will need to have the Homicide and Vice cases in good shape by the end of that milestone. Following that there is a four week Milestone Sub-Alpha period where we will be getting the game ready for Alpha Submission and will mean that we need to complete Arson case revisions as well as any code features and art optimisations. Cut scene and Scripted sequences will be an ongoing process and added to the game right up till Master.

So we are going to change to the way we have completed milestones in the past. It's no longer going be about just completing your schedule for the milestone. We will all be working in the office the last two weekends prior to the delivery of Milestone N10 (21st & 22nd Feb and 27th & 28th Feb). As many of you have families or weekend commitments, we are giving you notice of this to allow you to make alternative arrangements to enable you to be in the office. If we can be of any assistance, please see myself or Denise. During the last week of the milestone you will be required to work through your tasks for N10 and if they finish before N10 ships to keep going on your sub-alpha tasks until the milestone ships. That means that everyone is required to keep going until the milestone ships or your lead informs you that you have done all that you can for N10 and sub-alpha. Specifically this means in the last two weeks of the milestone you can expect pretty long days. It's "one in all in" until we get the Milestone shipped and get the game ready for testing. We need teamwork to get the game finished to  the quality that we are after and that means being here to help a tester, a designer, an artist or programmer who needs your support to get their work finished.

You are not required to work round the clock everyday up until the milestone ships but for the next six months we will need more from you than we ever have asked from you in the past. That's the nature of getting a AAA title out the door and into the hands of the playing public. Getting a result with this game means that the public finally get to enjoy the fruits of your hard work. It also means that we get to take a good break later this year and come back refreshed to work on some exciting new ideas for future projects.

Josh from Rockstar will be coming back to the studio in February to work again with the design team and Brendan has been discussing press activity, which will be starting soon. As soon as we have information regarding this we will communicate to everyone.

For Brendan, myself and the 5 guys who came from London to set up Team Bondi, this is a real milestone for us. To have created something so amazing from absolutely nothing is such an achievement, and we've only been able to do this because of the team that we have around us and effort that each and every one of you continue to give - thank you! We should all be proud of our achievements, and excited at the result to come.

Many of you had questions regarding Alpha, Beta and Master and once we have a breakdown of this we will post it on the intranet.

Thanks everyone, any questions please do not hesitate to ask me.

Vicky.

Team Bondi staff express concerns over their employment contracts

Source: "This next one is interesting for a few reasons. Some employees had kids and wanted to change their hours slightly, e.g. instead of working 'officially' from 9 to 7 they wanted to do 8 to 6, but their requests were rejected. So the compromise was that they could have an hour's flexibility on Saturday. She also mentions some kind of company handbook - no such thing existed at Team Bondi, it was just a bunch of articles on our intranet (which was a wiki). The wording of policies was updated without any communication to employees, so it was a bit dicey."

Subject: Q&A

Date: Friday, March 19, 2010

From: Vicky Lord [Team Bondi general manager]

To: Everybody List [everyone who worked for Team Bondi]

Hi Everyone,

A couple of questions arose from yesterday's meeting which were consistent across the board.  The Q&A written below is designed to answer these questions.  Please do not hesitate to ask if you are still unclear.

Thanks, Vicky.

Am I going to receive, or sign a new contract of employment saying that I am entitled to the scheme? Why can I not have a new contract of employment including the weekend working policy? 

The short answer to this is no, but here's the reason why:

When you commence employment at a company, a contract of employment is negotiated prior to you joining, outlining the employer and the employee's commitment. This includes a negotiation of the salary package, notice period, job description, and many other aspects including visa status etc. The contract of employment is therefore an individual document between you and the company.  

Outside of the contract of employment are a series of policies which the company defines and presents to the organisation as a whole. These are not negotiated between employer and employee and are not individual to only certain employees, but they set a standard across the whole organisation which we will all abide by. For example, the IT policy, and the weekend working policy.

These policies are referenced in your contract of employment under the Duties to Comply with Company Policies section, or the Company Policies section. This is the link between your contract, and the policies of the company, which is the reason why policies do not need to be printed out and signed. They have already been agreed to be honoured by the company and the employee when signing the contract of employment.  

To give you comfort with this, what many organisations do is put together a "Company Handbook". The definition of a company handbook is a single source of reference that contains all of the policies of the company. A company handbook is underpinned by the law, meaning that the standards set within it have to be of equal standard to - or greater than the existing law. The first documents therefore to go in the company handbook will be the weekend working policy, and the IT policy, as more policies are set the company handbook can grow as your single source of reference - a standard that the company, and it's employees will be required to meet.

Why is the hour from 6-7 not paid?

As an organisation we offer a package rate within your contract of employment, for a professional worker, per annum. These days and hours may be varied or extended at times to meet milestones and project commitments. Provision for these hours has been factored into your package rate.  This year we have been unable to increase this package rate, but in previous years we have been able to increase your package rate and generously in many case which have been above the rate of inflation. This has been in recognition of exceptional effort.

To complete the project at this time, we require an extension of the ordinary hours of duty and we are asking people to give more hours. Putting a product to market of this size, scale and quality is going to require extra effort from everyone and while we are asking for it, and not saying it's easy, the company is perfectly happy to be flexible of commitments you have outside of the organisation. We are asking people to commit to the schedule and the goals we've set ourselves to the standard of the Game Informer Demo.  

Flexibility in working hours

I think you will all agree that we have had greater success pulling together as a team than singular or by discipline effort. Many of you work cross discipline and need other employees to fix problems. To have everyone here at the same time means we have strength in numbers, and a solidarity of working together as a team.  These hours are 9-7, with an hour lunch (taken between 12-2). At times some of you will have unavoidable circumstances, which you should speak to your Lead about.

For these first two Saturdays (BM 1 milestone), we will try being more flexible with the working hours on Saturday, and offer either 9-4 or 10-5. In these circumstances lunch will be fixed at 12.30 - 1.30 - so that we ensure as many core/overlap hours as possible within the team.

Communication/Show & Tell

Some of you asked for communication improvement for example in milestone dates etc. The first step towards this was this week. The Leads and Production department have taken you through your schedule and shown you how each of your tasks gets us closer to the finish line. This is an area everyone can always improve on.

Some of you asked about Show & Tells. As our milestones are organised in short, sharp sprints the game is our reference. Every time you play you should see jump forward in progress. Take the time to look, and if you think something is particularly good, improved a lot or on the flip side, something that you struggled with - bring it to our attention. The days of accepting broken issues need to be behind us. Would you look at our game today and spend $100 on it? If not, bug it! This especially goes for build day but should be every-day when you're playing.

In addition, the leads group will be organising more show & tells, but it doesn't have to be restricted to just the leads so if you have something you want to show, please speak to your lead.

Individual questions

Some of you have asked individual questions. I'm getting through them and will continue to do so over the next few days.

Vicky Lord

General Manager

Source: "She also mentions increases in pay above cost of living (implying Team Bondi was generous), but these were the typical increases you'd expect to see for employees as they become more experienced - many of the staff were hired straight from college/uni, so there are obviously going to be sizeable increases in salary for the first few years. If anything, Team Bondi's starting salaries for new employees decreased over the years. When I started, a new designer (with the title 'Junior Game Designer') was on $45k. They then invented an entirely new position underneath the existing Junior Game Designers, called 'Junior Level Designer'. It was basically the same role, but an excuse to pay the new hires less, and to give the existing designers a feeling of seniority without necessarily promoting them or paying more. It also meant that when the Junior Level Designers were promoted, they'd only become Junior Game Designers. They were exactly the same roles though."

Source: "Junior Grad Artists and Junior Level Designers were on $32k-35k, including super. These guys were working at least 70 hours a week, which is about $9 an hour.  I often see comments on these articles saying that 'it's a labour of love' or that others would kill for the job, but with everything else going on at Team Bondi it's a whole other problem. With Sydney's cost of living, it's not easy to live off that either."

Weekend overtime

McNamara in the original IGN story: "There was a bonus scheme for working evenings, and people got a month off for that," he said. "And people who worked weekends got paid for it. We brought in a weekend working scheme for that. But contractually, we don't have to do that. Part of the thing is that we pay over the odds, and it says in their contract that if they need to do extra time. I've done 20 years of not getting paid for doing that kind of stuff. I don't begrudge it. I get the opportunity to make these things."

Source: "This quote is definitely misleading. There was no company policy about a bonus scheme for working evenings. Our original contracts stipulated that our hours were 9-6 Monday to Thursday, then 9-4 on Friday. The typical employee worked longer hours than that, especially during crunch periods, but eventually there was too much anger about enforced weekend working so the weekend working scheme was introduced.

"There was no overtime for people working late on Monday to Friday, it was only the weekends, so that contradicts what Brendan said. This isn't a small amount of work either - there were still plenty of people around at 9 PM every single day. The Team Bondi leads would even schedule review meetings to begin at 7 PM during the week, the meetings would often take more than an hour, so it's not like this work was optional. Our contracts were also revised so that the hours were 9 AM - 7 PM mandatory every week day, an increase of seven hours a week with no increase to our salary. I should point out that after the game was released and was successful, management picked several people (about 30 I think) who they felt had worked particularly hard over the project and gave them some bonus time off, so I think that's what Brendan is referring to when he says 'bonus scheme for working evenings'. Personally I sunk in a huge amount of extra hours during the week that weren't compensated - I am okay with that, just want to call Brendan on his bull****."

Source: "The other point that was a huge point of contention was a line in the additional working hours scheme: "Should your employment end, prior to 3 months after the end of the project, it will be at the Company's discretion whether payment will be made."

"This meant that many people felt obligated to continue working under the poor conditions because they feared that the company would not pay up the overtime they had accrued. "Company's discretion" is incredibly vague, so nobody wanted to publicly speak out about the working conditions in case there was retribution from management. Then there was the issue of when the overtime was due to be paid - we (rightly) assumed that people would be made redundant at the end of the project, so would these people still be paid their overtime since they wouldn't be with Team Bondi three months after the end of the project? Also, since the overtime was only to be paid out at the end of the project, it meant that if the game failed and Team Bondi went bankrupt, then nobody would have received overtime payment. Team Bondi being shut down was always a very real possibility for us, it was only thanks to Rockstar's bankrolling that they continued to survive. I mention these points to enforce that it was always very unclear whether this overtime would be paid."

Pay freezes

Source: "We were supposed to have yearly salary reviews. These were fairly standard - cost of living increases plus an additional amount to account for our increased value as we gained experience. These occurred in January every year - so January 2008, January 2009, then in January 2010. Well, we were supposed to be finished with the game on January 26 [2010]. It was clear in December that we would miss this date, but management kept insisting that it was happening... when even that was impossible to maintain, they said nothing. As January progressed, we were all in a state of limbo; officially, nothing had been said about this impossible release date, and when asked about salary reviews, management responded that they weren't sure what was up with that since the game was going to be finished so soon."

"January became February, more assurances that the pay review discussion would happen 'soon'. In March, management finally revealed that there would be no salary increases because the studio was under so much pressure - they couldn't afford it. So all those employees who were crunching every single weekend weren't even given a cost of living increase despite the insane hours they were working."

'Rockstar Spouse' report leaks

Source: "I still remember when the Rockstar Spouse letter came out. We all read it thinking that it sounded so similar to what we'd been through. Rockstar San Diego were a bit further along with Red Dead [Redemption] at that stage, so they had suffered more than us, but we felt like it might bring about change at Team Bondi. I overheard some of our leads talking about the article on the morning it was released, and rather than showing concern, they mocked it."

Shortage of animators

Source: "We barely had any animators for such a long time, it was crazy. People have mentioned how the open world in L.A. Noire is wasted because the world is so boring. The reason was because no animators wanted to work at Team Bondi. There was no Lead Animator from January 2008 until the end of the game, and for large parts of production we only had one animator working on gameplay animations (any others were doing cinematic animations). This meant that there was no way to add life to the world. It's a perfect example of why staff retention is important, was ignored by the leads at Team Bondi, and the game suffered for it."

Finally, as an addendum to the original story, I'd like to share some of the motivations mentioned by the Bondi Eleven.

Whistleblowing motivations

What prompted the Bondi Eleven to share their experiences of working on L.A. Noire under Team Bondi? I received a range of responses to this question. Though vengeance and spitefulness toward their former employer undoubtedly impacted their decisions somewhat, more prominent was the desire to warn others from making the same mistakes.

One of our artist sources – who no longer works in the games industry, and has no intention of returning to it – was motivated to contribute because of the poor attitude he received from Team Bondi towards their artists. "Once 'it's fine because everyone is doing it' starts to become a little more unfashionable, things may change. I might not want to be involved in [game development] anymore, but for the sake of my peers, I'd like to see change. It wasn't that they were working this way accidentally. It was a choice they made; this is their business model, to purposely have low-wage, unexperienced artists that you can pretty much work to death. They'll leave, and you'll replace them. They didn't have much interest in retaining the talent, which is one of the hugest mistakes you can make. A studio is nothing more than a collection of computers in a room. It's the talent that makes the difference."

Another artist replied that "if people will learn from the experiences of others, then collectively, we become powerful. If people read your articles and still want to be part of this industry, then they go in informed and ready. Not like many of my ex-colleagues, who were exploited. I want to contribute to this to make a change; a change that is sorely overdue."

Most of those who contributed to this article expressed the hope that L.A. Noire will perform well in the marketplace, if only for the sake of the Australian game development industry. However, the Bondi Eleven realise that if the game is well-received, the studio's management will claim the lion's share of the glory. One source commented that "unfortunately, it's a two-edged sword; the more successful L.A. Noire is, the more likely that Brendan McNamara and his upper management goon squad will get to work on another project, and the evil cycle will start again. I hope that by speaking out against his treatment of staff that conditions will change in the future – but I'm not so naïve. I hope to at least warn other developers and graduating students to stay away from the studio."

"I can't stand the thought of 'Brendan succeeding'," said another source. "I know that if [the game] turns out good, it will be due to 'Brendan's brilliance'; if it fails, he's going to blame it on the incompetence of others." A gameplay programmer said that, "in all likelihood, L.A. Noire will come out and do at least reasonably well in the market. What that's going to do, is validate in the minds of Brendan and the upper management – and maybe even the people at Rockstar – that their practices are successful, and that they lead to good results. But the truth is that the same results can definitely be achieved more efficiently, without causing so much pain and frustration. Of course, the industry will then benefit from the decreased attrition. Don't get me wrong, I'm not at all naïve enough to think that the guys at Team Bondi are going to learn. They won't at all. But I think it's important that the other side of the story is heard."

"This is one of those things where it's about the truth," replied a former artist. "Team Bondi has the chance to be a great addition to the gaming industry, but I think they're tarnishing it just by taking by so long to finish the game. It's an embarrassment. And also the way they're operating in terms of management. It's unacceptable. They take advantage of the talent and skill of all the people working in the industry. They're getting blood out of a stone, and it seems like it could encourage other studios to treat staff like that. I think that's the wrong way to go about it. You can get a lot more out of your staff by having them more on board, and treating them with respect."

"You earn their loyalty," he insists, "rather than chaining them to their desks."