indiegames
January 26th, 2010, 06:40
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/9/2010/01/500x_lanoire2.jpg (http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/9/2010/01/lanoire2.jpg)We were this morning pointed towards the Twitter account of a certain "veracious_shit", who says they are a source close to Team Bondi (http://kotaku.com/tag/teambondi/)'s long-in-development LA Noire (http://kotaku.com/5369980/la-noire-is-coming-along-splendidly). And veracious has some interesting things to say.
Cataloguing the long, drawn-out history of one of the most mysterious games of this hardware generation, veracious claims to reveal a number of issues affecting the game, from developer strife to typos to a 2006 trailer that wasn't really a trailer at all (http://kotaku.com/205747/la-noire-full-trailer).
You can catch up on the full litany of claims at the Twitter account in question, but here are the highlights (I've grouped them in places to tell a more coherent tale) to wet your gossipy little whistle. Note that some of this is already known, but we'll run it again to keep the story flowing. And for what it's worth, while we've never heard some of these other claims in such detail, they certainly match - at least in sentiment - with things you hear lingering on the grapevine from time to time.
To McNamara [note: Brendan McNamara, creator of The Getaway and Team Bondi founder], The Getaway was a tainted brand by Sony's doing, and he cannot create a masterpiece with a tainted brand...The pressure led McNamara to eventually sign a deal with Sony for his new development studio, but he wouldn't have to deal with SCEE...McNamara had an idea that would ****ing blow Rockstar out of the water; an interactive 3D noir. Stuff that actually isn't like other stuff...And McNamara would get a chance to create the launch title that completely defined a platform for its entire lifespan.
Work on this launch title began in 2003, and a lengthy three-year development plan would allow the game to be complete by his standards...By the next year, the game was well into development; the team grew into the dozens. Things were seemingly well...Then McNamara saw GTA: San Andreas; it was absolutely epic and went beyond the action basis. The present game plan would no longer suffice.
It became obvious that year that McNamara had little clue what he was doing and was just following his arbitrary whims...He had no clue how to manage a work environment—creating a horrible standard for quality of life with an ineffective human resources team...SCE's development structure changed that year, and McNamara found himself again under the more keen eye of his old SCEE superiors....The new bosses found that Team Bondi had little to show 2+ years of development, except an unplayable game filled with superfluous content...However, the project had already cost Sony USD 20 million+; a cost high enough that they attempted to spend the few months salvaging LAN.
The game was now titled L.A. Noire—the "e" came from a programmers typo of "noir."
After those few months, Sony dropped the game—a situation that threw the studio into disarray...Strangely, McNamara quickly found hospice in his former rivals—the Houser brothers—and L.A. Noire was picked up by Rockstar in spring 2006...Sony and Take-Two came to agreement that the former wouldn't pursue the costs incurred for development in exchange for a franchise exclusive...Obviously, Sony wrote off the costs associated with the development of L.A. Noire.
The 2006 LAN teaser was a target render done by an art outsourcing firm in Sydney...Since then, the game has been revamped, ported, and delayed four times. Rockstar spent more Sony in their efforts to make it not suck...Also, if you want to go to that Rockstar SD Spouse post (http://kotaku.com/5452809/rockstar-responds-to-rockstar-spouse-controversy-saddened-by-accusations) and replace studio names and games, you have a good idea of Team Bondi as of present.
Juicy, no? Of course, we must remember, it's just one person's side of a long, sad story, so don't take it all as gospel. Take it as...a hint that when you think there's "problems" on a game that's been in development since 2003, these are the kind of details that lead to said problems.
We've reached out to both Team Bondi and Rockstar for comment, and will update if we hear back from either.
[veracious_shit @ Twitter (http://twitter.com/veracious_shit)]
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Cataloguing the long, drawn-out history of one of the most mysterious games of this hardware generation, veracious claims to reveal a number of issues affecting the game, from developer strife to typos to a 2006 trailer that wasn't really a trailer at all (http://kotaku.com/205747/la-noire-full-trailer).
You can catch up on the full litany of claims at the Twitter account in question, but here are the highlights (I've grouped them in places to tell a more coherent tale) to wet your gossipy little whistle. Note that some of this is already known, but we'll run it again to keep the story flowing. And for what it's worth, while we've never heard some of these other claims in such detail, they certainly match - at least in sentiment - with things you hear lingering on the grapevine from time to time.
To McNamara [note: Brendan McNamara, creator of The Getaway and Team Bondi founder], The Getaway was a tainted brand by Sony's doing, and he cannot create a masterpiece with a tainted brand...The pressure led McNamara to eventually sign a deal with Sony for his new development studio, but he wouldn't have to deal with SCEE...McNamara had an idea that would ****ing blow Rockstar out of the water; an interactive 3D noir. Stuff that actually isn't like other stuff...And McNamara would get a chance to create the launch title that completely defined a platform for its entire lifespan.
Work on this launch title began in 2003, and a lengthy three-year development plan would allow the game to be complete by his standards...By the next year, the game was well into development; the team grew into the dozens. Things were seemingly well...Then McNamara saw GTA: San Andreas; it was absolutely epic and went beyond the action basis. The present game plan would no longer suffice.
It became obvious that year that McNamara had little clue what he was doing and was just following his arbitrary whims...He had no clue how to manage a work environment—creating a horrible standard for quality of life with an ineffective human resources team...SCE's development structure changed that year, and McNamara found himself again under the more keen eye of his old SCEE superiors....The new bosses found that Team Bondi had little to show 2+ years of development, except an unplayable game filled with superfluous content...However, the project had already cost Sony USD 20 million+; a cost high enough that they attempted to spend the few months salvaging LAN.
The game was now titled L.A. Noire—the "e" came from a programmers typo of "noir."
After those few months, Sony dropped the game—a situation that threw the studio into disarray...Strangely, McNamara quickly found hospice in his former rivals—the Houser brothers—and L.A. Noire was picked up by Rockstar in spring 2006...Sony and Take-Two came to agreement that the former wouldn't pursue the costs incurred for development in exchange for a franchise exclusive...Obviously, Sony wrote off the costs associated with the development of L.A. Noire.
The 2006 LAN teaser was a target render done by an art outsourcing firm in Sydney...Since then, the game has been revamped, ported, and delayed four times. Rockstar spent more Sony in their efforts to make it not suck...Also, if you want to go to that Rockstar SD Spouse post (http://kotaku.com/5452809/rockstar-responds-to-rockstar-spouse-controversy-saddened-by-accusations) and replace studio names and games, you have a good idea of Team Bondi as of present.
Juicy, no? Of course, we must remember, it's just one person's side of a long, sad story, so don't take it all as gospel. Take it as...a hint that when you think there's "problems" on a game that's been in development since 2003, these are the kind of details that lead to said problems.
We've reached out to both Team Bondi and Rockstar for comment, and will update if we hear back from either.
[veracious_shit @ Twitter (http://twitter.com/veracious_shit)]
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