Foundation (2003–2004) Team Bondi was founded by Brendan McNamara in mid-2003. McNamara was previously employed at
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's
Team Soho studio, located in
London's
Soho area, where he directed
The Getaway (2002), but decided to move to his home country, Australia, to found his own studio. The opening of Team Bondi was announced in January 2004. At that point, McNamara had hired many former Team Soho staff, of which especially
The Getaway developers, and had arranged an exclusive publishing deal with
Sony Computer Entertainment Australia for a game on "third generation PlayStation" hardware.
Controversies (2011) In early June 2011, former Team Bondi staff launched
L.A. Noire Credits, a website dedicated to displaying over 130 credits of
L.A. Noire developers that had been listed incorrectly or were left out completely in the game and its manual. Most of these were employees who left the studio or were laid off during the game's development. The same month, following initial statements made to the
Sydney Morning Herald,
Andrew McMillen published an article on
IGN's Australian outfit, titled
Why Did L.A. Noire Take Seven Years to Make?, in which he quoted eleven anonymous former Team Bondi personnel on the studio's
managerial style, the staff's turnover rates and the working hours and conditions associated with the game's development. Additionally, McMillen interviewed McNamara, seeking his point of view on the statements made by the anonymous sources. As a result of the IGN Australia article, the
International Game Developers Association (IGDA) announced that they were launching an investigation against Team Bondi and verify the claims made in the article. IGDA
chairman Brian Robbins explained that "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". In July 2011, an anonymous former Team Bondi employee leaked a series of confidential emails to
GamesIndustry.biz, alongside their own comments in regards to them. Furthermore, the source stated that the relationship between Rockstar Games and Team Bondi had been badly damaged, and that they were confident that Rockstar Games would disdain from the publisher and refuse to publish any of their future games.
Closure (2011) In early August 2011, it was reported that Team Bondi was seeking a buyer, with McNamara being seen around the offices of Australian film studio
Kennedy Miller Mitchell, believed to negotiate acquisition deals. On 9 August 2011, Kennedy Miller Mitchell announced that they had acquired all of Team Bondi's assets as well as the
intellectual property to the game McNamara was presently writing the script for. All employees, 35 at the time, were given the opportunity to move to Kennedy Miller Mitchell for future employment. Team Bondi was placed into
administration on 31 August 2011. At the request of Team Bondi's creditors, the company entered
liquidation on 5 October 2011. The liquidator, deVries Tayeh, handled the sale of Team Bondi's remaining assets and payment of outstanding debts. Team Bondi owed over 40 creditors as much as , with unpaid wages or bonuses accounting for over 75% of those debts. 33 staff credited for their work on
L.A. Noire were owed a combined in unpaid wages or bonuses. Among those, McNamara claimed to be owed ,
general manager Vicky Lord and lead gameplay programmer David Heironymus . Depth Analysis was also reported to be owed .
Successors and Whore of the Orient (2011–2014) Following Team Bondi's liquidation, Kennedy Miller Mitchell merged the staff previously acquired from Team Bondi into their KMM Interactive Entertainment subsidiary. KMM Interactive Entertainment, based in Sydney, was established by
Cory Barlog to aid getting Kennedy Miller Mitchell into the
video game industry. That subsidiary's first project was to be a
tie-in game with the film studio's upcoming film
Happy Feet Two. Many of the developers moved from Team Bondi immediately started working on the
Happy Feet Two movie. which he previously described as "one of the great untold stories of the twentieth century", was announced to be
Whore of the Orient on 28 November 2011. Developed at KMM Interactive Entertainment, McNamara was again appointed as creative director for the game. Kennedy Miller Mitchell executive
George Miller stated that he was passionate about the project because it was "four-dimensional storytelling" and that "a game can literally become the equivalent of a novel. [...] It's a movie that's played interactively at home." The studio planned to go ahead with developing two new games with the support of
government funding.
Whore of the Orient was set to be a
spiritual successor to
L.A. Noire. The game was targeted to be released on
Microsoft Windows,
PlayStation 4 and
Xbox One, and set to release in 2015. The title of the game referred to one of the synonyms, alongside "
Paris of the East", given to
Shanghai, where the game would have been set.
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment was named to have signed a publishing deal for
Whore of the Orient. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment pulled out of the publishing deal again in December 2012. As a result of this, and due to general investment issues, KMM Interactive Entertainment was shut down in April 2013, and all staff was let go. Although not made official, it was widely believed that
Whore of the Orient was effectively cancelled with the studio closure. Regardless, the game received a investment from Australian government agency
Screen NSW in June 2013. Some journalists noted that the move felt rather illogical, as the development had previously been rather slow, and now that the game's studio had closed, the investment would not be of use for the agency. Furthermore,
Whore of the Orient attracted controversy in September 2013, when
City of Monash councillor Jieh-Yung Lo stated that he was offended by the game's title, it being a "disgrace to
Chinese culture", daring to report the game to the
Human Rights Commission. Lo further underlined "It's the use of the word 'Orient', more even than the word 'whore', that is the issue. [...] The O-word is very similar to the N-word for African-American communities."
Whore of the Orient was not heard of from that point on; when asked about the game's status in a June 2014
podcast hosted on Gamehugs, producer Derek Proud stated "I don't think so", implying that the game had been cancelled. Meanwhile, on 28 May 2013,
Whore of the Orient lead designer Alex Carlyle and
storyboard artist Kelly Baigent announced that they had founded Intuitive Game Studios as a successor to both Team Bondi and KMM Interactive Entertainment. Carlyle explained that he wanted to stay in Australia to work in the domestic video game industry, unlike some of his colleagues, who moved abroad, such as to
Canada, to further pursue such ventures. Furthermore, Carlyle's personal website implied that the two-man studio would be working on an original intellectual property named
Canonical Five. Like
Whore of the Orient,
Canonical Five received funding from Screen NSW, amounting to . McNamara founded Sydney-based studio Video Games Deluxe in 2013, whose first release was
L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files in 2017. In 2020, the studio announced they were working on a "AAA open-world VR game" for Rockstar Games. In October 2021, the project was revealed to be a VR version of
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Following the release of the
Meta Quest 3 in October 2023, players questioned the status of the VR version and some suspected it may have been quietly cancelled. Meta said the port was "on hold indefinitely" in August 2024. Meanwhile, Video Games Deluxe developed the mobile versions of
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition in 2023, and took over post-release development for the other platforms from Grove Street Games in 2024. In March 2025, Video Games Deluxe was acquired by Rockstar Games, who rebranded the studio as
Rockstar Australia. == Games developed ==