Team Bondi staff amongst creditors owed more than $1.4m

The creative staff behind hit game L.A. Noire make up the majority of creditors waiting for some form of repayment after the company went into liquidation last month, GamesIndustry.biz can reveal.

More than AUD $1.4 million is owed to over 40 creditors according to legal documents filed by administrators deVries Tayeh - a company that is charging $55,000 in fees for winding up the business.

Individuals working in programming, design, production and gameplay - as well as an intern - are owed between $1600 and $99,000. Studio boss Brendan McNamara is also owed more than $102,000, records show.

With the company being liquidated it's increasingly unlikely that staff will be repaid any significant percentage of the outstanding amount.

While most of the debt outstanding is to personal creditors only a handful of businesses are listed, including motion capture firm Depth Analysis, also co-founded by McNamara. Depth Analysis continues as a going concern, although co-director Vicky Lord, who also acted as office manager at Team Bondi, has had her position terminated.

Although Team Bondi's LA Noire is one of the biggest commercial and critical successes of the year, following release it became embroiled in controversy.

While the game took over seven years to create, staff turnover was incredibly high, with the company and McNamara accused of overworking staff in a perpetual state of crunch.

Emails released and documented on GamesIndustry.biz also highlighted the souring of Team Bondi's relationship with publisher Rockstar, which eventually took equal credit in the development of the ambitious game and is now thought to own the IP.

As the studio collapsed in on itself, a number of staff left to join production house Kennedy Miller Mitchell and subsidiary Dr. D Studios, currently working on animated movie Happy Feet 2. It's rumoured KMM has also already bought a number of Team Bondi assets.