Okay Geek Farm
130 members of L.A. Noire's staff up in arms over missing credits
Okay Geek Team
Rockstar was in some controversy last year when the voice of Niko Bellic, Michael Hollick, from Grand Theft Auto IV, was reported to have been paid peanuts in comparison to the bank the 4th installment of the GTA series brought in. Now the hot water is boiling yet again, only this time 130 ex-staff members of Team Bondi, the development studio who created L.A. Noire, are saying they’ve been missed out of being credited from the game entirely.
In the video game industry it’s not uncommon for development staff who left the studio before a game’s release to be excluded from the game’s final credits. This time however, ex-staffers of Team Bondi have created a whole website dedicated to their being axed from the game, despite contributing to main concepts and gameplay features still present in the final product that shipped last month — http://www.lanoirecredits.com/
Some former employees who wished to remain anonymous spent anywhere from 3 to 4 years of their gaming careers working on the 1940’s detective project, all to have their energy and time wasted, and their names erased from gaming significance.
“I felt as though my sanity depended on it,” another employee said. “So, after my wife had been pushing me to quit for more than a year, I did […] There has been a lot of press saying how incredible this is for the Australian gaming industry, since it is the biggest (and most successful) game made in Australia to date,” he added. “But that has come at the price that most of the people that worked on it will never have proof of having worked there (unless they want to pull out a paycheck).”
Even more details on the backstory of this L.A.Noire controversary — Sydney Morning Herold
