While MindsEye developer Build a Rocket Boy has seemingly gone through major lay-offs after the poor reception of the action game earlier this year, the company has now come under fire from Britain’s IWGB Game Workers trade union. The union has published an open letter calling out the company for having treated its “longstanding disrespect and mistreatment” of its staff. The open letter also referred to the release of MidnsEye as “one of the worst video game launches this decade,” while noting that 250-300 workers from the companies have lost their jobs.
Among the subjects broached by the union include Build a Rocket Boy’s lack of communications with its employees, long stretches of over-time work, especially in the four months leading up to the release of MindsEye where the company implemented a mandatory 8 hours of overtime per week, as well as the company’s “disastrous handling” of lay-offs. Along with this, the union has also called out Build a Rocket Boy for offering its employees Time Off in Lieu (TOIL) for the forced overtime, but still not allowing the employees to actually take the time off due to “high-priority” post-launch work on MindsEye.
“We stand in solidarity with employees and ex-employees at Build a Rocket Boy as they file legal claims through our union and publish an open letter, condemning the way in which they’ve been mistreated and discarded by the studio’s millionaire executives,” wrote the IWGB Game Workers union in a social media post.
According to the union, Build a Rocket Boy has caused quite a bit of “confusion and distress” for its staff in its handling of lay-offs. In the open letter, the union described the process as involving employees getting misinformation and being given dismissal notices with wrong notice periods, as well as being put in wrong teams to affect their internal performance metrics.
“These and many other issues, some of which have been made public already, have caused pain and stress for your employees,” wrote the union in its open letter. “Our experience at the company has been one of burnout, job insecurity, health issues, and the failure of a game that many of us have put years of our lives into. [Build a Rocket Boy] needs to change. CEOs need to take a backseat and allow the skilled people who remain at the company to forge the path ahead.”
The union is demanding a public apology from the company for its mistreatment of employees, proper compensation to those affected by lay-offs, the option for employees on redundancy notice to either work during their notice period or to take Payment in Lieu of Notice (PILON), a concerted and documented effort to improve working conditions at the studio, and a commitment to use official external partners for future redundancies to prevent unfair treatment.
The open letter was signed by 93 employees and former employees of Build a Rocket Boy, along with the IWGB Game Workers leadership, and specifically calls out company leaders Mark Gerhard and Leslie Benzies for treating the studio’s employees badly.
