To say that MindsEye developer Build a Rocket Boy has been facing trouble since the game’s release would be an understatement. A new report by GamesIndustry.biz features quotes from former employees of the studio, many of whom place the blame for the title’s poor reception purely on the Build a Rocket Boy leadership. Among the problems with the development of MindsEye, they noted, were a reported lack of trust between the leadership and the workers, scope and feature creep, and generally poor leadership.
Speaking about the lay-offs affecting the studio, one former employee noted that leadership didn’t offer any real explanation for it. Rather, they pointed their fingers towards “saboteurs inside and outside the company trying to take us down.” This employee also noted that co-CEO Leslie Benzies refused to take any responsibility for the problems faced by Build a Rocket Boy.
“I’d hoped for more of an explanation about the layoffs and our company situation,” said the former employee. “But instead, we’d been told there were saboteurs inside and outside the company trying to take us down. Leslie didn’t seem to take any blame for the game’s launch. It was genuinely offensive that he didn’t trust his own employees. The idea that we’d sabotage a game we’d spent countless hours working on was just rude to me.”
Former lead data analyst at the studio, Ben Newbon, commented on the feature creep that afflicted MindsEye during its development. He noted that the game could have turned out well if there was a focus on polish and “tightening everything up”. However, Benzies would get fascinated by a new idea, which he would then insist be implemented into MindsEye.
“If management had concentrated on tightening everything up at that point, then it could have worked,” said Newbon. “But instead, they kept on trying to throw extra stuff on it. Leslie’s eye would be caught by something in particular and then insist this extra feature be added in, even like a month before launch. There wasn’t enough time to test those things and to get all the pieces in place to actually make it work without it breaking.”
Many staff members have also spoken about how much the development of MindsEye suffered due to the studio’s need to appease Benzies. “They crushed their own talent under the yoke of appeasing a single person at the very top,” they said. Another noted that: “[Benzies] may have had a winning formula if he’d have listened to the advice from the literal hundreds of fantastic, insanely talented, and hard-working industry professionals they spent so much time and money hiring.”
A spokesperson for Build a Rocket Boy has also confirmed that Benzies is currently on “a well-earned temporary leave to recharge after more than a year of working around the clock.”
This is far from the first time former employees of Build a Rocket Boy have spoken about the leadership’s failure during the development of MindsEye. Back in October, Newbon had noted that there were plenty of points during development where feedback was ignored by the leadership.
In the meantime, the studio has also become the subject of legal trouble at the hands of Britain’s IWGB Game Workers trade union. In a letter condemning the Build a Rocket Boy leadership, the union has also confirmed that it is looking into legal recourse for its former employees.
