More than 90 employees who worked on this year’s hit MindsEye have sent a searing open letter to the company’s board calling for change after “one of the worst video game launches this decade.”
The letter states that between 250 and 300 employees have now lost their jobs due to the MindsEye failure, which is blamed on the decisions of company bosses. There is also forceful criticism of the way the layoffs were carried out, suggesting that disinformation may have led to the “unlawful dismissal of several dozen employees.”
Today’s letter, published by the British game development workers’ union IWGB, calls on developer MindsEye Build a Rocket Boy, and in particular its founder Leslie Benzies and co-CEO Mark Gerhard, to apologize for the “mistreatment” of staff and provide “appropriate remuneration to dismissed employees” as well as make improvements to redundancy processes ahead of what sounds like expected “future redundancies”.
Examples of the problems faced by management failures include “radical changes” to working practices without explanation, “confusion and anxiety for all staff” after layoffs began – including various errors in the layoff process, and four months of mandatory overtime before the launch of MindsEye, for which workers say they have still not been fully paid.
“These and many other problems,” the letter continues, “have caused pain and stress for your employees. Our experience at the company is one of burnout, job uncertainty, health problems and failure at a game that many of us have put years of our lives into.”
In an email to IGN, IWGB provided further quotes from former employees supporting the claims made in the letter. One former MindsEye developer said that Build A Rocket Boy’s “public statements of diligence do not reflect actual working conditions” at the company. Another detailed observation of “mental and even physical illnesses beyond simple burnout” among co-workers due to months of overtime.
“Studio management chose not to take responsibility for the game’s failure and instead blamed saboteurs as if it could have been caused by individual employees or internet influencers,” one former employee said, referring to Gerhard’s bizarre pre-launch comments in which the game’s penniless reception was blamed on anonymous malevolent forces – a stance from which MindsEye’s publisher, IO Interactive, he later distanced himself. “The arrogance of management in believing it could act with impunity throughout the development period, and the subsequent layoffs, forced me and many former and permanent employees to take a stand.”
Originally planned as a single-player component for Everywhere, a seemingly now-abandoned metaverse-style platform, MindsEye ultimately met with negative reaction and penniless sales. Build a Rocket Boy has since stated that it wants to continue working on the game and give it a relaunch of sorts, though it recently cautioned that this would take longer than planned.
Today’s letter concludes with demands for a public apology and appropriate remuneration, the opportunity for remaining employees still at risk of redundancy to accept holiday pay, a commitment to apply an external partner for future redundancies to prevent unfair treatment, and “concerted, significant and documented efforts to improve conditions and processes within the company.”
“The treatment of Build A Rocket Boy employees over the last 12 months has been shocking,” Spring McparlinJones, president of the IWGB Game Workers, said in a statement to IGN. “They were routinely humiliated, deceived and manipulated by the company to which they had dedicated years of their lives. Yet they were able to trust each other and work together to fight for fair treatment.”
Image source: IWGB
Tom Phillips is IGN’s news editor. You can contact Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
