'Cheated and manipulated' MindsEye devs eviscerate studio bosses who blamed botched launch on 'sabot

Current and former devs at Build A Rocket Boy (BARB)—the studio founded by former GTA producer Leslie Benzies and responsible for the disastrous MindsEye, released earlier this year—have published a scathing open letter to its leadership.

Via the Game Workers' Branch of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), 93 staff and ex-staff allege "systemic mistreatment, mismanagement, and mishandling of rummy golds the redundancy process" by studio bosses Mark Gerhard and Leslie Benzies.

Third-person action game MindsEye was BARB's first release, and its reception was so disastrous that the actor for rummy mars its protagonist thought he might never work in games again. Its failure was followed by layoffs at the studio, which the IWGB now says hit over 250 devs at the (formerly) 500-dev studio.

BARB's handling of that process is a key point of contention here. At the same time as publishing the open letter, the IWGB announced that it is filing legal charges against BARB for mishandled redundancies.

"Employees have received misinformation, been handed dismissal notices with the wrong notice periods, and been put in the wrong teams so that their performances were scored by the wrong people", reads the letter. "These and other errors have potentially resulted in the wrongful dismissal of dozens of staff members."

In addition to bungled redundancies, BARB-ers former and current allege a spate of mistreatment by studio heads. "In the four months leading up to the launch of MindsEye, [BARB execs] implemented a mandatory eight hours of overtime per week for every single employee."

In theory, this overtime was meant to be compensated to the tune of seven hours of Time Off In Lieu (TOIL) for every eight hours worked. "Many have still not been able to take this time off due to [leadership's] continued requests for extra 'high-priority' work, even after launch."

Staff also say the studio's internal communications are a shambles, and that "radical changes to the way we worked" are often made "with little or no input from those affected."

Indeed, the letter's signatories suggest that MindsEye's awful release is the culmination of this sort of mismanagement, and not—as was suggested by Benzies himself—the result of "internal and external saboteurs."

"Even before the disastrous launch of MindsEye," reads a statement from MindsEye lead analyst (now laid-off) Ben Newbon, "staff had suffered months of crunch, resulting in some horrific mental and even physical illnesses, beyond the typical widespread burnout. Studio leadership have chosen not to take responsibility for the game's failure and instead blamed saboteurs, as if individual employees or online influencers could have caused this."

In addition to the just-filed legal action, the open letter to BARB leadership demands:

1. A public apology for this mistreatment of employees and proper compensation for laid-off employees;
2. The option for remaining employees on redundancy notice to either work their notice period or take Payment in Lieu of Notice (PILON);
3. A concerted, meaningful, and documented effort to improve conditions and processes within the company, including the acknowledgement of the IWGB as a trade union;
4. A commitment to use official external partners to action any future redundancies and prevent unfair treatment.

"[BARB devs] have been routinely belittled, cheated, and manipulated by the company they dedicated years of their lives to," wrote IWGB chair Spring McparlinJones. "Through the union, these workers have been able to force the executives at BARB to respect their rights. Let this serve as a notice to other executives like Mark and Leslie: the games industry is not the Wild West anymore. You don’t get to pretend that employment laws don't apply to your company because if you do, then the union will be there to stop you."

In a statement provided to Kotaku, a Build a Rocket Boy spokesperson said that "every one of our former team members poured passion, creativity, and hard work into our games and our studio."

"Parting ways with people is never easy, and we were deeply saddened to make that decision. We didn’t anticipate having to make redundancies after launch, but we approached the process with care and transparency, meeting all our obligations. We’re listening closely to feedback from former employees and are committed to learning and growing from it."