Disgruntled MindsEye Developers Write Open Letter to Management

The release of MindsEye this summer turned into a full-blown disaster for Build a Rocket Boy and its head, Leslie Benzies — former president of Rockstar North and producer of Grand Theft Auto. The project once dubbed a GTA killer ended up being self-destructive. Both players and the press received it poorly, and even the game’s lead actor didn’t hide his disappointment. And the troubles didn’t stop there.

Exactly four months after the game’s release, on October 10, ninety-three current and former BARB employees, supported by the games division of the Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) union, signed an open letter addressed to company leadership. In it, nearly a hundred people accuse management of the following:

• lack of transparency and communication;
• unbearable levels of overtime (mandatory 8-hour weekly overtime introduced four months before launch);
• disastrous handling of redundancies.

The signatories call on management to change its attitude toward employees, provide fair compensation to those laid off, and take other corrective actions. The letter ends with a pointed question: Mark Gerhard and Leslie Benzies often refer to their employees as “family”, but is this really how they treat their own?

For the public, this revelation came as a shock — but considering how things used to run at Rockstar Games, it’s hardly surprising. It seems Benzies’ departure really was a step toward cleansing.