MindsEye Developer Build a Rocket Boy Begins Layoff Process Amid Disastrous Launch, Studio Sources Say

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Build A Rocket Boy has told staff a redundancy process has begun amid the disastrous launch of MindsEye. The cuts could affect over 100 employees, studio sources have told IGN.

One person, who asked to remain anonymous in order to protect their career, told IGN there's no word yet on exactly how many staff are affected, but the standard 45-day consultation process starts today, June 23, which according to UK law is triggered when an employer proposes 100 or more redundancies within a 90-day period. IGN understands Build A Rocket Boy currently has around 300 UK employees, with around 200 abroad.

IGN has asked Build A Rocket Boy for comment.
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More info at the link:

www.ign.com

MindsEye Developer Build a Rocket Boy Begins Layoff Process Amid Disastrous Launch, Studio Sources Say - IGN

Build A Rocket Boy has told staff a redundancy process has begun amid the disastrous launch of MindsEye. The cuts could affect over 100 employees, studio sources have told IGN.
www.ign.com www.ign.com
 
rocket fail GIF

The rocket

Edit: on a serious note, this is going to be an amazing case study in to how to royally fuck up your good name. Leslie put his name to this and that was the "unique selling point" that someone from Rockstar was going to take them on and take a bit of the pie. Turns out it's not quite that simple even with a ludicrous amount of money. Was there some dodgy accounting going on here? the whole thing stinks and the truth will come out eventually.
 
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Does Everywhere even have a release date? And didn't they have plans for something else, a third game too? Might all collapse if money flow is shut down and were depending on sales of their first game?
A lot of studios formed or were expanded during or around covid and also the acquisition mania, AAA as the immediate goal, not even nailing one small game before going all in, but so far the last couple years did not really result in many success stories. Hundreds of new developers here and there but so many working on crap, maybe because they collectively are just crap developers or just had crap game directors. It kinda feels like Respawn were the last ones were some veterans formed a new big studio and it did not implode soon after.
 
NGL I kind of miss high profile disasters like this, we don't get them too much anymore.

They made a dogshit sci-fi GTA and released it 3 years early after blowing $300 million, LOL
 
Kenneth Haight said:
rocket fail GIF

The rocket

Edit: on a serious note, this is going to be an amazing case study in to how to royally fuck up your good name. Leslie put his name to this and that was the "unique selling point" that someone from Rockstar was going to take them on and take a bit of the pie. Turns out it's not quite that simple even with a ludicrous amount of money. Was there some dodgy accounting going on here? the whole thing stinks and the truth will come out eventually.
Click to expand...
My and most people guess is that the investor money dried up since it was planned to be part of that metaverse game called Everywhere, once that fad ended they had to finish it with whatever they had made by that point.

And yeah, this is pretty much Daikatana of the 21st century, and Rockstar managed to ship RDR 2 three years after he was fired to critical acclaim.
 
I think most people was expecting this would happen. Including the devs.
But there should be a through investigation, to ascertain how this project was mismanaged so badly, find the culprits and have legal consequences.
A lot of people are going to lose their jobs, over this disaster. Investors will lose their money.
 
From what I saw from videos at DF, this is way too much predictable. Also you can clearly note the devs intentions with character models.
The game is a mess presenting itself as a quality one. If you can not make a game of superior quality, then don't try posing and selling it as one.
 
falconhoof said:
Concord, Anthem, Suicide Squad, Skull and Bones, Starfield (though that made money), BF2042, Marathon (possibly).

Feels like there's plenty. Too much. Wasted money, time, and jobs.
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At least all the other games were functional, even decent in some way (while also disappointing in many others). I dare say that even Concord was actually "solid" and playable. It didn't resonate with people for many reasons not worth going through here, but there wasn't anything particularly wrong with its visuals/performance/netcode/playability etc. MindsEye on the other side feels like a proof of concept tech demo that was released as is. Where did all the money and years of development go?
 
Sad and smells like a case of a man who, very much like Chris Robert's was a product a simpler era of game dev, where auteur vision-making was enough to guarantee a hit, and where the successes over the decades of growth of the core companies they founded went too far to their heads, such that they failed to disassociate the multidisciplinary talent required to effectively structure and execute in very large teams to bring them together a modern AAA success, from what they perceived to be their own contributions to these franchises.

Chris on the other hand seems to have grown, but not before burning through half a billion dollars of consumer funding with his Ponzi scheme.

Leslie on the other hand, seems to have instead opted to pull similar scale of funding from private investors and presumed through his hubris that he carried enough talent to build a new and successful studio from the ground up, without much respect or understanding of what he actually left at R* that largely contributed to their shared successes.

There's a reason he was pushed out of the company he founded.

There's a reason this project was an utter disaster.

There's a reason Glassdoor is filled with the cries and lamentations of broken, hollowed out game devs who lived through the traumas and horrors of BARB and pinpointed much of the failings on the senior management.

"Pride cometh before a fall…"

If Leslie had entertained more humility during his R* days, perhaps he'd have opened him mind to learn about how his wider team and peers were pivotal (as much as if not moreso than he was) to building a world class studio that turns in world class IP, and perhaps he could have applied what he learned at BARB and this project would be in a very different position.

Or further to that, if he'd have maintained more humility then perhaps he would have never been pushed out and would still be there…

<shrug>
 
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