While many have forgotten about MindsEye following its disastrous launch last year, Build A Rocket Boy developers have spent the last few months hard at work, trying to salvage it and betting big on what worked while fixing what didn’t as well as possible.
Problems began last summer when reviews of the game dropped online and its buggy state at launch was heavily criticised online. Shortly afterwards, BARB staff received at-risk mails, which led to layoffs at the company. Now, as reported by IGN and elsewhere, the workforce is being hit once again. This comes following disappointing results from its seventh major update, which was meant to “reset the brand” and heavily polish the experience. At the very least, it managed to bump the game’s recent reviews on Steam to ‘mostly positive’ and get some people to finally check out the game. Sadly, it seems that wasn’t enough to turn things around.
This wouldn’t be much different from the difficulties other studios are facing after major flops, but co-CEO Mark Gerhard’s latest comments on the situation take us right back into the fire. This is the latest post from the official BARB LinkedIn account:
After ex-Rockstar veteran and BARB founder Leslie Benzies alleged in an internal meeting last year that “internal and external” forces tried to disrupt the game’s launch, there’s been recurring talk from Build A Rocket Boy’s executives about espionage, sabotage, and other criminal activities. Through this new piece of official comms, Gerhard is doubling down on claims that “organised espionage and corporate sabotage” happened around MindsEye’s development. He’s also taken the time to underline the matter is “moving toward prosecution,” which is why details can’t be shared at the time of writing.
On 9th February, GamesIndustry.biz reported on Slack messages that revealed workers at the studio had discovered “that management had installed monitoring software called Teramind on their machines.” This, according to the site’s sources, greatly impacted the performance of “essential” game development software. Part of the report (also backed by Insider Gaming) explained Gerhard had told the staff in attendance the expectation was to remove the cybersecurity software “within three months.”
BARB’s next steps, whether legal or related to MindsEye’s development, remain unclear, but the game’s SteamDB page shows a 39-player 24-hour peak, with only 19 players inside the game right now. Its all-time peak was 3,302 players nine months ago. Without solid data on the game’s performance on consoles, it’s hard to make a final assessment of how it’s gone down, but looking at the ongoing drama, we’d say the vibes are rotten.
