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.
Staff now face an anxious wait to find out whether they will be affected. Meanwhile, there are serious questions over whether Build A Rocket Boy will be able to fulfill its post-launch roadmap for content, including the promised multiplayer mode, on time.
Last week, Build A Rocket Boy said it was “heartbroken” over the issues players had faced with the recently released game, and promised to issue a series of patches to fix the significant performance problems, glitches, and AI behavior issues. Rollout of these patches has begun.
All the while, MindsEye’s troubled launch saw the developer cancel sponsored streams, and reports of players securing refunds, even from the normally stubborn Sony.
On Steam, which does not paint the whole picture of MindsEye’s current popularity, the game hit a peak concurrent player count of 3,302 on launch, but had a 24-hour peak of just 130 players. At the time of this article’s publication, 52 people were playing on Steam, with a mostly negative’ user review rating.
MindsEye was initially a part of Everywhere, the ‘Roblox for adults’ game creation platform led by former Grand Theft Auto design chief Leslie Benzies. Build A Rocket Boy, based in Edinburgh, Scotland, eventually switched to focus on MindsEye, its story-driven action adventure game, but it has so-far failed to do the business for the company.
In an email to staff reviewed by IGN, co-CEO Mark Gerhard insisted the studio remained committed to MindsEye, but pointed to a shift from an intense development and launch phase to a sustainable post-launch support phase.
Gerhard had hit the headlines ahead of MindsEye’s launch for claiming there was a “concerted effort” by some to “trash the game and the studio,” suggesting people were being paid or using spam bots to post negative comments. The boss of publisher IO Interactive, which makes the Hitman games, subsequently issued a denial.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
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