MindsEye, a single-player narrative action game, was released a few months ago to an onslaught of negative reviews. Since then, both current and former employees of MindsEye’s developer, Build a Rocket Boy (BARB), have come out with a letter aimed at the company. Within the letter, the employees demand compensation for the alleged consistent and widespread mistreatment of their employees.
MindsEye was released on June 10th to mass negative reviews. While most players enjoyed the game’s narrative, many cited the abundance of audio glitches, poor “depth of field,” and lackluster graphics as producing a borderline “unplayable” game. The reception to MindsEye was so poor, in fact, that Sony offered all players who bought the game full refunds to make up for the game’s terrible quality upon release.
After the failed launch of MindsEye, several individuals who were, or are, employed at BARB have reached out to the Game Workers branch of the Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) union. The employees and the union have worked together to publish a letter addressed to BARB, with the intention of discussing the alleged “disrespect and mistreatment of your staff.”
The letter first mentions the series of layoffs BARB has conducted before and after MindsEye’s launch, saying “we estimate a UK-majority of 250-300 workers across the company have now lost their livelihoods.” The letter goes on to say that the failed launch of MindsEye is the result of BARB management refusing to listen to their qualified and experienced employees.
According to the letter, several issues with BARB’s management resulted in alleged work-related and personal harm befalling their employees. Such alleged issues include a lack of communication, with “information [being] sparse and vague, with you often making radical changes to the way we worked with little or no input from those affected.” In a similar vein, the letter also mentions the alleged mishandling of the redundancy process. Such mishandling included misinformation regarding dismissal notices and performance evaluations being conducted incorrectly. BARB’s workplace standards also put unnecessary strain on the employees through excessive yet mandatory overtime, resulting in various physical and mental health problems.
The letter then lists four demands from BARB to compensate for the alleged aforementioned harm. Demands include a public apology for the poor workplace conditions, proper compensation for laid-off employees, the option for “remaining employees on redundancy notice to either work their notice period or take Payment in Lieu of Notice (PILON),” a documented effort to improve company operations, the recognition of IWGB as a trade union, and confirmation that third parties will be consulted to prevent future unfair treatment. The final part of the letter is addressed to BARB CEOs Mark Gerard and Leslie Benzies. The letter is supported by 93 current and former BARB employees and IWGB workers.
At the time of publishing, BARB has not publicly responded to the letter and it remains unclear whether or not the company will accept the demands listed within it.