Mr Viral
Image via Build A Rocket Boy.
A new report from BBC Newsbeat has shed light on the development of Mindseye, the debut game from Build A Rocket Boy, the studio founded by former Grand Theft Auto lead developer Leslie Benzies. According to a number of former employees, Benzies and other senior employees doomed the game’s development through a combination of “knee-jerk” decisions and a refusal to listen to employee concerns.
This narrative differs from Benzies’ own reported explanation for the game’s commercial failure (it peaked at 3,000 players on its week of launch, a low number for a game from such a large company). In a virtual town hall reviewed by the BBC, Benzies told employees in an all-hands call that “internal and external forces” and a number of “saboteurs” conspired to undermine Build A Rocket Boy from the inside out.
“I find it disgusting that anyone could sit amongst us, behave like this and continue to work here,” he reportedly told workers. But former employees told the BBC that Benzies was his own inner saboteur. The CEO apparently ordered radical changes in development on both Mindseye and user generated content (UGC) platform Everywhere. One such major change was the decision to launch Mindseye as a standalone game and not an in-app “experience,” as the studio teased in its public reveal at Gamescom 2022.
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Former staffers like associate producer Margherita “Marg” Peloso and lead data analyst Ben Newbon said Benzies micromanaged development through what became known as “Leslie tickets.” Benzies would reportedly demand changes following lengthy playtests of Mindseye. These might be as minor as cosmetic issues or as large as removing entire missions from the game. Newbon and other staffers told the BBC this process can be seen in a promotional video released four days before game’s debut.
Newbon and Peloso also described being laughed at or outright ignored when they raised major problems with other members of leadership. This all allegedly occurred in a roughly four-month sprint of crunch where developers reported suffering physical and mental ailments due to the stress, as well as “regressions,” where one team would successfully fix a bug only for another team to accidentally revive it.Â
For more insights from former Build A Rocket Boy employees, be sure to read their full accounts on BBC Newswire.
Game Developer has reached out to Build A Rocket Boy and will update this story when the company responds.
About the Author
Senior Editor, GameDeveloper.com
Bryant Francis is a writer, journalist, and narrative designer based in Boston, MA. He currently writes for Game Developer, a leading B2B publication for the video game industry. His credits include Proxy Studios’ upcoming 4X strategy game Zephon and Amplitude Studio’s 2017 game Endless Space 2.
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