Expectations were high for the first game from Build a Rocket Boy (Barb), the studio founded by former Grand Theft Auto producer Leslie Benzies after his departure from Rockstar North in 2016. Benzies was one of the key leadership figures that had overseen GTA's rise from a pioneering open world romp into a global cultural phenomenon, and Barb's first big project was supposed to be Everywhere: a multiplayer RPG in a futuristic open world where, ultimately, players would be able to author their own experiences.
Everywhere was hugely ambitious and backed by the staggering sums that Benzies' reputation could attract: Barb had raised £233 million by 2024, and by the end of that year boasted 448 staff. But it didn't have a game it could release and, with Everywhere's ambitious scope, a decision was made at some point to shift focus to MindsEye, which had begun as an in-game experience that was part of Everywhere.
Earlier this month, between 250 and 300 Barb staff were made redundant, most of whom were based in the Edinburgh studio. The Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) union's Game Workers Branch, which organised the open letter on behalf of Barb staff, has announced it will take legal action against the company, and its chair is taking no prisoners.
"[BARB devs] have been routinely belittled, cheated, and manipulated by the company they dedicated years of their lives to," wrote IWGB chair Spring McParlin-Jones. "Through the union, these workers have been able to force the executives at BARB to respect their rights. Let this serve as a notice to other executives like Mark and Leslie: the games industry is not the Wild West anymore. You don’t get to pretend that employment laws don't apply to your company because if you do, then the union will be there to stop you."
For its part, Barb claims in a statement that it handled the redundancy process with "care and transparency" before adding it was "committed to learning and growing" from the feedback. Hm.
"Leslie and the entire senior management team take full responsibility for [MindsEye's] initial launch," continues the Barb statement. "The version of the game that was released did not reflect the experience our community deserved." It insists it'll keep working on MindsEye and eventually deliver "the game we always envisioned".
That remains to be seen. MindsEye's reception was so overwhelmingly negative that the game's star worries about ever getting work again, while publisher IO Interactive has basically said it'll take a break from publishing for a while after this, thanks.
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