Build A Rocket Boy, the studio founded by former GTA producer Leslie Benzies, has begun a redundancy process (thanks, IGN). A 45 day consultation process has begun, which under UK law happens when an employer is planning over 100 redundancies within a 90 day period (Build a Rocket Boy is estimated to have 300 employees within the UK).
The news follows the launch of the studio's first game, MindsEye, which can only be described as a bit of a mess. The game is not great and currently sits at just under 2,000 "mostly negative" reviews on Steam (random example: "Do not do it under any circumstances") and a 38 on Metacritic (where the user reviews are even worse).
MindsEye may well have suffered from the fact it was marketed using Benzies' considerable pedigree: despite leaving Rockstar North under a cloud in 2016, he's arguably as responsible as anyone for the global phenomenon that is Grand Theft Auto.
Build a Rocket Boy's main focus has always been Everywhere, its upcoming Roblox-for-adults creation platform, and it was claimed MindsEye would show the potential of Everywhere's toolset: it now looks like a bad misfire.
Things probably weren't helped by the studio's co-CEO claiming that negative reactions were part of a bot conspiracy which… well, feels a little like denying reality. Build a Rocket Boy has committed to fixing various technical issues, and has begun rolling out patches, but it feels unlikely that MindsEye will receive any long-term support beyond that (there is a post-launch roadmap which promises a multiplayer mode, among other things, but I wouldn't hold my breath).
Build a Rocket Boy confirmed the looming layoffs in a statement provided to PC Gamer.
"We can confirm that we have had to make the painful decision to notify our hardworking team of some internal changes at Build A Rocket Boy," a studio representative said. "While we are working to reassign roles for as many of those impacted by these changes as possible, sadly we are initiating a formal consultation process that may result in redundancies. This decision has not been made lightly, and we are committed to handling this process with transparency, fairness, and respect for all employees. We will provide further details to the team over the coming weeks.
"The launch of MindsEye has been a significant milestone for Build A Rocket Boy, but we know that we still have a lot more to do to grow our community in the coming years. The challenges we’ve faced have only strengthened our resolve and, while we are deeply saddened by today’s decision and thankful to our incredible team, this shift allows us to focus on delivering ongoing updates and performance optimization for MindsEye, while also ensuring the long-term success of Build A Rocket Boy’s future ambitions."
At the time of writing, and of course this is not the whole story, MindsEye has 70 players on Steam.
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