Former staff protested exterior the workplace of MindsEye studio Construct a Rocket Boy on Saturday as the corporate held a playtest for followers.
The Impartial Employees Union of Nice Britain (IWGB) protested exterior the studio’s headquarters in Leith, Scotland, claiming that the “all-expenses-paid playtest occasion” was seeing followers “tackle testing duties normally carried out by skilled employees”, at a studio the place it estimates greater than 400 staff have been laid off.
In a press release to journalist Chris Bratt, IWGB Recreation Employees Department Chair mentioned: “This extravagant playtest occasion is a waste of cash, and a kick within the tooth for the fired staff who’re seeing followers introduced in to do jobs that might in any other case have been theirs.”
MindsEye was launched in June 2025, touchdown a 39 Metacritic rating on PC and a 29 on PS5, making it the worst-rated sport of final 12 months.
Throughout one in every of a collection of layoffs following the sport’s disastrous launch, co-CEO Mark Gerhard instructed that one of many fundamental causes behind MindsEye’s business failure was “prison exercise” together with “organised espionage and company sabotage”.
The studio then launched a DLC mission for the sport known as Blacklisted, which it mentioned would “share among the proof of the sabotage with the neighborhood”, however its launch seemingly didn’t have a lot affect on public opinion or the destiny of the sport.
Talking on the protest – which included former members of each Construct a Rocket Boy and Rockstar – former worker Isaac Hudd condemned Gerhard and fellow co-CEO, former Grand Theft Auto 3-5 producer Leslie Benzies, for shedding the vast majority of the studio’s employees whereas claiming others have been at fault.
“We’re right here at the moment as a result of all of us imagine in a single factor, that sport staff need to be handled with respect,” Hudd mentioned. “The 2 CEOs on this constructing will seemingly say they agree, however their actions have proven in any other case.
“Somewhat over a 12 months in the past, after probably the most brutal crunch, Construct a Rocket Boy launched MindsEye to the world. As many within the decrease ranges of the corporate predicted, it crashed and burned, leading to Metacritic’s worst sport of 2025.
“As a substitute of taking accountability, as a substitute of reassuring or commiserating with the individuals who made their sport, the co-CEOs of this firm went silent. On their eventual return, they introduced layoffs.
“What adopted was three months of lies, veiled threats and finally the callous removing of a minimum of 250 staff. However they didn’t cease there.”
Hudd continued, criticising the studio’s conspiracy-fuelling DLC, its subsequent additional redundancies, its determination to host the expenses-paid fan playtest and its determination to supply one fan a job as a substitute of giving it to a just lately laid off worker.
“Within the months after, Construct a Rocket Boy tried to get well their picture with a leather-clad sexist stereotype within the type of a brand new mission, Blacklisted,” he defined. “This too acquired deserved scorn from the general public.
“The CEOs have been extra fascinated about discovering faux saboteurs – they have been too busy to look within the mirror and realise it was all of them alongside. Of their witch hunt they secretly put in privacy-invading monitoring software program on their staff’ PCs.
“They sat by and allowed a complete department of their firm and model to go bankrupt, hoping the federal government there would clear up their mess. They’ve now eliminated one other half of the corporate, and as a substitute of redundant neighborhood managers, they employed a fan from their Discord.
“And now they’ve flown in additional of them, on BARB’s ever-dwindling dime, to playtest a web-based sport that may very well be performed from wherever. It could be a pleasant gesture in most firms, however after the lies, the worry, the stress and ignoring damned close to each try to make issues proper from their ex-employees, it’s nothing greater than a kick within the tooth to these they’ve deserted.
“We’re right here to point out them that jobless doesn’t imply toothless. By taking away our livelihoods, they gave us one thing they by no means deliberate on – motivation, fury. In my occasion, I discovered the particular person I really like from this hell, and I’m not letting any of this go.
“We, alongside the IWGB, are combating to point out not simply BARB, not simply Rockstar, however each video games firm within the UK, that mistreatment will get you nowhere, and it’s time for a brand new world, one in every of employee solidarity.”
