What happened
Build a Rocket Boy (Barb) was founded in 2016 by Leslie Benzies, a senior figure on Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series, and had 448 employees by the end of 2024 with offices in Edinburgh, Budapest and Montpellier. Company filings show more than £233M of investment by 2024 and losses of £202.6M between 2020 and 2024, including £59.1M in 2023, without releasing a product.
BBC Newsbeat reports that former staff describe a lack of direction: one said Benzies 'never decided what game he wanted to make', that Everywhere, the first project, gave way to MindsEye, and that requests for new features came too fast to implement. An open letter signed by 93 current and former employees alleges management made radical changes without consulting staff and ignored experienced workers. Staff also describe 'Leslie tickets', fixes demanded by the CEO that took priority, and about eight extra unpaid hours a week of crunch from mid-February to May 2025.
MindsEye launched on 10 June 2025 without advance copies for reviewers. Players reported major performance problems and glitches, such as pedestrians walking on air, and critics called it 'broken', 'buggy' and 'the worst game of 2025'. Three weeks later Benzies told staff he suspected 'saboteurs' working against the launch, according to a verified transcript. In October between 250 and 300 staff were laid off, mostly in Edinburgh, and the IWGB union said it plans legal action over 'disastrous mishandling' of redundancies.
What it cost
£202.6M in losses over 2020–24 on £233M raised; 250–300 jobs cut in October 2025; union threatens legal action over redundancies
Why it happened
Staff say the studio had no coherent direction for its first game, switching from Everywhere to MindsEye while the CEO added features faster than teams could build them.
Management allegedly overrode priorities with CEO-flagged 'Leslie tickets' and ignored feedback from experienced developers.
Months of unpaid crunch before launch led to regressions and falling morale, according to former staff.
No review copies were sent out, so the first public look at the game was launch-day player experience.
The lesson
Funding is no substitute for a direction. Staff say the game's concept kept changing and bug fixes were overridden, so a first game with no advance review copies shipped broken.
Aftermath
Barb said Benzies and senior management 'take full responsibility for the initial launch' and that the released version 'did not reflect the experience our community deserved'. It said it had rolled out updates and remained committed to delivering the game it envisioned. Former workers told the BBC they doubted MindsEye could recover. The allegations about management come from staff accounts and an open letter, and Barb says it handled the redundancy process with care and transparency.
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