MindsEye’s troubles now point to a deeper fight inside Build a Rocket Boy

MindsEye’s rough launch is no longer only a story about a game that failed to meet expectations. It has turned into a wider workplace dispute involving former developers, studio leadership, legal action, monitoring software, layoffs, and claims of sabotage.

Former Build a Rocket Boy animator Chris Wilson, who worked at the studio for six years and has spent more than 20 years in the games industry, has spoken out in a long interview with Kotaku. Wilson criticized the leadership of the studio, especially co-CEO Mark Gerhard, and said the working culture around MindsEye was badly damaged by secrecy, micromanagement, and poor treatment of staff.

The comments come shortly after unionized Build a Rocket Boy workers took legal action over the studio’s use of monitoring software on work devices. According to the report, the workers claim the software may have violated data protection laws. Wilson said the monitoring issue was one of the reasons he decided to speak publicly.

Former staff say the MindsEye team tried to save the game while leadership focused on sabotage claims

One of the biggest arguments around MindsEye has been Build a Rocket Boy leadership’s claim that the studio was targeted by “organized espionage and corporate sabotage.” Gerhard and Leslie Benzies have said the studio has evidence of a campaign against the company.

Wilson, however, said the evidence shown internally did not convince him. He claimed Benzies showed staff emails that appeared to be hate messages from YouTuber Cyber Boi, who had been accused by Gerhard of being involved in the alleged campaign. Wilson said the messages did not look like proof of a serious, expensive sabotage effort. Instead, he described them as sounding like toxic online chat messages.

The dispute has become even more serious because of layoffs. Wilson believes a company poll may have influenced who was later made redundant. The poll reportedly asked about whether the Blacklisted DLC level should include elements inspired by the alleged sabotage story. Wilson said the survey was not anonymous, and he felt the answers could have affected layoff decisions.

Wilson also described long periods of crunch during development. He said eight extra hours a week became the minimum requirement in some cases, while some staff worked much more. According to him, the cinematics team may have been crunching for six to nine months.

Build a Rocket Boy has rejected suggestions of misconduct. In statements given to Kotaku, the studio said it acted lawfully and appropriately, defended its security measures, and said it would not turn disputed internal matters into public entertainment. The studio also said its focus remains on players, its team, and continuing to build games.

The saddest part of the story is that Wilson still defended the development staff. He said the team worked hard to make something special and would not sabotage its own game, because making games is their career and livelihood.

That point matters. Games can fail for many reasons: poor planning, bad timing, weak leadership, technical problems, or simple creative misfires. MindsEye’s story may still have more details to come, especially if investigations continue. But from Wilson’s view, the simplest explanation is not a secret campaign. It is that the developers were trying to make the best game they could while leadership made the job harder than it needed to be.