After more than 250 developers were laid off from Build A Rocket Boy after the disappointing launch of the MindsEye video game, 90 current and former staff have slammed the studio’s management team over poor working conditions and a layoff process that was allegedly illegal.
The highly-anticipated release of MindsEye was met with a poor critical response and sales, despite the long hours Build a Rocket Boy required from its workers prior to its launch.
Instead of building a foundation for a new gaming universe, the notoriously painful launch of the game lead to layoffs for the startup, which has offices in Scotland and other places in Europe.
A new open letter from the Game Workers Branch of the Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) union, alleged that the layoff process lead to the upheaval of the gaming department, with developers made redundant despite being forced to work overtime over the four months leading to the game’s launch.
“These layoffs happened because you repeatedly refused to listen to your workforce’s years of experience, resulting in one of the worst video game launches this decade,” the letter read.
The letter has been signed by 93 current and former employees of Build A Rocket Boy, who have three main grievances with the company.
First, the letter alleges a culture lacking in transparacy and communication, claiming managers “failed to effectively communicate with the workers whose expertise the company relies on.”
The letters also states that workers were required to work a mandatory eight hours of overtime per week in the four months leading up to the game’s launch. However, Time Off In Lieu was only guaranteed at a rate of seven hours back per eight hours worked, and many employees have still be restricted from taking any time back due to continued high priority work requests.
Finally, the letter alleges that the firm “consistently mishandled the redundancy process… Employees have received misinformation, been handed dismissal notices with the wrong notice periods, and been put in the wrong tams so that their performances were scored by the wrong people.
“These and other errors have potentially resulted in the wrongful dismissal of dozens of staff members.”
The letter also outlines many other issues current and former employees have with the company.
“Our experience at the company has been one of burnout, job insecurity, health issues, and the failure of a game that many of us have put years of our lives into,” the letter read.
Despite the video games’ launch and the new revelations in the open letter, MindsEye director and Build A Rocket Boy founder Leslie Benzies said that the game’s failure was a result of “saboteurs” aiming to crush the company.
Since the open letter was released, Build a Rocket Boy released a statement to video games media outlet Kotaku, saying:
“Every one of our former team members poured passion, creativity, and hard work into our games and our studio. Parting ways with people is never easy, and we were deeply saddened to make that decision.
“We didn’t anticipate having to make redundancies after launch, but we approached the process with care and transparency, meeting all our obligations. We’re listening closely to feedback from former employees and are committed to learning and growing from it.”
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