MindsEye Dev Calls Out Leadership, Says the ‘Corporate Sabotage’ Was the CEO’s “Hate Mail” That “Read Like League of Legends Chats”

A little more than a week after unionized members of the Build a Rocket Boy staff took legal action against the studio's leadership for installing spy software on work devices that allegedly violated data protection laws, Chris Wilson, a former animator who worked at the studio for the last six years and has worked in the video game industry for more than two decades has come forward to share just exactly what it was like working on MindsEye under former Rockstar producer Leslie Benzies and his co-chief executive officer, Mark Gerhard.

In a massive interview with Kotaku, Wilson is very clear on his feelings about how the studio's leadership, specifically Mark Gerhard, negatively impacted Build a Rocket Boy and the development of MindsEye. It's worth clarifying that he already made his feelings clear when the IWGB filed its legal action against leadership, as it was Wilson who publicly called out the studio's "toxic culture of secrecy and micromanaging" as "one of the worst" he'd seen in his career.

Now, however, he goes into a bit more detail and similarly to his comments in last week's filing, he doesn't hold anything back. "The Teramind monitoring and the blatant lack of respect for the staff, where they were not being honest about the reasons for the monitoring, why they started it, and when they started it - that was like finding that nail in the coffin for me," Wilson said, as to why he's chosen to come forward with his experiences at Build a Rocket Boy.

Wilson touched on several topics that have followed MindsEye and Build a Rocket Boy around since before the game released, chief among them are the allegations that co-CEOs Mark Gerhard and Leslie Benzies have droned on about for months now. That the 'real' root of Build a Rocket Boy and MindsEye's troubles is an "orchestrated" campaign of "organized espionage and corporate sabotage" that some entity or collective has spent $1.1 million on with the goal of killing Build a Rocket Boy's reputation before it could even get off the ground.

Gerhard and Benzies have claimed the studio has evidence of such a campaign, and according to Wilson, Benzies even showed the Build a Rocket Boy staff some of that evidence in an internal meeting, and rather than being taken aback by clear evidence of a sabotage campaign, the alleged 'evidence' was seemingly less than convincing based on Wilson's description.

According to Wilson, Benzies was simply reading "hate mail from his personal email" that allegedly came from YouTuber Cyber Boi, who Gerhard has accused of being part of the sabotage campaign. The report describes the emails as "slur-filled," and that though they seemingly included a comment where Cyber Boi "proudly admitted to 'sabotaging' the company," Wilson, and other members of Build a Rocket Boy staff he spoke to, were not convinced.

"These emails read like League of Legends chats. In no way did it seem like a sophisticated multi-million dollar plan to try and take down Build a Rocket Boy," Wilson said. The report doesn't include any exact wording from the emails, but Wilson does confirm that whatever they said about Benzies, it didn't create any sympathy towards him from the staff. "Everyone was just sort of beyond caring," Wilson said. "Like, 'oh poor babies.' Meanwhile, the staff are like, 'I might lose my house, because you're making me redundant."

Speaking of developers being made redundant, with regard to the studio's most recent layoff, Wilson believes the decisions behind who would be laid off was driven, at least in part, by a company poll where leadership got rid of anyone who answered questions in ways they didn't like.

After Build a Rocket Boy's publishing deal with IO Interactive fell apart due to MindsEye bombing last year, a DLC level that was meant to star Hitman protagonist Agent 47 was adapted to instead be, according to Gerhard, an original narrative inspired by the alleged sabotage that Build a Rocket Boy supposedly endured.

The level in question, Blacklisted, is out for MindsEye players to try themselves, and reports from those who've played it don't describe anything quite salacious, but Wilson claims that an internal poll taken on whether the Blacklisted level should include elements of the alleged sabotage at least partly influenced decisions on who to layoff earlier this year. "I do feel personally that they could have possibly used those results to influence [decisions about who got let go]...[the surveys] were not anonymous," Wilson said.

Wilson also describes how the crunch culture established at the studio impacted MindsEye's development and the morale of staff, something we've also heard about before from MindsEye developers when an open letter signed by nearly 100 Build a Rocket Boy workers called out Benzies and Gerhard for their mismanagement and the crunch that workers were forced to endure.

"Eight hours was the minimum requirement, but people were doing way more for sure," Wilson said. "I was doing way over an additional eight hours a week...there were people who were certainly not appreciative of having to work those extra hours, but a lot of people just had to bite the bullet. I think Cinematics were crunching for somewhere between six to nine months. Some people racked up a lot of extra hours, and that's outside of the general day-to-day stuff. People were already doing extra hours, and then they introduced crunch as well."

As for Build a Rocket Boy's take on all of Wilson's claims, they sent two statements to Kotaku as a response to the interview. The first, attributed to co-CEO Mark Gerhard, said:

"Build A Rocket Boy has always conducted its operations lawfully and appropriately. The security systems and measures we have in place are implemented lawfully, proportionately, and in full accordance with established internal policies. These protocols are designed to protect our team, proprietary technology, creative work, our studio, and the wider gaming community we serve.

MindsEye is a game that commands attention. It compels players to pause mid-scroll, do a proper double-take, and immediately start wondering when they get to play it. The title has generated substantial anticipation and interest for all the right reasons, even if some of that attention has arrived with rather questionable intentions.

As a studio dedicated to creating exceptional interactive experiences, we remain focused on delivering high-quality games for our community. We do not engage in public commentary concerning former employees or unauthorised disclosures of confidential information. After all, we prefer crafting memorable experiences inside the game rather than providing cheap entertainment for the backstage-drama crowd."

The second statement, which is just attributed to the studio's communications team, first asked that the previous statement be "discard[ed]," and read:

"Build A Rocket Boy has acted at all times completely lawfully and appropriately, and we reject any effort to suggest misconduct where none exists. We are so proud of our talented and deeply creative team, whose work is the reason MindsEye exists and continues to evolve.

We are not going to turn disputed internal matters or selective fragments of workplace discussion into public entertainment. MindsEye is a game that commands attention: bold, cinematic, ambitious, and built to get people talking. When creative work breaks through, it attracts players, critics, theories, debate, and, best of all, the kind of mega fans who remind us why we built the thing in the first place. But attention also brings noise, and noise should not be confused with fact. Not every storyline is accurate, complete, or fair.

Our focus remains exactly where it belongs: on our players, our team, and the continued work of building unforgettable experiences. Any genuine issues will be addressed through the proper channels, not tried through headlines, anonymous claims, or social media theatre."

Amidst all of Wilson's comments about his six years working at Build a Rocket Boy, the one thing he emphasized the most it seems was how hard everyone at the studio worked to try and pull together a good game, and that any claim that the studio's staff would sabotage their own game is simply counter-productive to say the least.

"Despite the highs and lows of the development cycle of MindsEye, the development staff did all that they could and tried their hardest to make something very, very special," Wilson said. "We would in no way try to sabotage or bring down the company. That would go against our better interests. We are developers. Making games is our livelihoods, our careers. All we want to do is to make the best, most entertaining product for not only ourselves, our friends, and our family, but for anyone else that's willing to pick up the product and give it a try."

That, of course, is the only thing that makes sense about what happened with MindsEye. A team of developers that, no matter the obstacles, did its best to try and make a good game and deliver a good experience for players. As we've said before when reporting on MindsEye's woes, the simplest answer is often the reality.

Since there is, allegedly, an ongoing investigation into Gerhard and Benzies' claims of corporate sabotage, it could technically be the case that more concrete evidence of a sabotage campaign surfaces in the future. But that would be a complicated explanation to what happened at Build a Rocket Boy.

The simpler answer is that MindsEye was plagued by a leadership team that couldn't get out of the way of their own developers. As a former Build a Rocket Boy staff member put it in a previous report about Gerhard and Benzies poor leadership, "I don't think BaRB survives this crisis. I believe the end is coming for BaRB, and it's not heralded by saboteurs, but by Mark and Leslie themselves."

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