MindsEye developers “laughed off” concerns raised

MindsEye was an unprecedented disaster. Led by former Grand Theft Auto producer Leslie Benzies, Build a Rocket Boy's debut game launched with technical issues, making it the worst-reviewed game of 2025 and struggling to reach more than 250 concurrent players on its launch weekend. Sponsored streams were canceled following a massive influx of refunds from both Steam and the PlayStation Store.

What followed, perhaps surprisingly, were hundreds of layoffs and, most recently, threats of legal action from laid-off workers who claimed they felt “used and abandoned by company leaders who have decided not to take responsibility.” [MindsEye’s] failure”.

The failure has now been explained in broader terms, with a new report from the BBC saying Benzis “never decided what kind of game he wanted to make.”

Benjis’ work style “haunted the project from the beginning”

The BBC spoke to current and former Build a Rocket Boy employees who paint a grim picture of MindsEye's development.

One former employee felt the studio had “something very special” when it began work on a multiplayer RPG set in a futuristic city, but that changed when development shifted to MindsEye. “Lesley has never decided what kind of game he wants to make,” they told the BBC. “There was no consistent direction.” This lack of specific direction “plagued the project from the beginning”.

According to the report, many of MindsEye's problems stemmed from the fact that its data analytics team “received little response when reporting issues,” while the leadership team “repeatedly” refused to listen to their concerns and often ignored the team's “dumping the house.” A third former employee, Margherita “Marg” Peloso, said she was “laughed at” when she tried to raise her concerns at a meeting.

The MindsEye team developed the term “Leslie Tickets,” which refers to bugs or issues that Benzies consider a priority, meaning “You have to deal with Leslie tickets no matter what else you do.”

After the serious crisis, Marg told the BBC that the studio expected MindsEye to receive a negative response, but probably nowhere near the levels seen for the game. Next came the “disastrous handling” of the duplicate process, which became the catalyst for impending legal action. Something tells me that this situation will continue for a long time to come.