Developers who were laid off from MindsEye are planning to protest outside the company's Edinburgh, Scotland office this Saturday, July 11, at 11 a.m. local time. The protest, organized by the IWGB Game Workers Union, aims to highlight the studio's decision to fund an "all-expenses-paid playtest day" for fans while many former employees remain unemployed.
The union claims that the studio, operating as Build a Rocket Boy (BARB), will be flying fans into the office to test new features for MindsEye. This event is seen by the union as a stark contrast to the recent mass layoffs that have occurred over the past year. The IWGB also cited wider disputes between workers and the company, including allegations of invasive employee surveillance, union blacklisting, and mishandled redundancies.
Around 20 individuals, including former BARB workers and their supporters, are expected to attend the protest. Current BARB staff are not expected to participate. Representatives from BARB stated that the upcoming event is a community gathering designed to foster engagement with their game creation system, Arcadia, and to gather direct feedback from creators. They emphasized that receiving creator feedback is a crucial part of their development process.
The protest marks the latest development at BARB, which has faced significant challenges since the release of its story-driven action-adventure game, MindsEye. Last July, reports indicated that BARB had issued redundancy notices to approximately 300 UK-based employees following the game's underperformance. At the time, the company expressed regret for the issues players encountered, including performance problems, glitches, and AI bugs, and pledged to release patches.
MindsEye was originally conceived as part of Everywhere, a creation platform led by former Grand Theft Auto design chief Leslie Benzies. BARB later shifted its focus to MindsEye, but the game has not met commercial expectations. Following its release, Benzies reportedly attributed the game's struggles to both internal and external factors. CEO Mark Gerhard indicated the studio was investigating alleged "criminal activity" surrounding the launch.
An attempted relaunch of MindsEye with the "Blacklisted" update did not significantly improve the game's standing. While console player data is not publicly available, MindsEye recorded a peak of only 48 concurrent players on Steam within a 24-hour period.
In May, Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Rockstar parent company Take-Two, commented on the increasing difficulty of creating successful games in a mature entertainment market. He noted that while Rockstar has managed to produce major hits, many others, including former Rockstar employees, have struggled to replicate that success, suggesting that future breakthroughs will likely come from extraordinary creative talent rather than technological advancements.