Developers on the ill-fated action game MindsEye have signed an open letter to developer Build A Rocket Boy’s executive leadership, citing “longstanding disrespect and mistreatment” of staff.
The letter has been signed by 93 current and former employees of Build A Rocket Boy, along with the Game Workers Branch of the Independent Workers of Great Britain union.
Following its disastrous launch earlier this year, the studio confirmed the redundancy process had begun. In the open letter, employees claim an estimated 250-300 workers across the company have now lost their livelihoods.
“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 reads.
Complaints from employees include a lack of transparent communication, “unbearable” levels of overtime, and “disastrous handling of redundancies” among others.
“Information has been sparse and vague, with you often making radical changes to the way we worked with little or no input from those affected,” the letter reads.
In the four months leading up to launch, a mandatory eight hours of overtime was implemented for every employee. This was given back as time in lieu at a rate of seven hours for every eight worked, but due to “continued requests for extra ‘high-priority’ work” many employees have not been able to claim this back.